So you believe what you believe not because it is “factually correct” but because it seems to help move you toward your goals, the person you want to be, and the life you want to live. “I believe what I believe because it’s helpful.” You know your ultimate goals, what matters most in life, where to spend your time and energy, what actions most facilitate your own flourishing and the well-being of those you care about. You love them too much to hurt them in this way. Believing something contrary to their beliefs might either break their hearts or incur their wrath, and your obligation to them compels you to maintain accommodating beliefs (or believe differently in secret). “I believe what I believe because I don’t want to disappoint a parent.” You love your parents deeply and you think honoring them means valuing what they value, thinking how they think. Or maybe you believe both are true, since the Bible says both, and even have a belief about how to harmonize the two. or “I have come to free the oppressed, release the captives, give sight to the blind, etc.” ). Maybe you believe, for example, in the “good news,” but have decided that you prefer Paul’s good news (more about Jesus who died and rose for us) to Jesus’s good news (blessed are the poor, the meek, etc. Although, you probably have to be at least a little selective about where you place the weight of your beliefs. “I believe what I believe because it’s what the Bible says.” You don’t need to think up clever, novel theologies or believe what a religious leader tells you to believe you just read the Bible and believe what it says. You can only speak to your own experience. Though maybe you feel unqualified to assess the merits of others’ beliefs, neither celebrating nor condemning them. But maybe this speaks to inevitable (and acceptable) human diversity or, possibly, to the mystery of God’s sovereignty and freedom (even if it, unfortunately, damns to hell those who believe differently). Granted, God seems to have shown different things to other people (or withheld crucial information from them). “I believe what I believe because it’s what God has revealed to me.” Your beliefs are what they are because this is what God has called you to believe. After all, why believe what’s not true, when you can just believe what is true? You think about what things are in the correct way rather than the incorrect way. “I believe what I believe because it’s true.” It’s pretty simple, really. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but maybe you’d say something like one (or more) of the following… What causes you to believe what you believe about God and all matters divine, eternal, spiritual, and sacred?How would you answer this? Not because I’m dissatisfied with my present beliefs but because I anticipate that new discovery, new experience, and new voices will continue to shape my ideas, values, and vision.īefore expressing what we believe, I think it’s worth considering why we believe what we believe in the first place. It is likely that I’ll believe differently in a few years. I don’t see things the same way I did five, ten, twenty years ago. In some ways, I depend on them.īut why do I believe what I believe? Why do any of us believe what we believe? Why do we believe what we believe and not something else? I modify them, if I can see that they need modified.
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