What is Faith/Belief? Can Believers Even Tell Us?

[A redated post] In David Eller's words, Malcolm Ruel in his book, Belief, Ritual and the Securing of Life,
...demonstrates that the concept of belief in Western civilization and Christianity has evolved, from a kind of "trust" in god(s) to specific propositions about God and Christ to the notion of "grace" based on the personal experience of and commitment to God and Christ to a conception of belief as an "adventure of faith" which does not have any particular destination or make any specific claims. The evolutionary trajectory of belief in Christianity is, then, distinctively "local" and historical--that is, culturally and religiously relative--and not to be found in every religion. Many religions do not have any "creed" of explicit propositions about their supernatural worlds, and many do not mix fact, trust, and value in the English/Christian way. Ruel concludes that the English and Western concept of belief is "complex, highly ambiguous, and unstable" and "is demonstrably an historical amalgam, composed of elements traceable to Judaic mystical doctrine and Greek styles of discourse." [Source: Introducing Anthropology of Religion, p. 33.]

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