The Case for 'Faith', not 'Belief'

In an article written for the Washington Post "On Faith" section, noted author Karen Armstrong discussed her new book. Here are part of her comments:

Why did I write "The Case for God"? I was becoming increasingly concerned about the nature of the discussion that followed the publications of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam HarrIs and wanted to bring to the table some of the things that I have learned from my study of world religion during the last 20 years

First, on both sides, the discussion was often aggressive and antagonistic. To quarrel about religion is counter-productive and an impediment to enlightenment. When we are talking about God, nobody has the last word because what we call God lies beyond the reach of speech. It also violates the Western rationalist tradition: a Socratic dialogue was a spiritual exercise and, Socrates insisted, would not work unless it was conducted throughout with gentleness and courtesy. Nobody 'won' the argument: a Socratic dialogue always ended with participants realizing that they knew nothing at all, an insight that was indispensable to the philosophic quest.

Second, on both sides people were equating 'faith' with 'belief'. This is a recent aberration and one that is peculiar to modern Western Christianity. We do not find it in either Judaism or Islam. The Middle English 'bileven' meant 'love, trust, loyalty, and commitment' it was related to the German 'liebe' (beloved) and translated the Greek 'pistis' ('trust, commitment, engagement') in the New Testament and the Latin 'credo' which derived from 'cor do' ('I give my heart'). It was only in the late 17th century that 'belief' came to mean an intellectual assent to a rather dubious proposition. Just look up 'belief' in a good, historical dictionary!

At this time, truth was becoming more notional in the scientific West. We were losing the more traditional form of faith which saw religion as a practical activity. Like driving, swimming, dancing or gymnastics, you learn the truths of faith only by constant, dedicated practice - not by reading texts or adopting a metaphysical 'belief'. Like a myth, a religious doctrine is essentially a program of action. It makes no sense unless it is translated into practical action that helps you to dethrone egotism, selfishness and greed by practicing compassion to all living beings. In the book, I try to show how doctrines like the Incarnation or Trinity were originally a summons to selflessness and compassion and that we only discover their truth by making these qualities a reality in our own lives.

Finally, in the pre-modern world people knew that it was very difficult to speak about God, because God could not fit neatly into a human system of thought. People like Aquinas, Maimonides or Avicenna would find much of our modern certainty about God frankly idolatrous. They knew that we could not prove 'his' existence, that even revelation did not provide us with privileged information about the divine but simply made us aware of what we did not know, and that all our God-talk - even the language of scripture - could only be symbolic, pointing beyond itself to transcendence, because when we speak about God we are at the end of what words or thoughts can do.

And this only sounds amorphous and vague if you are not a dedicated practitioner. If you don't 'do' religion - you don't 'get' it!

This is the second discussion I have found in recent days - the other being from Harvey Cox - drawing a clear and sharp distinction between faith and belief.

Do you think such a distinction can be made? Do you agree with Armstrong that people like Aquinas would find our certainty about God 'idolatry'?