Quasimodo wrote:For me, the question is, do the faithful "know" or only hope that they know?
Personally, I'd have to say the latter. I have never been a Mormon, but I have had some experience of religious wanderings in different directions.
My theory, which perhaps a real theologian might be able to make rigorous, is that the system is set up so that real certainty about God, faith, and religion is impossible, and for good reason: there needs to be room for freedom of will.
Example: I can try to believe all I want that my easy chair does not exist, but if I try to walk across the floor on a path that intersects the position of that chair, I will stub my toes. And I will continue to stub my toes as long as my feet keep coming into contact with the chair. Sooner or later (later, in my case; I'm stubborn), I will be
forced to admit that the chair exists. Logical positivism and solipsism aside, this is about as concrete as knowledge gets, especially when factoring in the fact that every visitor to my apartment also experiences the chair in the same way. I am forced to believe in the chair.
Belief in God, however, is not like belief in my chair. If it were possible to experience God in the same way as we experience a chair, we would have no choice but to believe, right? Similarly, if there were concrete evidence of God's non-existence, we would be forced to disbelieve. (I hope my meaning here is clear, even if I have not expressed myself felicitously.)
Yet I
am a believer, and moreover a Christian, as a result of experiences that to me are unquestionably convincing, albeit not in the same way as my experiences of my chair. In other words, though I take it as axiomatic that this is a valid way of knowing, my God-experiences are subjective and
not reproducible in the scientific sense. I am left with the conviction that they are true
for me, and that God does exist,
as far as I can tell--but not in any way that might serve as proof positive to anyone else.
For me, the best guide has turned out to be "By their fruits shall ye know them." And of course, while I have striven to be as objective as possible in assessing the various faith traditions to which I might ascribe, I have to admit that it is impossible to exclude a fairly high degree of subjectivity (and, unfortunately, wishful thinking) from the process.
It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway), that your mileage is almost certain to vary.
MadMonk
Only the saints would joke so about the gods, because it was either joke or scream, and they alone knew it was all the same to the gods. -- Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion