An idea occurred to me recently while reading a history of the early christian church (a very good one, I might add). I have little patience with the absolutes advocated by religious sentiment, the whole idea that one must, above all, believe. That to “have faith” is the most important thing. The materialist in me always come back to the same question: in what? That is the shoal upon which any ship of faith I might board runs aground. And without a clear What, the rest splinters and sinks.
But while I have a firm distrust of calls to faith—likewise demands for belief, for loyalty, for boundless commitment to causes for which I may be sympathetic even if unwilling to suspend all critical analysis of them—I cannot deny at least a set of habits that draw me to it. Historically, we see examples of faith empowering people to do amazing things.
I have not for many decades been able to “put my faith” into anything I cannot define. Further, just defining the thing is insufficient. There must be some basis in accepting its reality. I do not believe in gods.
But I do accept an idea of the numinous.
Recently, while listening to To The Best Of Our Knowledge, during an episode about hope, it occurred to me that we may have the whole idea of faith backwards. Humans have a habit of projecting concepts onto externalities. We attribute qualities to all sorts of things that cannot, in many instances, possess them of themselves. We do this across the spectrum. People, cars, boats, books, buildings, money. Luck is a prominent one. Public figures provide endless opportunity for us to project our desires, our preconceptions, our dislikes and prejudices, our sense of self worth.
I have always conceded, at least intellectually, that Faith (with a capital F) goes beyond concepts like trust, relying upon, dependence. All those are conditional. Faith is supposed to be absolute, unconditional, ever reliable. Faith defies reason. Faith asserts infallibility.
And I realized that there is one thing we carry inside that fits all that, to varying degrees, which most often we take for granted, but occasionally elevate to supernatural status given the right circumstances. Hope.
Hope is a mercurial idea. Part optimism, part fantasy, part will, it is a view of the world that our place in it will be acknowledged and rewarded. To hope is to choose the positive outcome, no mater how unlikely, over the despair resulting from surrender. It is, in fact, one of the factors in getting out of bed in the morning feeling that the day will come out all right. It operates often without evidence. In short, it exhibits all the characteristics of Faith with one exception—it is entirely self-generated. In fact, there is one thing that faith supposedly provides that hope does not: comfort.
Or does it?
My conclusion is that faith is only hope projected. We put it on an external something then attribute that something as the source and then proceed to believe in it as if it actually existed. (Now, it may be that we do this to another person, in which case it is concerned with something—someone—that exists, but there is still that confusion as to the actual source.) The much-vaunted “faith in god/providence/the supernatural/etc is usually what is meant when we talk about Faith. Also, because so many people have difficulty investing ideas with loyalty, at least in any sustained manner, we personify the idea and make into…
The question always comes back to, “do you have faith?” I have hope. I may be unable to do anything about that, it comes with the equipment. But I know the source, and curiously that gives me comfort.
It also makes me responsible for any misconceptions I might have about matters of…well…faith.