Is Faith Just Habit? [View all]

[MineralMan]

We humans do a lot of things out of habit. Once we develop habits, we are relieved of most of the decisions required to carry out actions. We drive out of habit, for example. If you had to actually think about the hundreds of decisions you make on your commute every morning, you'd go nuts.

Watch a pianist or a clarinet player. Through constant practice and repetition, a good player can look at music on a page and make it happen. The actual playing is a habitual action and is done without thinking about the process of producing the notes on the instrument. The interpretation of those notes during a performance does involve choices, but not the movement of the fingers and other parts of the body.

Faith is a similar thing, I think. Beginning as a child, we are taught to believe. We are given explanations of why we should that are understandable by a child. Over the years, those beliefs become habit and our faith is there, without really thinking about it or reasoning about it. Really, that's probably a good thing, since really investigating our beliefs and faith often leads to questioning them. It's easier to have a solid faith in religious matters if you just let it be and don't really think much about it.

Faith is a habit. We have it because we are in the habit of having it. It's easy. We learned it as children. We've practiced it for decades. Faith becomes automatic, just like driving a car down the freeway. We can think about other things as we do it without considering the faith much at all.

Faith doesn't really bear thinking about.