QUESTION:
What is the difference between having faith in God and believing in God?
A1 Belief and faith, as used in 21st-century English, have overlapping meanings. In fact, in the several dictionaries I consulted, each term is used in part to define the other. But I think we can say that to recognize that God exists, that God is "there," is to believe in God. To recognize that God is "a very present help in trouble" (Ps. 46:1)—is here—means having faith in God.
In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy gave us a helpful guide to the usage of these terms (for example, see pp. 23–24, and 297). From this guide, we might envisage a natural progression from a belief that goodness exists and has an impersonal cause, to a faith that this cause will continue to create good. Then comes the fun part. We start finding out more about how and why that cause provides goodness for us and others—how it works. Next we test it. The more we experience the goodness provided, the deeper becomes our faith in its cause.
From that point on, there is a kind of mutually reinforcing cycle: the more we learn about the true cause, God, the deeper becomes our confidence, trust—our faith—in the constancy of God's presence and care. This learning is what Mary Baker Eddy called deepening spiritual understanding. For example, the more profoundly we understand the nature of God's love as providing for us a constant spiritual compass, the more naturally will we listen, in prayer, for this guidance. As we experience the blessings this listening (and consequent action) brings, our faith is deepened, and our original belief justified.
To me, to talk about belief and faith is to talk about prayer. Millions of people turn to God every day in prayer. True prayer, however, is not to make God hear us, but rather to enable us to hear God. God is communicating to each of us 24/7. Lovingly and unambiguously. To pray, then, is to focus on both the clarity of our understanding of God's nature (what we are really believing) and on the depth of His love for us (how great our faith is in Him).
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, US
A2 In the day-to-day world, faith seems superior to belief. For example, you probably wouldn't give your money to a stranger, even if you believed him when he told you he'd deposit the money into your account. But once you had learned of his honesty and integrity, then your confidence and trust—your faith in his character—might lead you to let him handle your money.
Likewise, there is a difference between believing in God and having faith in Him. And that difference depends on the degree of certainty of one's relationship with God. Faith is an advanced form of prayer.
I have learned that an "absolute faith that all things are possible to God" (Science and Health, p. 1) is a demonstrable rule, has two distinct parts, and can be cultivated by each of us. This is my approach:
First, I must understand God as Spirit.
So, I regularly study the Bible together with Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This continual study gives me a progressively expanding spiritual comprehension of God and His creation. I have learned that God is Father-Mother, Life, Truth, Love, Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit—omni-active, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, All—and that materiality has no place in God's reality.
Second, I must "become as a little child" (see Science and Health, p. 323) in my relationship with God and my fellow man.
I turn to God daily to recognize myself as He made me—humble, meek, desirous to put Him first in my life, and eager to turn away from anything opposed to infinite Spirit—to claim and strive each day to acknowledge my spiritual identity and to drop a false, material sense of myself.
Humanity's recognition of Deity starts from hope, then moves to belief. However, with experience, belief becomes faith, and finally, as each individual gains a higher and purer concept of the Almighty, we gain spiritual understanding. My own healing work, which has resulted from my growing faith in God's power, has grown in proportion to my spiritual understanding of God's laws of good.
ELBERTON, GEORGIA, US
A3 Certain translations of the Bible make a distinction between faith and belief. The King James Version says: "Without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Heb. 11:6). In other words, it seems one must first believe, and then have faith—i.e., trust in that which is provable, reliable, and based on experience.
For example, Jesus had to first believe that God was his Father—that He was supreme and the only true cause of all that existed—and then he could build on that deep faith in God's supremacy. Had Jesus not believed this, his faith might have faltered, and he wouldn't have been able to demonstrate the effect of the one divine cause—healing. Jesus' firm, devout faith in God enabled him to give sight to the blind, food to the hungry, a restored wholeness and dignity to the sinner, as well as life to the dead.
The young Israelite David believed that good must prevail over evil. This faith, based on his firm conviction of God's unfailing help and presence, proved that his five little stones could save him from the giant Goliath (see I Sam. 17:4–51).
And Mary Baker Eddy, from the time she was a little girl, believed that one day she would write a book. As her life proceeded, her love and devotion to God and humanity grew continually. When, in 1866, she discovered Christian Science, her enlightened faith supported her trust that God would speak through her and help her fulfill His plan for her book. This type of faith is similar to the faith we build over time when a friend has been trustworthy. We naturally have faith that he or she can be trusted because of faith established in past experiences.
As the Bible tells us, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). True faith, then, is built on experience with God's goodness, such as Jesus and many of the people in the Bible experienced repeatedly.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, US
Please send your question via e-mail to jshwrite@csps.com, marked specifically for the Journal Q&A column, or to use regular mail, send it to Q&A, The Christian Science Journal, One Norway Street, C04–10, Boston, MA 02115–3195, US.
