How do we understand the act a Christian makes when he says I believe?
Is this based purely on some kind of feeling or a subjective inner conviction of heart?
Some skeptics would argue that since we don't see directly the truth of the things we believe,
believing is fundamentally unreasonable or an irrational thing to do.
Now to answer this question, it will help us to turn to St. Thomas Aquinas and his explanation
of the four ways that we can respond to a statement.
So suppose a friend shows me a newspaper article saying that the local zookeeper is warning
everyone that a lion escaped from the zoo last night and might be roaming our streets,
and my friend asks me whether I think this is true.
Now I could respond, well I guess it probably is.
I suppose the newspaper editor sent a reporter, who did some checking on the story before
it was printed, and this kind of response is what Aquinas calls opinion.
I affirm the statement, but with a qualification.
I think it's likely true, but I don't exclude the possibility that it might be false.
But I also might say, well, I'd be surprised if that article were really true.
The newspaper is probably exaggerating the danger just to sell more papers.
Now, this kind of response is what St. Thomas calls doubt.
I negate the proposition, but again with a qualification.
It might be true, but I don't think it is.
Or I could say I know it is true, because I was in my backyard last night and I saw
the lion.
This kind of response is what Aquinas calls certain knowledge, or in Latin, scientia.
It's based either on direct first person experience or on a valid, logical syllogism based on
certain premises.
I affirm a proposition without qualification, because I know it to be true.
Finally, I could say I know the zookeeper, and yes, I do believe him when he says this.
This is natural belief.
Now, it isn't yet an act of supernatural faith, like our faith in God, but it is a reasonable
thing to do, to believe another person.
I assent to the proposition, what the person tells me, without qualification, even though
I don't have knowledge myself about the lion having escaped from the zoo.
Instead, I accept this as true based on the word of another, in this case the zookeeper.
On Aquinas' account then, believing is not principally an inner conviction, and even
less is it a feeling.
It really involves coming into contact with a truth, coming to have the truth in our minds,
even though we haven't directly seen or verified the proof of the statement.
This kind of belief is eminently rational, and we all do it all the time.
Students rightly believe what scientists tell them about the experiments that have generated
contemporary scientific conclusions.
It would be unreasonable for a chemistry student to verify every experiment in his chemistry
textbook before accepting them.
Such truths are in principle knowable by direct experience--that's true--but some things, even
very important things, are in principle not knowable by direct experience.
So for example, what another person really thinks of you, or whether another person really
loves you.
I can't truly know what you think of me unless you tell me.
And even then, you might just be being nice.
In truth, we all believe all kinds of things all the time.
It would be hard for us to go through life without this kind of natural believing, so
accepting some truth, even though we don't directly see the evidence for it, but rather
because we trust the word of another, this is a very reasonable thing for us to do.
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