What is "belief?"

Reflections on the inferiority of belief and faith...

• Few words are in more daily use than “belief,” which is employed to describe personal convictions, relationships, membership, and even political views

• The word comes from early Latin and Germanic terms which meant “to hold dear” or “to care, love”

• By the 14th c. “belief“ had come to mean “trust in god,” while “faith” meant “loyalty to a person or duty” (as in: “keeping faith,” or “in good faith;” these phrases are still part of contract law, etc.)

• Within two centuries the uses of “belief” and “faith” had reversed; so since the 16th c. “faith” usually conveys religious conviction and “belief” most often means a claim to be able to rely upon something or a statement of conviction

• “Rely” here offers an insight: there is an element of desire present in both terms, and therefore in us: our relationship to things and to others turns on (1) something we wish for or desire to be true or sometimes (2) wish were not true

• The first kind of wish, for example: “I believe in myself” or “I’m in love” or “I believe they’re going to win”

• The second kind: “I can’t believe it” or “I don’t believe you”

• So why are uses of “belief” so frequent and so different? One answer is that we want to conceal the role of desire in our thinking, to mask the ways in which my needs can govern my interpretations and understanding

• Another reason for invoking “belief” is to join with others who expect members of their group to conform to a set of beliefs, like doctrines, ideologies, theologies, “conspiracies,” and so on

• [Note: “doctrine” is derived from the Greek dokeoo, meaning “to believe, to imagine, to form an opinion”]

• Thus “belief” is so prevalent in our speech because it serves to connect us with others and also to conceal how much our needs govern our thinking

• “I know we all die but I believe…” is probably the most basic expression of our desire to have our lives continue; that is, we desire not to lose our place in the world

• This desire is the basis of the three “proselytizing” religions [See the note on “Religion and Abortion for more detail]

• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all offer their believers some guarantee of “life after death;” the reward for believing is to be reassured about one’s survival; to allay one’s fear about dying…

• On this basis, it’s clear that knowledge is superior to belief because it does not depend upon desire

• There is no question about the importance of desire to human experience, of course; the word itself implies that desire is as constant as the stars

• Yet it is important to distinguish between what I desire and what is the case; only when I observe this distinction can I be said to “know” rather than merely to “want”…

• Philosophy, as I pointed out in my first entry, is devoted to “wisdom,” which is to say a kind of understanding that covers both knowledge and desire but is also clear about their difference

• It is through knowledge that I stand related to the way things are; but it is by virtue of desire that I am able to be related to those around me…