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Yes, I'm going through a serious crisis of faith. Here is where I am at:
Faith is a belief in something that is secure and unconcerned with logic and reason.
Faith means believing in something even though there is no reason to. Faith is choosing to be more confident that you would be if you were relying solely on evidence. The idea is that evidence takes you only so far, faith takes you the rest of the way. Faith is by definition unreasonable. If faith was reasonable, we would call it reason. Kierkergaard said that.
Only through the Holy Spirit can we find justification for faith as the holy Spirit is supposed to let us know what is truth and what is lies in what we believe through faith. Without the Holy Spirit faith is empty and we « just believe ». If faith is empty and not a reliable arbiter of truth, then the concept of the word of God in the bible, eternal soul, heaven, hell, God, Jesus and holy spirit are themselves nothing more than wishfull thinking. The whole edifice of christianity comes crumbling down around us if we can't justify our faith with the apport from the Holy Spirit itself.
We then need to answer those two questions, they are crucial for our faith :
How do we make sure we're filled with the holy Spirit, and not an evil lying demon pretending to be the Holy Spirit?
How do we separate the influence of the Holy Spirit from the cognitive falacy of confirmation bias?
If we can't answer those questions, then our faith could be influenced by an evil lying demon or by confirmation bias and we'd have no way to tell. In either case that would mean we could be deluded about christianity. Not a happy thought. Being deluded by confirmation bias, on the face of it, is much more probable than being influenced by the Holy Spirit, because we know some people are deluded by confirmation bias all the time when they believe weird stuff, but the existence of the Holy Spirit is not exactly scientific fact, it doesn't manifest itself in any other way than through our faith. So we need an assurance that the Holy Spirit is really guiding us and that we are not deluded about it.
What assurance do we have beside our faith itself that the Holy Spirit is really guiding us ?
Please help me answer those questions, people.
Faith is a belief in something that is secure and unconcerned with logic and reason.
Faith means believing in something even though there is no reason to. Faith is choosing to be more confident that you would be if you were relying solely on evidence. The idea is that evidence takes you only so far, faith takes you the rest of the way. Faith is by definition unreasonable. If faith was reasonable, we would call it reason. Kierkergaard said that.
Only through the Holy Spirit can we find justification for faith as the holy Spirit is supposed to let us know what is truth and what is lies in what we believe through faith. Without the Holy Spirit faith is empty and we « just believe ». If faith is empty and not a reliable arbiter of truth, then the concept of the word of God in the bible, eternal soul, heaven, hell, God, Jesus and holy spirit are themselves nothing more than wishfull thinking. The whole edifice of christianity comes crumbling down around us if we can't justify our faith with the apport from the Holy Spirit itself.
We then need to answer those two questions, they are crucial for our faith :
How do we make sure we're filled with the holy Spirit, and not an evil lying demon pretending to be the Holy Spirit?
How do we separate the influence of the Holy Spirit from the cognitive falacy of confirmation bias?
If we can't answer those questions, then our faith could be influenced by an evil lying demon or by confirmation bias and we'd have no way to tell. In either case that would mean we could be deluded about christianity. Not a happy thought. Being deluded by confirmation bias, on the face of it, is much more probable than being influenced by the Holy Spirit, because we know some people are deluded by confirmation bias all the time when they believe weird stuff, but the existence of the Holy Spirit is not exactly scientific fact, it doesn't manifest itself in any other way than through our faith. So we need an assurance that the Holy Spirit is really guiding us and that we are not deluded about it.
What assurance do we have beside our faith itself that the Holy Spirit is really guiding us ?
Please help me answer those questions, people.