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Nature of Belief - Coggle Diagram

- - - - It is God's word to man, and contains absolutist teachings
      - It was inspired by God and authored by humans, with God breathing spirit into the human to write what He desires
      - It is infallible
      - Sola Scriptura: all teachings can be found in the bible alone
        
        Kreeft: the church caused scripture, so the church must therefore be infallible
      - Scripture is sacred
    - - Agrees with protestantism: Inspired, sacred and infallible
      - The church and scripture work together
        
        Kreeft: not two rival horses in a race, but one being (the horse is scripture and the rider is the church)
      - Scripture never says sola scriptura
      - The church/pope are divinely inspired to preserve and interpret God's Word
      - Papal infallibility
  - - - there are no Egyptian records that mention Moses or his devastation of Egypt. As well as this, Joseph tells Pharaoh he comes from the "land of the Hebrews" (Gen 40:15). There was no such land until after the conquest under Joshua, some years later.
  - - - The bible is factually correct and the word of God
      - "no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but by the Holy Spirit spoke from God"
    - - The bible was written by humans
      - Many teachings can be interpreted to fit into a modern-day context but it is not to be taken literally
      - "the word of our God will stand forever"
    - - The bible was written by divinely inspired humans
      - Follow the teachings but don't necessarily take every word as God's Word
  - - - Biblical teachings originated in oral traditions and were then written down
      - Aims to find patterns of literary style/'forms' (eg. proverbs, legalistic writings) and find the sociological context for each of these forms
      - Each community will emphasise different aspects of the oral tradition, eg. psalms have many different forms like praise hymns/laments
      - Used for the NT as well, comparing and analysing different accounts to find what what Jesus really said
      - Schmidt: the oral tradition was 'pearls on a string' tied loosely. We can separate forms in the text according to their origin.
      - Method
        
        Identify the form
        
        Identify its origin
        
        Assess its historical significance
      - Criteria to assess authenticity
        
        Dissimilarity/similarity to other sources from the time
        
        Multiple assention: reappearing content in other independent sources
        
        Authentic context
        
        Does it fit in with general teachings?
    - - Attempting to find the literary source of a text, as many scriptures contain similarities and synoptic links
      - Griesbach: there are many similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke
      - There must be a shared literary source rather than oral tradition
      - Methods
        
        Looks for shared inconsistencies to show duplicated material, eg. historical innacuracies
        
        Literary inconsistencies, eg. disjointed/broken material
        
        Theological inconsistencies, eg. Mark describes three different views on 'end time'
    - - Looks at how the authors have edited material to meet a theological purpose
      - Separates oral and written tradition, and then tries to trace the 'string of pearls'
      - Focuses on how the writer has changed the material, eg. by inserting extras/using particular vocabilaries
      - Eg. Matthew was writing for a Jewish readership, so inserted Old Testament quotes, emphasised Jesus as the new Moses and bringer of the new Law
    - - Form: if the bible is a compilation of oral traditions this undermines its divine inspiration claims
      - Source: an original source casts doubt on the authority of subsequent writings. Also, if the source can't be found then its authority can't be verified.
      - Redaction: if scriptures were written to serve the communities, the authority is compromised.
- - - - Actions are wrong as a result of the decision to hold beliefs against reason, not the outcome. It would be irrational to blame someone for causing harm if they weren't aware.
      - Gives the example of a ship owner who allows a ship to sail despite being unsure of its safety. It sinks. Clifford says he is guilty because he went against evidence, and would be just as guilty if the ship had not sunk.
      - The wrongness is in acting on the belief, not holding it
        
        Clifford: Agrees that we have duties to act in certain ways, but it is still morally wrong to hold beliefs against evidence. Acts are not disconnected from beliefs, and a belief will cloud judgement.
      - "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
    - - A statement is only meaningful if it is analytic or empirically viable
      - All religious statements are useless: they are not analytic, and cannot be verified
      - Verification principle
    - - Falsification principle
      - Statements are only meaningful if they can be falsified
      - Religious statements cannot be proven untrue, so are meaningless
    - - Agrees with Popper's principle
      - Gardener analogy:
        
        Someone claims that a gardener is tending to an area of the forest
        
        They wait, but he doesn't appear, so he says he is invisible
        
        They wait with dogs and an electric fence, but nothing comes, so he claims he is intangible
        
        This belief is useless and almost the same as saying the gardener doesn't exist
  - - - It is appropriate for our will to influence us in certain situations
      - Our passions can't influence our wills: as much as I want to, I can't believe that there is 1 million dollars in my account
      - This is not a live hypothesis (it's not a credible option), but many beliefs are the choice between two live hypotheses and here the passions can contribute
      - It is right for the will to influence beliefs when we are faced with a genuine option that can't be decided by intellect alone
      - Moral questions can't be settled by facts, and bringing our emotions in is important
      - Often in human relations we must believe that others will act a certain way, or else it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
      - If we are forbidden from believing on less than sufficient evidence, we cannot reach out in trust and have a relationship with the divine
    - - 'Bliks' are things which cannot be shown to be true or false, but are instead part of someone's worldview
      - They are unfalsifiable
      - However, they are not meaningless as they are still relevant to the person who holds them
      - Believing God exists is a 'blik', and although it is unfalsifiable it will still affect their behaviour and is meaningful to them
      - Gives the example of a student who is convinced his lecturers are trying to kill him. No amount of evidence contrary will change his belief or behaviour, and so his conviction is still a meaningful statement.
    - - It is better to believe in God and then have the possibility of going to heaven than not to and then have the possibility of going to hell. You lose nothing by believing even if it's not true.
    - - God is ineffable and entirely removed from logic or our conceivable understanding
      - "Wholly other"
  - - - The claim that God exists is not verifiable in this life
      - However, religious claims are about things that extend beyond human life
      - Eschatological verification: religion can be verified eventually, and is not technically unfalsifiable
    - - Even if there are arguments disputing a statement, the statement isn't necessarily false
      - Eg. God's existence is not disproved by the problem of evil
      - Religious beliefs are not 'provisional hypotheses' like science that the believer is entirely detached from
      - They are also not vacuous formulae that the believer holds contrary to all evidence
      - They are in the middle of these. It is okay to hold a belief as long as you critically engage with the evidence against it
    - - We hold 'properly basic' beliefs (either self evident axioms or evident to the senses)
      - We hold these beliefs without evidence, eg. the sky is blue
      - Belief in God is 'properly basic'
    - - Argues that Christian practice (forming beliefs in response to experiences, eg. 'God will provide for his people') is justified
      - These beliefs are called M-Beliefs (manifestation)
      - They are equally as justified as other PP beliefs (perceptual practice), which are beliefs we form through perception of the world eg. the sky is blue
      - Both kinds of belief are equally justified, and belief in God should not be held to a higher standard of evidence or there is a danger of elitism
- - - - Why is the catholic church authoritative? Crusades etc
    - - Catholics accept oral traditions as well as the bible, Protestants just accept the bible
    - - The doctrine of the trinity only arose in the 2nd century AD. Why was it not revealed earlier?
  - - - The bible records witness of God rather than Word of God
    - - Relationship with God is personal 'I-thou' rather than the impersonal 'I-it' of propositional faith