What is a belief?

This could be considered as a question of philosophy – of ontology or linguistic analysis – or a question of psychology or etymology, or in other ways as well.  We’re only going to consider it within the realm of the pragmatic question of how we are living in relationship to Christ. 

With that said, it’s obvious that such a belief does not consist in words floating around somewhere, in one’s brain, for example, or one’s ‘spirit’, or anywhere else.  Nor is it a potential or disposition for vocalization under certain circumstances.  Christian belief isn’t simply something said, whether aloud or to oneself.  A human monster could say the appropriate words while doing monstrous things, could even ‘think’ them sincerely.  Even the devils believe, as James puts it.

Salvific belief, meaning the attitude towards the sovereignty of Christ that advances one on the road of salvation, is a dynamic attitude, one connected with behavior and preoccupation, but it’s also one that admits of degrees.  Degrees of what?  Degrees of strength.  But strength doesn’t have meaning in a contextual vacuum.   Having strong muscles describes the muscles in the context of weight resistance.  Just so, having strong salvific belief describes something in a context.  What is the context?  It’s the context of the other dynamic motivations of the individual, the other attitudes connected to behavior and preoccupation, the desires, the hungers, the fears, even the other beliefs.  Even the other loves.

Your salvific belief in Jesus as your Lord refers to your dynamic attitude towards His sovereignty over your life: the beauty that attracts your eyes, the food that appeals to your hunger, the problems and narratives that engage your curiosity, and the resultant uses to which you put your time and energy. At least for most of us, it’s an attitude at least occasionally in conflict with other dynamic attitudes, and it’s in the context of such conflicts that its strength becomes apparent. 

We might usefully compare it to gravity, to the gravitational pull of your being towards another’s.  At a great distance from that source, its pull is weak, and easily overcome by other attractions.  But with each movement you make closer to the source, the stronger becomes its pull, and the influence of the others correspondingly weaker. 

This is the Christian road of salvation, one voluntary step after another taken towards its gravitational source.  An observer might say ‘Your faith is growing stronger’, but experientially, it’s the weakening of all other influences. 

And the things of the world will grow strangely dim.