What if I just don’t feel faithful?

I think it might also help to define real. What does real mean to you?

Anonymous,

I like linking “faith” to “faithfulness” or “faithful” in other words having the character of being worth of our trust. Faith is trusting what we have good evidence to believe is true. The things we know are almost always based on a cumulative case, so some things we know 51%, others 90% and there’s the real possibility that all our beliefs are shifting in evidence.

We can definitely believe something and be wrong. Knowledge, as philosophers like to put it, is justified, true belief. But so many of us take blind leaps without justification for our beliefs. And, as you’ve noted, we don’t always have true belief.

To answer your first question I think we have to start with other things you believe even if you don’t feel it. For instance, your love for things you do well. I have faith in my ability to do watercolor, but I don’t always do it, I don’t always feel it. I may go for months without picking up a paintbrush, but my faith is stronger than my emotions because I have good evidence for my gift of watercoloring.

To apply this to our faith in God, it would be good to ask yourself, “What reasons seem good enough to believe anything is true, even when I don’t feel it is true?” Start with something small like your belief in your gifts or your belief in your love for someone you are devoted to (even when you don’t feel like it!).

Then you can apply these reasons to a template for the kind you need to look for in your faith in God.