What does it mean to say, "I believe?"

What does it mean to say, "I believe?"

Doesn't it mean something like finding a way into the reality that the Church is describing in her doctrine? Not that we have to find our own truth, but that we have to find THE truth AS true within us, in our lives, etc.

I remember trying to will myself to believe in Santa Claus* when I was young enough, but just barely, to believe in him... trying to tell myself--almost desperately--that he was REAL. While there may be moments of that, Christian faith can't be some adult version of a child's need to believe.

Likewise we can't just say, "The Bible (or the Church or some other authority) says it and I believe it and that's that." That's just laziness and extrinsicism. It doesn't take root. We have to wrestle with these truths... the gospel truths... and make them ours--to find them in the living room, in the grocery store, in the parking lot, on the baseball field, in the daily life of marriage and family, work, play, etc.

But we tend not to do that. We let all of these (living room, grocery store, parking lot, baseball field, etc.) be in their own area and the propositions of the Christian faith exist in their own priveleged field without letting either touch or be touched by the other. No wonder "faith" is dying. What we call faith these days is a lie because it has nothing to do with reality.



*Now of course I know myself to be in communion with the Bishop of Myra as part of the communion of saints and so have regained Santa Claus, but I suppose that's another post.