What Is Belief? : Part Three
It is suggested by some that knowing and believing are mutually exclusive concepts. To them one can know by experience or reason, but cannot really know anything by faith/belief. This exclusiveness between faith/belief and knowledge exists only in the minds of those wishing such to be the case. In fact, one cannot truly believe anything that he cannot or does not know.
Knowledge is the first essential in believing. There must be content to faith for it to be an intelligible concept. Further, this mutually exclusive distinction between knowing and believing is clearly not representative of anything found in Scripture. In fact, just the opposite is true. In John 4:39-42, we are told of a group of people of a village called Samaria, who came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. A woman had told them of the things he had done that convinced her that he was the Messiah, and they had accepted her testimony. After talking with Jesus themselves, they said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man is really the savior of the world.” To them, believing and knowing were not mutually exclusive concepts at all. One necessarily involved the other In John 6:66-68, when Jesus asked his disciples whether they would forsake him, Peter responded, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” In this biblical text there is no place for the concept of the mutual exclusiveness of faith and knowledge.
Faith and Persuasion
The previous lines of thought I attempted to develop in the previous lines lines of the previous submissions, I will here present a further line of thought of the subject of faith or belief. Paul the Apostle is considered by a great number of biblical scholars as one of the greatest biblical scholars in history. It is the concept of faith/belief he developed in his writings that is considered one of the finest concepts of the New Testament Scriptures. With Paul it was not only knowledge in whom he had believed that set him on his journey to life eternal, but the persuasion concerning what he believed was also essential.
The word in the Greek New Testament Paul used in 2 Timothy 1:12 is peitho, which is, curiously, the root word from which the words pisteuo (I believe) and pisits (faith or belief) derive.
The concept of faith or belief and the concept of persuasion or conviction are kindred ideas in that pisteuo (I believe) is derived from peitho (I am persuaded).
Peitho is a concept intrinsic within faith/belief. Peitho (faith/belief) is lexically defined as, “to persuade or convince someone of something.” It means to be persuaded of something to the point of acceptance. Persuasion was the very means used by Paul to lead his hearers to faith in his preaching and teaching. When Paul came into Corinth, Greece, Acts 18:1-4 tells us, “Every Sabbath he reasoned (dialegomai - to put forth an argument), in the synagogue, trying to persuade (peitho) Jews and Greeks.” When he left Corinth and went up to Ephesus, he followed the same course of action. Acts 19:8 tells us that, “ Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, debating (dialegomenos) and persuading (peitho) his listeners concerning things of the kingdom of God.” The word translated as “arguing” (some translations have “reasoning”) in Acts 8:4. It was one on the most common words among the academics for the debating discipline of the Greek philosophers (e.g. Plato, Aristotle). Many of the Jewish rabbis used the skills of the Greeks in debating their Torah and Mishnah writings. Paul was a mathates (sudent) of Gamaliel, one of the more famous rabbis in Jerusalem when Paul was Saul of Tarsus. Paul being the Greek form of Saul was Paul’s name before he became the Apostle of Jesus the Messiah.
Paul was a rabbinic disciple and knew the Greek rules of reasoning as is evident in his discourse with the philosophers in Athens in Acts 17:16-34. While in Rome, Paul received Jewish scholars of the synagogues as guests into his quarters and, according the Acts 28:23, “From morning till evening he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince or persuade (peitho) them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.” Paul was trying to lead others to faith in Christ, and “being persuaded” was an essential part of their coming to faith.
(a 4th and Final Article will follow)
