Judaism takes the opposite approach. I first encountered this when I read A.J. Jacob, the secular agnostic journalist who wrote an account of his guinea-pig attempt to live the judaic biblical mandates to a 'T' in his book The Year of Living Biblically.
"Judaism has a slogan:," he writes, "'deed over creed.' There's an emphasis on behavior; follow the rules of the Torah, and you'll eventually come to believe."
Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French philosopher, straddled this divide of creed and deed in his posthumous treatise "Pensees" ('Thoughts') with what is famously known as "Pascal's Wager." In it he proposes:
- God is (exists) or is not.
- A game is being played, where either heads or tails will show up.
- You must wager (it is not optional)
- What is the gain/loss in wagering that God is? (If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing.)
- Wager without hesitation, then, that God is.
These first five articles concern the creed--belief--that determines everything, our eternal trajectory. Reason cannot prove the case for or against the existence of God, so one must wager with belief.
What then, if one is unable to believe? In the sixth and final article, it is deed that takes precedence, in that
"Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness." (III.233)
In Mark 9, a man brings his demon-posesssed son to Jesus. "If you can do anything," the man pleads to Jesus, "take pity on us and help us."
"If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."
Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, 'I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'" (Mk 9:21-24)
What do we see here? We see a tentative faith, one that brings a case before Jesus with the qualifier 'if.' (Contrast this to the encounter with the centurion in Lk 7:7 confident of Jesus' ability to heal his servant, or the bold touching of Jesus' cloak by the hemorrhaging woman in Mk 5:25, confident that if only she would touch him she would be healed). The man is testing his wager ("if you can"), unsure and unable to believe (article 6) until Jesus presses him with the possibilities (gain) of belief.
The man puts his chips down. The deed and the creed are bound up in this peculiar, paradoxical case: the proclamation of belief (creed) is a deliberate act of will (deed)--a wager--that bets his son's life and places it at Jesus' feet. What comes first? Belief? Or the act of believing? He believes, and in doing so every possibility is open to him--including the seemingly impossible task of overcoming unbelief!
Judaism offers an interesting perspective that as a Christian I never really thought about before, that of the importance of deed over creed, that is maybe of some relevance during Lent, and in our lives in general. When we are struggling with belief, when we have crises of faith, is there any value to say worshipping when it feels so inauthentic? Should we pray when we feel we are just going through the motions? Would we be better off abandoning these practices until we regain our genuine sense of belief, or can such practices 'prime the pump' and hold value even when we struggle to maintain belief?
The sacramental nature of Catholicism holds that God's grace is conferred in many ways, but especially so in the sacraments--(def: an outward sign, instituted by Christ, to confer grace. E.g., baptism, confirmation, eucharist, anointing of the sick, etc) and sacramentals (holy water, blessed oil, palm ashes, etc). We live in the material world--we eat and drink, go to the bathroom, have sex, etc. Water for example is not holy in and of itself, but can be made holy. Bread is not holy in and of itself but by God's power can be made to be the flesh of Christ--Christ himself: body, blood, soul, and divinity. God in taking on flesh in the Incarnation bridges the divide between the material and the spiritual; "the Son of God became man, so that man might become God."
In and of themselves sacraments and sacramentals do not constitute belief, but they can aid in the conferral of grace that helps lead to belief, aid us in our journey. Catholicism, then, lends itself to a particularly Pascalian proposition: if you don't believe, try it out as if you did, employing all the tools in the toolbox to build the house of faith. Faith is ultimately a gift from God, but there comes a point when we must put our chips down and place our bets via the will--does He exist, or does he not?
So if you are struggling with belief, pray, and ask for belief as if you believed.
If you are struggling with prayer, pray anyway, for it is in times of dryness and desolation that we learn not to rely on spiritual consolation but trust in God who we cannot see or feel.
If you are struggling to love your spouse, if your marriage is in a bad place, exercise the will to love through your deeds. Even when you don't love your spouse, anymore act as if you do. Clean the house. Make dinner. Be thoughtful. You never know--it may just be enough to prime the pump and get things back on track.
After all...what do you have to lose?
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