God can write straight with crooked lines.

[bill4long]

I make a strict demarcation between what people normally refer to as "faith" and trust. The kind of "faith" was I referring to is the kind of that papers over glaring evidententary holes. Such as when all the problems with the Book of Abraham are presented that demonstrate it's a fraud and the apologist downshift to "in the end it's about faith." I have absolutely no use for that kind of "faith." That kind is anti-Reality. When someone tells you that you need to paper over your doubts with "faith" - "doubt your doubts" - you know you're dealing with a con.

Yeah, I think I agree entirely here, as would Tolkien, which means you have one of the greatest literatures of all existence on your side as well.

Good to know!

Based on what I understand of Tolkien's "theology" in his legendarium, Tolkien’s idea of faith isn’t “believe anyway,” it’s “see clearly, then choose the good.” When faith is used to shut down questions or excuse deception, it stops being faith and becomes self-protection. Tolkien would say that truth must come first, because without truth, faith has nothing real to cling to.

Strictly speaking, when it comes to important issues, I don't "believe" anything. I don't like the word either. "Just believe!" doesn't make sense to my mental programming. It's boils down to a matter of levels of confidence and the confidence is still always strictly subject to rational scrutiny at a higher level. (Unless I'm impaired.) So-called spiritual experiences may be interesting (and enjoyable) but they are shown the door, as it were, when it comes to trust issues. Zero confidence in them because I know better by experience.

[Limnor]

“Just believe” sounds odd to me. It makes belief sound like a switch you can flip. I’m not convinced anyone can reliably choose to find something convincing if it isn’t—at least not in the deeper, lived sense of belief rather than just saying the words.

[Physics Guy]

The kind of faith that I consider a virtue could perhaps be defined as willing suspension of uncertainty. I don't think it's suspension of outright disbelief, as when one reads a fantasy novel and imagines it all being real. The amount of uncertainty should not be too large, or faith just becomes folly. Once the best-judged likelihood of other possibilities falls below some threshold, though, I think that faith is deliberately focusing on one possibility, to the point of acting and even thinking as though it were certain, in spite of knowing that it is not actually certain. One does not take other possibilities seriously enough to take them into account when one allocates resources.

There could be degrees of that kind of faith. Perhaps a less perfect faith does reserve some resources to deal with the out-of-focus possibility, but just not enough to make a balanced portfolio. One is deliberately placing a bet, with inadequate hedging.

It's a kind of risk tolerance. Perhaps a less perfect faith might tolerate the risk with a lot of hand-wringing and second-thinking, but a pure faith would place the bet and then move on to other problems without letting the placed bet sap mental energy to no purpose.

This kind of faith can certainly have downsides. You can run right into a pit. I think you're allowed to look carefully first, though, and not decide to stop looking for pits until you've judged that the risk/reward ratio is favourable enough to warrant a bet. You place bets and move on without second guessing, but you don't have to bet blindly when you make that first guess.

The upside is that a lot of great opportunities open up if you're able to take risks boldly. Two groups of primitive hunters can successfully meet up at a distant place and time. You can beat Prisoner's Dilemmas, leaving the game theorists fuming as you and your accomplice both shrug and say that of course you just trusted each other. That's why I think faith's a virtue. It's an asset, a useful ability.

[I Have Questions]

The kind of faith that I consider a virtue could perhaps be defined as willing suspension of uncertainty. I don't think it's suspension of outright disbelief, as when one reads a fantasy novel and imagines it all being real. The amount of uncertainty should not be too large, or faith just becomes folly. Once the best-judged likelihood of other possibilities falls below some threshold, though, I think that faith is deliberately focusing on one possibility, to the point of acting and even thinking as though it were certain, in spite of knowing that it is not actually certain. One does not take other possibilities seriously enough to take them into account when one allocates resources.

There could be degrees of that kind of faith. Perhaps a less perfect faith does reserve some resources to deal with the out-of-focus possibility, but just not enough to make a balanced portfolio. One is deliberately placing a bet, with inadequate hedging.

It's a kind of risk tolerance. Perhaps a less perfect faith might tolerate the risk with a lot of hand-wringing and second-thinking, but a pure faith would place the bet and then move on to other problems without letting the placed bet sap mental energy to no purpose.

This kind of faith can certainly have downsides. You can run right into a pit. I think you're allowed to look carefully first, though, and not decide to stop looking for pits until you've judged that the risk/reward ratio is favourable enough to warrant a bet. You place bets and move on without second guessing, but you don't have to bet blindly when you make that first guess.

The upside is that a lot of great opportunities open up if you're able to take risks boldly. Two groups of primitive hunters can successfully meet up at a distant place and time. You can beat Prisoner's Dilemmas, leaving the game theorists fuming as you and your accomplice both shrug and say that of course you just trusted each other. That's why I think faith's a virtue. It's an asset, a useful ability.

I think that’s a fair and rational way of looking at it. When it comes to showing “faith” in Mormonism that involves a substantial financial investment. If you aren’t willing to pay tithing then you aren’t really showing faith. On that basis “faith” in Mormon terms is simply a “gamble” by another name. The other interesting aspect of “faith” in Mormon terms is that it is one way. Members are to show faith in the leaders, without any promise that the leaders will show similar faith in the members. Faith is a one way street.

[Gadianton]

You can beat Prisoner's Dilemmas,

Up until this point you could have given any talk on faith I'd ever heard as a Mormon. Mormonism invented positive-thinking business culture, or at least it took what was already budding and ran with it. Religionists play fast and loose with "faith" as a self-help term and "faith" as a religious term. As a religious term, faith is always post-hoc, whatever accomplishes the needs of the leader at the time. It's quite possible as a self-help concept for faith to lead a person both into or out of Mormonism or any other religion.

The PD suggestion is interesting because we've been talking about authoritarianism and Abrahamic faith. Authoritarian regimes are basically run on PDs. In the business world, sociopaths appear to have a "faith" advantage and authoritarian regimes are easy to get off the ground but limited in success. Sociopaths will never beat a PD. At least we're down to true believers. So the question is, were Abraham and Isaac in a PD and did their faith collectively beat the PD?

[Limnor]

The PD suggestion is interesting because we've been talking about authoritarianism and Abrahamic faith. Authoritarian regimes are basically run on PDs. In the business world, sociopaths appear to have a "faith" advantage and authoritarian regimes are easy to get off the ground but limited in success. Sociopaths will never beat a PD. At least we're down to true believers. So the question is, were Abraham and Isaac in a PD and did their faith collectively beat the PD?

The first thing that came to mind was that Isaac really had no choice and Abraham is bearing all of the consequence, so the PD didn’t seem applicable here.

But thinking through potential risk and PD application, did God risk trust by breaking a promise? Maybe God risked having a people to dwell in through the sacrifice of the seed?

In both cases, the counterpoint is that these risks are self-chosen—nothing compels God to design this scenario—nor is there a mechanism to allow for mutual restraint. The only moral salvation to the story is God’s intervention in the situation and provision of a substitutionary sacrifice.

I can’t think of a scenario in which any divine command that carries asymmetric cost can avoid becoming coercive unless there’s some sort of restraint built into the story. Without the restraint, the risk is the situation turns into a model. Without restraint or interruption, is there another way a command like the one to Abraham does not become a reason to introduce repeatable authority?

Appending the below thoughts I wrote down from last night as potential applicability of this thought.

Something I keep thinking about in the crooked/straight discussion is how suffering gets explained. Across faith traditions (LDS, Catholic, Muslim, etc), the risk is explaining suffering in ways that justify obedience to the person who defines the reason for it. So if you depict suffering as having a purpose—like this happened for a reason, and that reason tells you how to behave—it can be manipulated within an authority structure.

Using those explanations, like “this trial is refining you,” “obedience requires sacrifice,” “it will make sense later,” can become abusive, especially when there is an authority structure in place, and resistance or questioning that authority becomes a moral failing.

What I find interesting is that the biblical stories we’ve been discussing—Job, Abraham, and maybe even Jesus walking on the water during the storm at sea—seem to resist describing those things as having a reason. They consistently withhold explanation—maybe not because suffering is meaningless, but because explaining it too cleanly makes it susceptible to abuse. Which, for me, is where the crookedness actually shows up.

So the conclusion, for me, is the Old Testament refuses to explain suffering in ways that can be used to assert authority. In fact, when the Old Testament does introduce repeatable authority through kingship, it is framed as a concession with a warning, and is held in check over time by prophets.

[malkie]

The kind of faith that I consider a virtue could perhaps be defined as willing suspension of uncertainty. I don't think it's suspension of outright disbelief, as when one reads a fantasy novel and imagines it all being real. The amount of uncertainty should not be too large, or faith just becomes folly. Once the best-judged likelihood of other possibilities falls below some threshold, though, I think that faith is deliberately focusing on one possibility, to the point of acting and even thinking as though it were certain, in spite of knowing that it is not actually certain. One does not take other possibilities seriously enough to take them into account when one allocates resources.

There could be degrees of that kind of faith. Perhaps a less perfect faith does reserve some resources to deal with the out-of-focus possibility, but just not enough to make a balanced portfolio. One is deliberately placing a bet, with inadequate hedging.

It's a kind of risk tolerance. Perhaps a less perfect faith might tolerate the risk with a lot of hand-wringing and second-thinking, but a pure faith would place the bet and then move on to other problems without letting the placed bet sap mental energy to no purpose.

This kind of faith can certainly have downsides. You can run right into a pit. I think you're allowed to look carefully first, though, and not decide to stop looking for pits until you've judged that the risk/reward ratio is favourable enough to warrant a bet. You place bets and move on without second guessing, but you don't have to bet blindly when you make that first guess.

The upside is that a lot of great opportunities open up if you're able to take risks boldly. Two groups of primitive hunters can successfully meet up at a distant place and time. You can beat Prisoner's Dilemmas, leaving the game theorists fuming as you and your accomplice both shrug and say that of course you just trusted each other. That's why I think faith's a virtue. It's an asset, a useful ability.

I think that’s a fair and rational way of looking at it. When it comes to showing “faith” in Mormonism that involves a substantial financial investment. If you aren’t willing to pay tithing then you aren’t really showing faith. On that basis “faith” in Mormon terms is simply a “gamble” by another name. The other interesting aspect of “faith” in Mormon terms is that it is one way. Members are to show faith in the leaders, without any promise that the leaders will show similar faith in the members. Faith is a one way street.

I don't gamble, in the conventional sense - cards, roulette, dog & horses, lotteries, etc. - I got that knocked out of me almost 60 years ago. So I never win anything by gambling.

But, unless there are several huge conspiracies taking place, some people do, and they can (often) be identified. If you follow the gossip magazines & websites you can find information about what stupid things they do with their money, about the "friends" and family members who suddenly appear, etc.

However, for the big "prize" in Mormonism, the one we are supposed to be striving for, and for which we make all sorts of "payments", bets - as far as I know, nobody has ever come back to tell us about it. We are just supposed to have "faith" in something for which there is no evidence of the sort that make people put their life savings on a throw of the dice, because even the person who loses such a gamble can see that some entity - person or "the house" - actually gets the money.

[Limnor]

Alternate thoughts out loud: I wonder if anything can avoid trying to straighten a story that the text itself seems intent on leaving crooked. And is that ok? The risk of leaving a story crooked is self-delusion: “I don’t understand, therefore it must be profound,” and the risk of straightening it is turning explanation into authority.

Of course a reasonable conclusion is that if leaving a story “crooked” risks self-delusion or believing absurdities, the cleanest response is to reject the whole framework altogether. I get that, and I don’t think it’s irrational. After all, I do it myself with Zub Zool oun and Kli-flos-is-es.

Maybe the question isn’t whether to interpret, but how to interpret without converting interpretation into authority over people. After all, the author of the letter to the Hebrews provides an interpretation.

Genesis tells the Abraham–Isaac story simplistically. The story leaves questions we’ve been unresolved: What did Abraham think? What did Isaac think? What kind of God asks this? The story is crooked from that point of view—not fully explained.

Hebrews, however, does explain the story. Hebrews explains Abraham’s obedience as an act of trust grounded in resurrection, it explains that Abraham reasons that God can raise the dead.

This seems like theological straightening—or at least an attempt at it. Hebrews doesn’t show that the command is good, it shows why Abraham might proceed without believing God to be cruel. Hebrews interprets the story in light of later events, but it it does not prove that those events guided Abraham’s experience in the moment.

Maybe, then, Hebrews doesn’t eliminate the crookedness of Genesis, but responds to it? In that case, the real issue isn’t whether interpretation happens—it always does—but whether interpretation is allowed to remain interpretive, or whether it hardens into authoritative power that no longer permits the story to trouble us.

[Limnor]

However, for the big "prize" in Mormonism, the one we are supposed to be striving for, and for which we make all sorts of "payments", bets - as far as I know, nobody has ever come back to tell us about it. We are just supposed to have "faith" in something for which there is no evidence of the sort that make people put their life savings on a throw of the dice, because even the person who loses such a gamble can see that some entity - person or "the house" - actually gets the money.

In Mormonism you never really get to see the jackpot. No one returns with receipts but the payments are made in advance. It looks like trust without settlement. I don’t think that reduces to “all faith involves risk,” there’s just no way to tell trust from self-deception.

[Limnor]

Sudden thought, gad—how about something like this: the seed and promise—and everything associated with it—cannot be secured by obedience, sacrifice, strategy, or even correct theology. If the seed survives, it survives only because God sustains it, not because Abraham performed the right act. The message, if there is one, isn’t “trust God and things will work out,” but something harsher and maybe cleaner: the promise was never yours to keep alive in the first place.