Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true. 1 Link to comment
Jeff K. Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true. If P meets the complete definition of faith, yes. Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) If P meets the complete definition of faith, yes.P is just a stand-in for any proposition in which Bob may have faith, so I'm not sure in what way P needs to meet any definition of faith. (2) is a claim about whether somebody has faith in some proposition (P), and we really don't need to concern ourselves with how P relates to faith. Also, I'm not even sure what it would mean for a proposition to meet the complete definition of faith. For example, here are some propositions:John ate cheese today.Cats are mammals.Joseph Smith brought about the Book of Mormon.Mormon Temples have mostly white exteriors.The moon is far away.God loves his children.Which of these meets the complete definition of faith? Which of them does not? For my part, I don't think the question has an answer because I don't think there's any such thing as a proposition meeting a definition of faith.In any event, just to make it as clear as possible, I could have written this as (2):2a: If Bob has faith that Jesus is the son of God, then Jesus is the son of God.Let 'P' represent "Jesus is the son of God" and you've got the original (2). Also, P need not represent religious propositions. Faith is not an attitude restricted to religious matters only (people can, and in fact do, have faith about non-religious matters; right?). So, the following is just as good a substitution for P as is the substitution in (2a):2b: If Bob has faith that his car is in the driveway, then his car is in the driveway.Finally, what do you mean by 'yes'? Is (1) true or false? Is (2) true or false? Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade 1 Link to comment
Jeff K. Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 No, if P meets a specific definition it isn't a stand in. It becomes unique. If it does not meet the complete definition of faith, well, then it isn't faith is it. Just like an ape doesn't meet the complete definition of human, even if it shares many similarities. Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) No, if P meets a specific definition it isn't a stand in. It becomes unique. If it does not meet the complete definition of faith, well, then it isn't faith is it. Just like an ape doesn't meet the complete definition of human, even if it shares many similarities.Again, please tell me what it is for a proposition to meet the definition (complete or otherwise) of faith. Notice what you're doing here, and let's be really nit-picky about this, because it's important to understanding. First, what is it that you're saying should meet some such definition? The answer: P. Ok, now let's look at this sentence:If it does not meet the complete definition of faith, well, then it isn't faith is it.Now, what does the word 'it' in that sentence refer to? Well, you've said several times now that the answer to my question hangs on whether P meets a certain definition of faith. And, now you've just said "If it does not meet the complete definition of faith, well, then it isn't faith is it.". Presumably, the 'it' in that sentence was meant to refer to P. So, let's do a replacement for clarity:If P does not meet the complete definition of faith, well, then P isn't faith is it.Ok, now here's my response...I'm not claiming that P is or is not faith! Please read my post carefully. The statement at issue that I'm asking you to assess is this:2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true.Now, please notice here that nothing about that statement says anything whatever about P being faith or not being faith. In fact, P is not faith! P merely represents any proposition you like. And, furthermore, the propositions that P might represent are also not faith! Again, P might represent "Cats are mammals" or "Jesus is the son of God", and neither of those are faith. Rather, they're propositions. One of them is about cats. The other is about Jesus.This isn't any more complicated that me simply not wanting to type out every one of the infinitely many proposition in which somebody (Bob) may or may not have faith. So, instead of typing out all such propositions, I type 'P'.But, look, if you're having trouble with that, then just assess these two instead of (2):2a: If Bob has faith that Jesus is the son of God, then Jesus is the son of God.2b: If Bob has faith that his car is in the driveway, then his car is in the driveway.Is (2a) true or false? Is (2b) true or false? Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Fig-bearing Thistle Posted July 23, 2011 Popular Post Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.This is true2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true.This is false. Bob's belief is not the "cause" of the truth or falsity of P.Only if "P" is true to begin with, can Bob's belief in it become 'faith.' Edited July 23, 2011 by Fig-bearing Thistle 5 Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) This is trueThis is false. Bob's belief is not the "cause" of the truth or falsity of P.Only if "P" is true to begin with, can Bob's belief in it become 'faith.'Oh, be careful here. Conditionals don't necessarily indicate cause/effect relationships. Consider this:If Barack Obama appoints a federal judge, then he is the President of the United States.This does not mean that appointing federal judges causes one to be the President of the United States. Likewise, if it's true that Bob has faith that P, then Bob's faith that P need not be the cause of P's truth or falsity. In any event, I'm interested in why you believe that (1) is true and (2) is false. It seems that (2) follows from (1). That is, if, as (1) says, truth is a condition of faith, then if somebody has faith that something is the case, then that something is the case. Look at the relevant portion of (1) again:If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are trueHow is this not saying that truth is a condition of faith (along with hope)? More specifically, how is this not saying that the truth of the things hoped for is not a condition of faith? From that statement we might list at least two conditions of faith:Conditions of Faith1. Hope for things which are not seen2. Truth of that which is hoped forAnd as conditions of faith, that just means that if we have a case of faith that something is the case (P), then we have a case of somebody hoping that P, and P is true. And, look at this. Let's list the conditions of something else.Conditions of Functioning MacBooks:1. Having a CPU2. Having RAMThe list, of course, is not exhaustive, but isn't it the case that if we have a case of a functioning MacBook, then we have a case of a thing that has a CPU, and a case of a thing that has RAM? And, couldn't we justifiably form the conditional 'If that is a functioning Macbook, then that has a CPU'? Likewise, from Alma 32, it seems we should be able to form the conditional 'If somebody has faith that P, then P is true', and we should be able to do that for the simple reason that the truth of the object of faith is listed specifically as a condition of faith. Having said all that, it's unclear to me how it could possibly be the case that (1) is true, but (2) is false; and it seems to me that the only reason one would believe (1) true and (2) false would be by failing to see that (1) implies (2). Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade 1 Link to comment
bluebell Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Faith, as defined doctrinally, is only faith when/if it is in something true.That is why faith is so powerful (again, speaking doctrinally). If someone has faith in something that is false, there is no power in that faith because it's not actually faith.That is why the scriptural definition of faith includes the part about the something hoped for being 'true'.So, to answer your quiz based on the doctrinal definition of faith (the definition of faith the verse you quoted is using)-1)-true2)-true 1 Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Faith, as defined doctrinally, is only faith when/if it is in something true.That is why faith is so powerful (again, speaking doctrinally). If someone has faith in something that is false, there is no power in that faith because it's not actually faith.That is why the scriptural definition of faith includes the part about the something hoped for being 'true'.So, to answer your quiz based on the doctrinal definition of faith (the definition of faith the verse you quoted is using)-1)-true2)-trueThanks for the response. Just one nit-pick. You said:If someone has faith in something that is false, there is no power in that faith because it's not actually faith.But, in terms of the true, doctrinal sort of faith that we learn about through revelation, there just is no such thing as somebody having faith in something that is false. It's not merely that their faith isn't powerful, it's that they in fact don't have faith, because truth is a condition of faith. If you have faith that P is true, then P is true. The contrapositive is that if P is not true, then you do not have faith that P is true. According to "doctrinally defined" faith, it's not possible to have faith in something that is not true.Saying that somebody who has faith in something that is false has no power in their faith because it's not actually faith is like saying that somebody who knows something that is false has weak knowledge because they don't actually have knowledge. It's a bit nonsensical. Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade 1 Link to comment
Garden Girl Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Wait a second... People have "faith" in things that aren't true all the time... they believe them to be true, many times adamantly, i.e., people of other faiths in regard to their doctrines. They have just as much faith that their doctrines are true vs ours. We see it all the time. So I don't get what you're saying in that you can't have faith in something unless that something is true. In reality what they believe may not be true, but they believe it to be true, and exercise their faith in that belief.GG 1 Link to comment
elguanteloko Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true.Brade! I missed you, brother.Yup, apparently not only can you not know the object of your faith is true (and if you knew then it wouldn't be faith but knowledge) but you can't even know whether what you're having is faith or not. Edited July 23, 2011 by elguanteloko Link to comment
elguanteloko Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Wait a second... People have "faith" in things that aren't true all the time... they believe them to be true, many times adamantly, i.e., people of other faiths in regard to their doctrines. They have just as much faith that their doctrines are true vs ours. We see it all the time. So I don't get what you're saying in that you can't have faith in something unless that something is true. In reality what they believe may not be true, but they believe it to be true, and exercise their faith in that belief.GGwell, Brade's point seems to be that if we go by the book what they have isn't faith at all if it isn't true. The definition of faith provided isn't just a trust but a trust placed in something that is not known and true. Edited July 23, 2011 by elguanteloko Link to comment
DH Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true.You know, I've always wondered about that. Presumably a person wouldn't have faith in something they thought was false, so why word the definition that way? And if they knew it was true, then it wouldn't be faith, but knowledge. (scratching my head) Link to comment
CV75 Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Please assess each statement as either true or false:1. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.2. If Bob has faith that P is true, then P is true.1 is true2 is true...and P is true regardless of whether Bob has faith in P or not. Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 1 is true2 is true...and P is true regardless of whether Bob has faith in P or not.Right, and, of course, that just means that from the perspective of Mormonism a Catholic who hopes that some such exclusively Catholic doctrine is true, and acts on that hope, is not exemplifying faith. They're exemplifying something else. Let's call it fraith. So, on Mormonism anyone hoping that any teaching is true, and acting on that hope, where the object of the hope contradicts what Mormonism teaches, is not having faith; they're having something else - fraith. Link to comment
elguanteloko Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Right, and, of course, that just means that from the perspective of Mormonism a Catholic who hopes that some such exclusively Catholic doctrine is true, and acts on that hope, is not exemplifying faith. They're exemplifying something else. Let's call it fraith. So, on Mormonism anyone hoping that any teaching is true, and acting on that hope, where the object of the hope contradicts what Mormonism teaches, is not having faith; they're having something else - fraith.I was thinking of "Faketh" Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) I was thinking of "Faketh"Haha, that's better. If you say it fast enough it almost sounds the same. Try it. Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade Link to comment
CV75 Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Right, and, of course, that just means that from the perspective of Mormonism a Catholic who hopes that some such exclusively Catholic doctrine is true, and acts on that hope, is not exemplifying faith. They're exemplifying something else. Let's call it fraith. So, on Mormonism anyone hoping that any teaching is true, and acting on that hope, where the object of the hope contradicts what Mormonism teaches, is not having faith; they're having something else - fraith.Or belief, which Mormonism distinguishes from faith (as it distinguishes wishing from hope). Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Or belief, which Mormonism distinguishes from faith (as it distinguishes wishing from hope).Hmmm, I'm not sure about that. I've said that the Catholic hopes that some such teaching is true and acts on that hope. You don't want to call that faith, so you've suggested that that's a case of belief. But, in do so you've just reduced belief to hoping (or hoping to belief), and that raises the question, why have the concept of belief if it's just hope. In fact, this can't be right for the simple reason that people can and often hope that some proposition is true, yet they don't believe that the proposition is true. Let's be careful here because it isn't necessarily the case that if somebody does not believe a proposition true, that they therefore believe it false. To take my own case, consider the proposition "God exists" - Let's call that proposition 'G'. I don't believe that G is not true, but I also don't believe that G is true. I'm just in the middle. I don't have a positive belief about G one way or another. But, I hope that G is true. If I can hope that G is true, while at the same time not believe that G is true, then belief, it seems, is not the same as hoping. Furthermore, to say that somebody believes something we need not know anything about their behavior. But, to say that somebody has faith that something is true, is to say at least these two things: (1) that they hope that something is true, and (2) that they are acting on that hope. The point of all this is to suggest that the Catholic who hopes that some such exclusively Catholic doctrine is true, and acts on that hope, is doing something more (or, at least, something else) than believing. And, as a matter of fact, it may very well be the case that they have no positive belief about the object of their hope at all. In ordinary discourse, we'd call that faith - acting on a hope. But, the Mormon idiosyncratic use of 'faith' doesn't allow that (assuming here that what Alma says is true), because the object of their hope is false, and to have a case of faith, the object of hope must be true.This is just one minor puzzle lurking in the weeds of lumping truth in as a condition of faith. There are others, which I hope to explore here. In any event, I'm pleased that you at least seem to see that (2) follows from (1), which means we can go further in the discussion. As you can see, some don't see the inference, which isn't totally surprising, but is a bit troubling. In the interest of full disclosure I think that both (1) and (2) are false. Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Wait a second... People have "faith" in things that aren't true all the time... they believe them to be true, many times adamantly, i.e., people of other faiths in regard to their doctrines. They have just as much faith that their doctrines are true vs ours. We see it all the time. So I don't get what you're saying in that you can't have faith in something unless that something is true. In reality what they believe may not be true, but they believe it to be true, and exercise their faith in that belief.GGJust to be clear, I'm not saying that, Alma is. I am saying that if you believe that the foundational teachings of Mormonism are true, and you believe that Alma's claim about faith is true, then you're committed to the belief that a Catholic who hopes that some exclusively Catholic doctrine is true and acts on that hope does not have faith that the exclusively Catholic doctrine is true. They stand in some other relation to the exclusive Catholic doctrine - fraith or faketh.Also, consider this. Imagine a canyon. Now imagine a narrow wood bridge extending from one side to the other. Now, duplicate this scene so that you have apparently qualitatively identical scenes in your mind. I say “apparently qualitatively identical” because as it happens a critical piece of rope holding the second scene’s bridge together is frayed. This defect makes it the case that the bridge in the second scene is not sound. Unfortunately, the defect is sufficiently small and sufficiently far enough away from observation that no person with even exceptional observational abilities could detect it. Now imagine two qualitatively identical fellows – Dirk and Frank. Since they’re qualitatively identical in every respect they share all the same mental states (e.g. beliefs, hopes, and so on). Now imagine them both approaching the wood bridge. They’re each presented to identically (i.e. they see the same scene). They both see what appears to be a sound bridge, they both want to and need to cross the bridge, and they both form the hope that the bridge is sound. They both go on to step out onto the bridge and work their way across. Sadly, Dirk’s bridge, due to the defect I described earlier, snaps just as he’s about to complete his traverse. Frank, on the other hand, made it across. Did both Dirk and Frank exemplify faith when they each hoped that the bridge was sound and acted on that hope?Think about this carefully. As the story goes the only difference between the scenarios is that in one case the bridge is imperceptibly unsound. Other than that imperceptible unsoundness, the scenes were identical. Both bridges presented each qualitatively identical person with exactly the same visual stimulus and so on. Both people shared the same mental states in every respect, and they made the same physical effort. Now, if Alma’s right, then Dirk did not have faith, but Frank did have faith. This is a striking and novel faith-concept, which is, as far as I can tell, unique to Mormonism. Remember, on Alma's view, if you have faith, then the object of your hope is true. Contrapositively, if the object of your hope is not true, then you don't have faith. The object of Dirk's hope (i.e. that the bridge was sound) was not true. Therefore, Dirk did not have faith, but Frank did. Notice that if Alma’s right, Dirk’s lack of faith in this case has nothing to do whatever with anything about Dirk. This is what's so striking, and this seems, I think, quite odd. What it seems we have is an externalist account of faith. This seems quite contrary to intuitions about faith. I challenge you to check your own intuitions on this. I take it that your intuition about faith is that it is internal, up to you, and that both Dirk and Frank had genuine faith in stepping onto the bridge. But if truth is a condition of faith, then it seems that whether we have faith depends on whether the world happens to cooperate with our hopes, and, in a sense, whether we’re lucky enough to have the world so cooperate. Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade Link to comment
bluebell Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Wait a second... People have "faith" in things that aren't true all the time... they believe them to be true, many times adamantly, i.e., people of other faiths in regard to their doctrines. They have just as much faith that their doctrines are true vs ours. We see it all the time. So I don't get what you're saying in that you can't have faith in something unless that something is true. In reality what they believe may not be true, but they believe it to be true, and exercise their faith in that belief.GGThat's what Alma teaches, that faith is only faith (only has any power to save) when it's in something true. It's a different way of defining faith that most of us don't use very often, and don't even really think about-most of us use the word faith as being synonomous with the word hope. Alma's making the distinction though here, that faith isn't the same thing as hope. That faith has power because it's not just wanting something to be true, or believing something to be true. Faith is believing in something that is true.The Bible Dictionary defines it this way-"Faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can command the elements and/or heal the sick, or influence any number of circumstances when occasion warrants (Jacob 4:4–7). Even more important, by faith one obtains a remission of sins and eventually can stand in the presence of God.All true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results."If faith is a principle of power which brings about miracles, including salvation from sin, then it MUST be in something that is true, or there is no power in it and it cannot do anything.Trying to exercise faith in zeus, for example, has no power. If faith is a principle of power, and someone's faith has no power, then by default, it can't be faith. It's something else. Edited July 23, 2011 by bluebell Link to comment
bluebell Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 But, in terms of the true, doctrinal sort of faith that we learn about through revelation, there just is no such thing as somebody having faith in something that is false. It's not merely that their faith isn't powerful, it's that they in fact don't have faith, because truth is a condition of faith. If you have faith that P is true, then P is true. The contrapositive is that if P is not true, then you do not have faith that P is true. According to "doctrinally defined" faith, it's not possible to have faith in something that is not true.Saying that somebody who has faith in something that is false has no power in their faith because it's not actually faith is like saying that somebody who knows something that is false has weak knowledge because they don't actually have knowledge. It's a bit nonsensical.Let me clarify:If someone believes they have faith but it's in something that's not true, while they believe it's truely faith, in reality and according to the scriptures, it's not. They are mislead.That is the scriptural definition of what faith is and what faith isn't. Link to comment
Jeff K. Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Seems to me people tend to conflate faith in the defintion Alma provides with a belief that what one has is faith merely because of belief is strongly held. Belief motivates us to do things, just as faith does, however the difference is that belief need not be true, while faith by its definition must be true.If we want to dance around the subjective view of belief as faith, then of course things become complicated and less simple, we explore different actions and issues regarding belief. But if we are discussing faith, in the sense that Alma discussed it, then it must be true by definition before we can refer to it as faith. It also suddenly becomes very simple and straighforward. Link to comment
bluebell Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 You know, I've always wondered about that. Presumably a person wouldn't have faith in something they thought was false, so why word the definition that way? And if they knew it was true, then it wouldn't be faith, but knowledge. (scratching my head)It's defining the word "faith" based on the results of having it.Only faith in true doctrine has any power. Therefore, if faith in something has no power, then, by default, it can't be faith. Link to comment
Brade Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) That's what Alma teaches, that faith is only faith (only has any power to save) when it's in something true. It's a different way of defining faith that most of us don't use very often, and don't even really think about-most of us use the word faith as being synonomous with the word hope. Alma's making the distinction though here, that faith isn't the same thing as hope. That faith has power because it's not just wanting something to be true, or believing something to be true. Faith is believing in something that is true.The Bible Dictionary defines it this way-"Faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can command the elements and/or heal the sick, or influence any number of circumstances when occasion warrants (Jacob 4:4–7). Even more important, by faith one obtains a remission of sins and eventually can stand in the presence of God.All true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results."If faith is a principle of power which brings about miracles, including salvation from sin, then it MUST be in something that is true, or there is no power in it and it cannot do anything.Faith in zeus, for example, has no power. If faith is a principle of power, and someone's faith has no power, then by default, it can't be faith. It's something else.Hold on, you've got a lot going on here. First, I don't think Alma's right about faith, but I don't think 'faith' is synonymous with 'hope'. I think faith means something like to hope that something is true and act on that hope. Mere hope is just wanting for something to be true. To hope that something is true doesn't entail that you act on that hope. Honestly, I don't see why Alma would think he needs to clarify that faith isn't hope, because, for one thing, I don't think anyone thinks that faith is merely hope.Second, but couldn't is just be that certain things happen to be true, and if you happen to have faith in those things then you can bring about certain other things (e.g. miracles, salvation, etc). If you don't have faith in the requisite things, but you have faith in other things which are not true, then you simply cannot bring about certain things (e.g. miracles, salvation, etc). Both, it seems to me, are faith. One instance of faith just might happen to be in things that are true, and another just might happen to be in things that are not true.Additionally, presumably, on the Mormon position, lots of people have hope in false things and act on those hopes, and yet they do stuff, even good things, as a result. I call that just having faith where it just so happens that the object of their faith is false, or may be false. Perhaps, from the Mormon position they cannot bring about certain results, but I don't see why that should make it the case that they don't have faith. For my part, in Mormonism there seems to be an over-infatuation with predicating 'true' to as many things as possible even when such predications make little sense in ordinary discourse (e.g. 'true faith', 'true knowledge', 'true Church'). I understand that those expressions can have idiosyncratic meanings among Mormons, but, even among Mormons those meanings are often vague and ambiguous.I mean, there seems to be something very ad hoc about this notion of faith which allows a Mormon to say that nobody but they have faith because only they can bring about certain results by their hopes in specific propositions and behavior on those hopes. Look at this:If faith is a principle of power, and someone's faith has no power, then by default, it can't be faith. It's something else.My first question is, no power to do what? Lots of non-Mormons hope for things, act on those hopes, and as a result have power to do certain things, often very good things. I fail to see why we shouldn't call that faith. But, the Mormon answer is going to have to do with exclusively Mormon things like Mormon notions of salvation and so on. And so, by and by, what's gotten smuggled into the conditions of faith, on Mormonism, are exclusively Mormon conditions such that non-Mormons cannot satisfy the conditions and, thus, cannot have faith. Edited July 23, 2011 by Brade Link to comment
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