The twenty-fourth of March

The faith that can move mountains needs three ingredients to work: belief in yourself, belief in others and the ability to draw on your inner strength^*

Some of you may have noticed that I've missed a day or two. This is partly because of ongoing health issues. However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to comment on the distinction between faith and belief.

First, so that there's a copy here for your convenience, I'll mention that the saying is almost certainly making reference (whether the author knows it or not) to something Jesus said:

Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?”
“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”—Matthew 17:19–20 (NLT)

Anyway, today's saying seems to conflate the idea of faith with that of belief. This is a common thing to do, but I don't like it. I don't like it because I think the distinction is important, and the English language is lucky to be able to make that distinction so easily. Someone may be able to correct me, but I think I remember reading somewhere that Biblical Greek makes no such distinction, and nor does German.

So what is the distinction? I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you what the distinction is in my mind, which may or may not approximate the distinction in some other people's minds. In my mind, belief is the mere intellectual acceptance of the truth of a set of statements; faith is more than this, and involves faithfulness. (You may notice that faithfulness coincidentally is a relatively similar word to faith.)

Arguably, belief isn't even the most important part of faith. In fact, in the Bible, Job seems to display faith and belief actually at odds with each other. He believes that God is attacking him, but he continues to have faith in God's character. Job says this about God:

Why do I put myself in jeopardy
and take my life in my hands?

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;
I will surely defend my ways to his face.

Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance,
for no godless man would dare come before him!—Job 13:14–16 (NIV)

(You may have noticed that since near the beginning of the year, I've been using the New Living Translation consistently, so that you can't accuse me of choosing a translation for each passage to agree with my point. Well, for this passage, I'm choosing the New International Version because it agrees with my point; this appears to be one of the more difficult passages in Job to agree on a translation for. However, I think this is a nice compact way of illustrating one of the things going on in Job's mind. Read all of Job (in the NLT, if you like), and tell me if you disagree with me.)

Since I'm not a scholar of ancient Greek, you should probably discount the credibility of what I'm about to say, but I'm inclined to believe that the lack of distinct words for faith and belief probably caused the confusion we're inclined to have when we compare James 2:14–26 with things Paul kept saying about faith, for example: Romans 4, Galatians 3:1–14, Ephesians 2:8–9, and so on. When I read the James passage in context, and come across bits like verse 19—"You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."—I really do think that James is talking about mere belief, rather than faith, and it puzzles me why the translators have sometimes chosen faith and sometimes belief when they come across words beginning with πιστ.

I find it interesting that the German language makes no distinction between faith and belief, because the most famous Reformer, Martin Luther, was German (and I've just discovered that I'm exactly 500 years younger than him). Fortunately, the Reformation benefited from the distinction being present in Latin; one of the catch-cries of the Reformation was sola fide, meaning by faith alone, not by belief alone, which I assume would be something like solo credo (but I'm honestly just guessing; when you're correcting my pronouncements on German, Gemma, feel free to consult with your sister or anyone else appropriate about my pronouncements on Latin—and ancient Greek, for that matter).

Finally, I want to include a quote from Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. This is from near the beginning of book 3, chapter 11.

Roughly speaking, the word Faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels, and I will take them in turn. In the first sense it means simply Belief—accepting or regarding at true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people—at least it used to puzzle me—is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on earth it can be a virtue—what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid.
Well, I think I still take that view.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The twelfth of February

When you remain calm and strong in a desperate situation, you can help like an angel^*

Yes, being calm usually helps you to think more clearly, and thinking is often a good idea, whether the situation is desperate or not. I don't know what else to say.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The eleventh of February

Let sweetness in my thoughts, words and actions be the most visible of all virtues^*

I don't think I've ever really thought about which virtues ought to be more visible than which other ones. Unless the virtue inherently has something visible about it, I'm not convinced it matters. I don't see why honesty, for example, shouldn't be just as visible as "sweetness", whatever that's meant to mean in this saying.

Something from the Bible:

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”—Matthew 6:5–6 (NLT)

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The tenth of February

Where there is determination, success will become the garland around your neck^*

I'm not sure if constant determination guarantees constant success, but I think constant determination will ensure that you eventually succeed at most things. I'm still a bit too unwell to come up with any coherent comments about whether that success will or should be visible to everyone, like a garland is.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The ninth of February

Everyone enjoys the company of a soul who is light^*

I assume this is trying to say that people like other people to have a sense of humour. It's hard to argue with that.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The eighth of February

Truth is like the sun: it cannot remain hidden; it will always shine through eventually^*

I've had a headache all day, so I might not be very articulate right now. That reminds me of this:

Meanwhile, the crowds grew until thousands were milling about and stepping on each other. Jesus turned first to his disciples and warned them, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees—their hypocrisy. The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!”—Luke 12:1–3 (NLT)

And also this amazing picture that was featured on Wikipedia a day or two ago.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com

The seventh of February

Learn from others rather than criticise them. They are giving you free instruction!^*

Indeed, you can learn a lot from other people's mistakes, by observing for yourself what happens, and by listening to the advice of people who have made or observed those mistakes. You don't have to make every mistake for yourself.

Criticism is another way to learn. If you try something new (or even something old), you can ask for polite criticism from someone more experienced, or someone who might see things in a different way from you. Don't be afraid to return the favour if they ask you to, or even if you know them well, and can criticize in a way you know they'll find helpful. And don't forget that praise of good things can teach (and encourage) them, too, not just criticism of things that can be improved.

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^* Reproduced by permission of the copyright-holder BK Publications, London, www.bkpublications.com