Musings on our common creed: I believe... IN GOD (part 1) + (part 2)

 

(Important to read previous thread on Musings on our common creed: The Apostle's Creed (so called) Introduction.

being introductory thoughts on belief …stated in first person singular etc.)

 

In this part I want to move forward to look at the next phrase "IN GOD", but that means an additional defining of the use of the word "Believe".
Whereas I said before "I am stating that this is a "belief" and whether what follows is true or false, I have come to the conclusion, perhaps by a multitude of influences, to rest in the conviction that it is true, and will serve my purposes until some other information, or circumstances show it to be false or needing an amendment."
Now by adding "IN GOD" I am saying that belief is more than just an acknowledgment of "facts" real or assumed, and implies a Trust or Commitment that differs from saying I believe "THAT GOD". And when I said that a "belief will serve my purposes until some other information or circumstances show it to be false" I think it is illustrated in a child's declaration that he or she "Believes in Santa Claus". As long as they do believe IN SANTA CLAUS, "he" seems to justify their belief. i.e. "Santa" keeps delivering the gifts, and the "believer" shows some evidence of trying to be good, to earn Santa's gifts, or the "believer" continues to present his "wish list", in expectation of the big day. But once he starts accessing various clues, his "belief" wavers and then is either replaced with a new belief system, i.e. "I can depend on my folks to meet my wants" or a rejection of any kind of belief except cynicism.
So for this installment, I concentrate on how saying I believe IN something, in this case "God", means I not only acknowledge the existence of some force or being, but that I TRUST this one to do certain things.

This is not an original illustration but it serves the purpose. As long as I stand observing a chair, and take note that it appears by its design, material and workmanship to be structurally sound, I believe THAT it will hold me up. I trust, or believe IN it when I commit my total weight to it, and accept the consequences. Until the act of commitment, initially and continual, is carried out, all other profession of "belief" is empty.
Having then declared, verbally and/or in actions, that I trust someone or something, I now proceed to proclaim what or who that something is.
Again, now is the time to be reminded that there is no point in saying "I BELIEVE IN" anything unless I can also answer "So what?".
And specifically if I say I believe in God, I must answer what the implications are. First of all there must be a definition of what I mean by "God". Much of the rest of the Apostles' Creed tells us that, but it might also be beneficial to state what I do NOT mean by God. I do not mean some "Divine" spirit that is in me and will with proper nurture and thinking let me become a god, or God. So, by "God" I mean an entity outside and beyond my self.
Secondly, I do not mean a caricature of God as imagined by so many biblically ignorant who either see God as some benevolent old man off in the distance uninterested in his creation, or a thundering judge waiting to zap anyone who transgresses, or any multitude of misrepresentations that seem to abound in the modern mind.
Although I intended in the original that the next installment(s) would look at the implications of believing in "God (1)the Father (2)Almighty, (3) Maker of Heaven and Earth." I had to insert a part 2 to answer a question posed by a reader.

 

Although adding part two to this is to make it very long and perhaps complicated, as far as commenting, I am going to combine them anyway rather than have the thinking process interrupted by time.

 

I BELIEVE IN GOD (addendum)

After I posted the original of my last entry “I believe in God” someone asked me for a “reason”. This is what I came up with.

WHAT EVIDENCE GIVES ME CAUSE TO BELIEVE IN GOD?
1. I don't have enough faith NOT to.
I probably have a false understanding of evolutionary theory, but if it is correct to suggest that at some point in the distant past something, a big bang or otherwise, caused energy to go forth, and over eons of time substances, gasses, chemicals, elements or whatever, formed a primordial ooze out of which two somethings (or one something) began to "live" and all this without any "Causal" intelligence or "design" and that this new living thing, happened upon a system (while still only a single unit) to reproduce itself before "dying", meaning it had also in that span of time from the first spark have in place, having "evolved" all the mechanics of respiration, and nourishment. And I am talking here of only a plant like cell or whatever is smaller than that, not even daring to mention the complexities of the simplest "animal" cell.
I'm sorry, but to believe all this happened without an Intelligent Designer, takes more faith in chance than I can muster.
So I concluded, "for the sake of argument" that a god exists to be the "First Cause"
2. Then I assume that the First Cause had a reason for bringing this thing (Creation) into being. Quite possibly several reasons, but the one that interests me, is the human race.
3. If this First Cause is more than an impersonal "Force" and in fact has "created" man in His image, and intended to communicate with the created, then I assume He will set about informing his creation about himself, and stating what his reason for creating man is.
4. I would then think that a record of His attempt at communication might possibly exist, and I could look at oral and written records through history and in every known culture past and present to see what exists and how they compare and/ or differ.
5. And once I had gotten to this stage I would try to apply the same criteria as to the trustworthiness and authenticity of the record as I would to any current news story, or to the existence of any historical (or mythical) personage, known to man.
6. And having been convinced that the claims made on behalf of this "god" were backed up by experience, I would go on "believing" until my experience showed me I was misinformed.
7. A negative answer. "Whereas many people wonder, upon hearing that someone committed suicide 'Why did they do that?' I wonder why anyone who is not a believer does NOT commit suicide. "If that's all there is...?"

Coming back to the chair. Sure I "see" the chair, but why should seeing it make me a believer, if I didn't first of all have some knowledge, a little here, a little there, that taught me that interconnecting rods at right angles, perpendicularly and horizontally reinforced, with a suitably flat surface approximately 18 to 20 inches off the floor, would hold up a mass between 145 to 200 pounds?
One exercises "faith" every moment one breathes, and some of it based on some extremely "weird" assumptions, (for instance- that airplanes should take off, and stay airborne) but yet the same one finds it difficult to believe something as "rational" that a perfectly designed item came into being without a designer, or that an intelligent creature evolved intelligence without an intelligent "stimulator".

I am NOT a theologian, and I am NOT a scientist. But I am convinced, to use a book title from a well known "philosopher" of a few years back, that of God: "He is there, and He is not Silent".
I am NOT trying to argue anyone into any position, I am sincerely trying to answer the question as to WHY *I* Believe, and I think I am giving MY reasons rather than what someone else says should be the "right" answer.