"I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe..."

[mike]

I saw this quote today and have been thinking about it.

“I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.” -Anselm

I understand this from the standpoint of issues of faith, such as the existence of God, or the belief that God created the world, and other things that can't really be observed or proven.

But do we, or could we, actually live by this idea in everyday life? It seems to me that belief follows after understanding in many ways in our daily life. I don't just believe something is the case until I actually have learned to understand it. Belief without understanding seems irrational. We don't really trust something, or someone, until we have had enough knowledge and experience to warrant that trust.

Of course this begs the question of whether we ever really know something or someone perfectly, and probably there is always eventually a measure of belief/trust, or else we probably could not function in life.

Thoughts?

[barnhart]

We all live by things we believe in but don't understand. How many understand the chemistry of the rubber compounds that keep cars from slipping off the road or the structural engineering of the bridges and buildings we utilize or how the nutrients we ingest build the cells in our bodies or the physics that keep airplanes from falling out the sky.

[Bootstrap]

We all live by things we believe in but don't understand. How many understand the chemistry of the rubber compounds that keep cars from slipping off the road or the structural engineering of the bridges and buildings we utilize or how the nutrients we ingest build the cells in our bodies or the physics that keep airplanes from falling out the sky.

Most of what matters the most is not provable by logic. The beauty of the universe, what makes a poem interesting, why you were attracted to your wife, what holds you together now ... and we don't know God by logic, we know God because he reveals himself to us.

God is beyond our rational knowing. But God wants us to know him.

Apologetics often seems to reduce God to some kind of abstraction or treat evangelism as an intellectual wrestling match. I don't think most people become Christian because they lost a logical argument.

[Neto]

I am often impressed with the degree to which we trust complete strangers who are hurling headlong toward us on the highway passing just a few feet away from us.

But in the context of Christian faith, I think that faith must come before complete understanding (if we ever even reach that point), because it is the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of even the rudimentary elements of 'the faith'. Then experience with God - relationship - builds "faith without sight". I know enough to trust Him, but not anywhere nearly everything.

[barnhart]

...
But in the context of Christian faith, I think that faith must come before complete understanding (if we ever even reach that point), because it is the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of even the rudimentary elements of 'the faith'. Then experience with God - relationship - builds "faith without sight". I know enough to trust Him, but not anywhere nearly everything.

I agree. Sometimes I wonder about the confidence protestant/reform traditions put in faith as if that solves some question of human performance. It's likely that all of us will realize how thin and shabby our faith is when we meet Jesus face to face.

[Judas Maccabeus]

We all live by things we believe in but don't understand. How many understand the chemistry of the rubber compounds that keep cars from slipping off the road or the structural engineering of the bridges and buildings we utilize or how the nutrients we ingest build the cells in our bodies or the physics that keep airplanes from falling out the sky.

Most of what matters the most is not provable by logic. The beauty of the universe, what makes a poem interesting, why you were attracted to your wife, what holds you together now ... and we don't know God by logic, we know God because he reveals himself to us.

God is beyond our rational knowing. But God wants us to know him.

Apologetics often seems to reduce God to some kind of abstraction or treat evangelism as an intellectual wrestling match. I don't think most people become Christian because they lost a logical argument.

Yet, we should be able to demonstrate the reasonableness of our faith. While we cannot prove the Biblical narrative, there is ample evidence that the person of Jesus is a man of history, and our faith has foundations in the truth.

[mike]

We all live by things we believe in but don't understand. How many understand the chemistry of the rubber compounds that keep cars from slipping off the road or the structural engineering of the bridges and buildings we utilize or how the nutrients we ingest build the cells in our bodies or the physics that keep airplanes from falling out the sky.

This is true.

[temporal1]

St Anselm
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-o ... nt-anselm/

[barnhart]

Yet, we should be able to demonstrate the reasonableness of our faith. While we cannot prove the Biblical narrative, there is ample evidence that the person of Jesus is a man of history, and our faith has foundations in the truth.

Yes, there is no virtue in the irrational.

[Neto]

...
But in the context of Christian faith, I think that faith must come before complete understanding (if we ever even reach that point), because it is the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of even the rudimentary elements of 'the faith'. Then experience with God - relationship - builds "faith without sight". I know enough to trust Him, but not anywhere nearly everything.

I agree. Sometimes I wonder about the confidence protestant/reform traditions put in faith as if that solves some question of human performance. It's likely that all of us will realize how thin and shabby our faith is when we meet Jesus face to face.

I realize that there are passages where Jesus tells someone that "your faith has saved you", but generally speaking, I think it is to be more fully understood in terms of 'salvation by God's grace through our faith'. Faith is necessary for God's grace to be applied, but it is not the cause of salvation. I have often said that as in the example of Abraham, our faith isn't enough, but that God 'accounts it to us' as though it is. Like when a person writes off an unpaid debt upon receipt of a fraction of the actual amount. That is how I view how God's grace and our small bit of faith interact. I am NOT ENOUGH. Nothing I can do, including 'having saving faith' will save me. Only God in his grace is 'enough'.