Do We Choose Our Beliefs?

[Left Coast]

I'd say that's pretty much in line with what I believe, as well. Although there are a multitude of factors acting on us constantly which are ultimately out of our control, we can still at times (though not always) choose what action we want to take.

But that language may even be too strong; it's more like we can try our best to point ourselves in the right direction and hope that over time it makes us better and strengthens our will. Maybe think of it like captaining a sailboat: we're subject to the wind and the waves and the tides and the currents. We can make slight adjustments to the sails, but that's really all we have control over; everything else is out of our hands. All we can really do is try our best to move in the general direction of whatever port we've chosen.

This is what the Catechism says about our freedom:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

1733 The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."28

1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.

1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.
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So, the way that I use the term "faith" is to describe the small portion of ourselves which we can control - the will. To combine what the Catechism says with my sailboat analogy, while we do not have control over most of the factors that influence where the boat goes, the one thing we can control is which port we're aiming at, and there are really only two ports: good and evil. And while there will be times when a storm comes and the direction we're sailing is totally out of our control, as long as we still have the desire to go to the good port, that's really all that matters.

God fully recognizes that most of what happens to us is out of our control, and it's virtually impossible for us to determine how much any given person is choosing something freely. All we need to do is desire the good - and if we can't even manage that, as long as we desire to desire the good, God will be able to help us.

That's what faith is. It's desiring to desire the good, for its own sake. It's trying our best to point the miniscule amount of control we have over ourselves in the right direction.

Thanks for the explanation.

So this leads me back to the question I asked before: Would you ever put faith in something you didn't believe in? Or, would you ever not put faith in something you do believe in? They seem to be hand in glove.

Your description, on one hand, paints faith as a desire, but desires aren't really, directly, under our control. The question becomes how one responds to a desire.

Your sailboat analogy, on the other hand, paints the picture a little differently, of faith as intention. But I'd never intend to do something if I didn't want to on some level. This gets complicated because we can have competing desires, of course.

At a certain point, I think describing what's happening here as "free will" becomes something of a misnomer. We are obliged to believe that which we're convinced is true, by definition. And if we actually believe something, it seems inevitable that we will intend to act in a way that comports with that belief. How could we not?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Thanks for the explanation.

So this leads me back to the question I asked before: Would you ever put faith in something you didn't believe in? Or, would you ever not put faith in something you do believe in? They seem to be hand in glove.

I tend to be a skeptic. There are a whole lot of things I simply don't know to be true, things I'm more agnostic about. But I "choose" to live my life as if they are true. That's faith. Is it belief? I think belief is when you know, or at least you think you know. I'm not very good at believing. But I'm great at having faith.

 

[Left Coast]

I observe, and I reason, and I choose to trust in these as I go. I don't really "believe in" anything, if you mean 'belief' to require a pretense of certainty. I live by faith, not a pretense of certainty. I know I can be wrong about anything at any time.

Our confidence in things doesn't need to be black and white. It's not like the only options are to be 100% infallibly certain something is true or false. We can have reasonable, probabilistic confidence that a thing is likely true (or not), to a certain degree, based on the available evidence.

 

[izzy88]

Thanks for the explanation.

So this leads me back to the question I asked before: Would you ever put faith in something you didn't believe in? Or, would you ever not put faith in something you do believe in? They seem to be hand in glove.

Your description, on one hand, paints faith as a desire, but desires aren't really, directly, under our control. The question becomes how one responds to a desire.

Your sailboat analogy, on the other hand, paints the picture a little differently, of faith as intention. But I'd never intend to do something if I didn't want to on some level. This gets complicated because we can have competing desires, of course.

At a certain point, I think describing what's happening here as "free will" becomes something of a misnomer. We are obliged to believe that which we're convinced is true, by definition. And if we actually believe something, it seems inevitable that we will intend to act in a way that comports with that belief. How could we not?

You're still not quite understanding what I'm trying to say. For one, faith isn't really a desire but a desire to desire; think of how I don't desire to go to the gym, but I wish I did - I desire to desire to go to the gym.

But I'm also not talking about putting faith in specific things. Combining the boat analogy with what the Catechism says was intended to illustrate that all our "free will" really consists of is a general desire to desire the good, trying to point our ship in the general direction of the good port. And, actually, instead of there being two ports - good and evil - as I said originally, it may be more accurate I think to say that there's only one port - the good - and that evil is more akin to not even trying to steer the boat, but instead letting it drift wherever it will and putting no effort into correcting it. We don't need to try to do evil, it actually comes quite naturally to us. The only thing that really requires effort is trying to do good for its own sake - because even when people do good they are most often doing it for ultimately selfish reasons.

Another thing is that even when we begin trying to steer ourselves towards the good, it takes a long time to course-correct depending on how far we've drifted. So thinking that the decisions we make in any given moment are determined by a free choice we make in that moment really isn't accurate; we basically just have to start trying to desire to do what's good for its own sake asap and then we'll slowly start seeing changes in our beliefs and actions over time.

The way I see free will is sort of like a tiny daemon inside of our brains who barely has any control over anything, but can only do his best to try to influence us in small ways that build over time. He's essentially on a runaway train, but he occasionally comes to a fork where he can switch the tracks, and so effect the direction of the train in some small way.

I know I'm jumping from analogy to analogy but I'm working through this as I write it, trying to figure out the best way to explain what I'm trying to say. My comments are generally very "stream of consciousness".

 

[Muffled]

As a secular humanist, I would say that evidence isn't evidence if it's not observable, predictable and repeatable.

So a person who wins the lottery should give back the money because there is not repeatable evidence that his win was real?

 

[icehorse]

So a person who wins the lottery should give back the money because there is not repeatable evidence that his win was real?

Ha ha.

But there is some truth in this: The lottery winner would be ill-advised to use all of his lottery winnings to go out and buy more lottery tickets, because his original win is NOT statistically predictable or repeatable.

 

[Muffled]

You believe in reincarnation?

Some people do, some people don't. Some people just keep believing what they were taught as children.

Yes, I think people decide what evidence to believe and what evidence not to believe. This is a conscious process but also a subconscious process. The former we have control over, the latter we don't.

I believed in reincarnation before becoming a Christian and it helped me to believe in the resurrection. Now I can see from the Bible that Jesus believes in it also.

I believe there are some things that are hard to unlearn. I came out of a disfunctional long term belief in my old age and wonder why it took me so long.

I believe our spirits can be very stubborn.

 

[izzy88]

Ha ha.

But there is some truth in this: The lottery winner would be ill-advised to use all of his lottery winnings to go out and buy more lottery tickets, because his original win is NOT statistically predictable or repeatable.

Don't just gloss over the point that was made, though, because it draws attention to something that's so crucial and yet so often unacknowledged by the zealots of Scientism: the scientific method is not universally applicable.

There are many things in this world, in this life, to which we cannot possibly apply the scientific method. It is very good at what it does, but what it does is focused on a very small part of reality as a whole, so if you try to make it your universal yardstick you're going to have a bad time.

 

[Muffled]

I am puzzled about this 'belief' concept. There is nothing in my life that I need to believe in. I don't need to believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't need to believe in evolution, general relativity, gravity, quantum mechanics, or that the stock market will go up or down tomorrow. All of these things are demonstrable and consistent. What's to believe?

Do you believe Trump suggested people imbibe disinfectant?

 

[Muffled]

Don't just gloss over the point that was made, though, because it draws attention to something that's so crucial and yet so often unacknowledged by the zealots of Scientism: the scientific method is not universally applicable.

There are many things in this world, in this life, to which we cannot possibly apply the scientific method. It is very good at what it does, but what it does is focused on a very small part of reality as a whole, so if you try to make it your universal yardstick you're going to have a bad time.

I was watching an episode of the "God" tv series that talked about miracles. A logical person stated that something is not a miracle because the probability is huge against it happening. So a lottery win is not a miracle. That doesn't mean that there aren't miracles only that you can't just call something rare a miracle.

 

[izzy88]

I was watching an episode of the "God" tv series that talked about miracles. A logical person stated that something is not a miracle because the probability is huge against it happening. So a lottery win is not a miracle. That doesn't mean that there aren't miracles only that you can't just call something rare a miracle.

I don't see how anything you said relates to anything I said, which I'm guessing means you misunderstood what I said. I never said anything about a lottery win being a miracle.

 

[icehorse]

Don't just gloss over the point that was made, though, because it draws attention to something that's so crucial and yet so often unacknowledged by the zealots of Scientism: the scientific method is not universally applicable.

There are many things in this world, in this life, to which we cannot possibly apply the scientific method. It is very good at what it does, but what it does is focused on a very small part of reality as a whole, so if you try to make it your universal yardstick you're going to have a bad time.

You talking to me?

Seriously, I was talking ONLY about the nature of scientific evidence. I was never claiming that science should be our only way of looking at the world.

 

[izzy88]

You talking to me?

Seriously, I was talking ONLY about the nature of scientific evidence. I was never claiming that science should be our only way of looking at the world.

You said "evidence isn't evidence if it's not observable, predictable and repeatable", which implies that scientific evidence is the only kind of evidence.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Don't just gloss over the point that was made, though, because it draws attention to something that's so crucial and yet so often unacknowledged by the zealots of Scientism: the scientific method is not universally applicable.

There are many things in this world, in this life, to which we cannot possibly apply the scientific method. It is very good at what it does, but what it does is focused on a very small part of reality as a whole, so if you try to make it your universal yardstick you're going to have a bad time.

Really? Apart from purely human spheres of interest, what exactly doesn't it focus on?

 

[izzy88]

purely human spheres of interest

Can you clarify what exactly you mean by this?

 

[Nakosis]

What do you think? Do we choose our beliefs?

I don't choose beliefs. I consider possibilities.

I consider the likelihood of what is possible. In most cases, I don't consider myself qualified to put myself into a position of belief. So I choose not to believe.

 

[Left Coast]

You're still not quite understanding what I'm trying to say. For one, faith isn't really a desire but a desire to desire; think of how I don't desire to go to the gym, but I wish I did - I desire to desire to go to the gym.

The thing is, a desire to desire something is still...a desire. And desires aren't things we have conscious or direct control over.

This is what leads me to think, from some of your other comments, that what you actually mean by "desire to desire" is intention. In other words, you've come to a conclusion that you should desire "the good" as defined in Catholicism, and therefore you're setting a conscious intention that you want to pursue that goal in how you behave.

Another thing is that even when we begin trying to steer ourselves towards the good, it takes a long time to course-correct depending on how far we've drifted. So thinking that the decisions we make in any given moment are determined by a free choice we make in that moment really isn't accurate; we basically just have to start trying to desire to do what's good for its own sake asap and then we'll slowly start seeing changes in our beliefs and actions over time.

The difficulty here for me is in the phrase, "try to desire." If you already believe you should pursue "the good," then on some level, you already do desire it. And that desire emerges spontaneously from your belief that you should pursue it. The trouble is that other desires compete for your attention.

You can compare this to the gym analogy. If you believe you should go to the gym, on some level the desire to go is already there, inherent in your belief that you should. Granted, other desires may overwhelm that desire and cause you not to go, or to sit on your couch and watch Netflix rather than go. But the reason you do so is because at some level, you have a competing belief working against your belief that you should go the gym. The way to increase your desire to go to the gym, so to speak, so that it overwhelms your desire for Netflix, is to challenge that underlying belief. This is the basic approach of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. We change feelings and behaviors by changing beliefs.

The way I see free will is sort of like a tiny daemon inside of our brains who barely has any control over anything, but can only do his best to try to influence us in small ways that build over time. He's essentially on a runaway train, but he occasionally comes to a fork where he can switch the tracks, and so effect the direction of the train in some small way.

I know I'm jumping from analogy to analogy but I'm working through this as I write it, trying to figure out the best way to explain what I'm trying to say. My comments are generally very "stream of consciousness".

I don't mind stream of consciousness, as long as I can follow. It's interesting that you compare free will to an entity almost separate from us, independently influencing us in ways we don't consciously intend. That, again, leads me to the conclusion that talking about our will as "free" seems a misnomer. None of these analogies lend themselves very well to the idea of "freedom." We think of ourselves as having some kind of conscious control over our decisions, but those decisions are actually predicated by a whole bunch of other stuff outside our conscious control, including our "desire to desire" what Catholicism calls, "the good," which the Church says is a function of grace that we can't generate ourselves.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Can you clarify what exactly you mean by this?

Well, trying to understand human behaviour probably wouldn't fall into a scientific category even if some might want to see it as such, so apart from this, and why we tend to think various things (like religious thoughts), what else is there that science tends to leave alone?

 

[icehorse]

You said "evidence isn't evidence if it's not observable, predictable and repeatable", which implies that scientific evidence is the only kind of evidence.

In this context, I would say that when someone uses the term "evidence" it implies what you're calling "scientific evidence". The bigger point is that religious apologists often try to warp the terms and ideas of science.

 

[PureX]

Our confidence in things doesn't need to be black and white. It's not like the only options are to be 100% infallibly certain something is true or false. We can have reasonable, probabilistic confidence that a thing is likely true (or not), to a certain degree, based on the available evidence.

Certitude is not a 'degree of trust'. In fact, it isn't trust at all. If I am certain of something being true, I would have no need to 'trust' in that truthfulness. And I would be logically unable to decide otherwise. (This seems to be what is being claimed, here.) However, if I am not certain, then I must choose whether to believe something is true, or not to, depending on whatever criteria I decide is reasonable. That criteria might be probability, or it might be hope/desire, or it might simply be whatever gains me the least troublesome result.

The point is that once we drop that pretense of certitude (as we logically must), we have both options and choices to negotiate whether we want them or not.