What it Means to Believe” – Sunday, March 16, 1941
Sometimes in our use of word we allow them to acquire means which once they did not have. For example, we have come to look upon the word “belief” wholly as a positive thing. We often speak of a “believing man” as though that were descriptive of one who believes all things right.
Perhaps it has never occurred to some of that a man could be a “believing man” and still believe the wrong things. We may even have assumed that he who has a reputation for believing would necessarily believe in God, in faith and repentance; in immortality, and in good works. But these are all vague terms and shadowy descriptives. They mean only what we allow them to mean in our lives. Beyond asking a man if he believes, there is yet to be asked of him the nature of his belief—what kind of God he believes in; what kind of faith; what he considers to be a good life; what kind of immortality does he anticipate.
To know this is more important that merely believing—anything. To come to a more strict definition of the word “belief”—all men are believing. There is no such thing as an unbeliever. Either a man believes the right things or he believes the wrong things. If he doesn’t believe in God, he believes that there is no God. If he doesn’t believe in the living of a good life, he believes in some other kind of life. If he doesn’t believe in immortality, he believes that this existence is the end of him. Therefore, to say that a man is “believing” is not enough. All men must believe something.
It is one of the essentials of life, of existence itself, that every conscious thinking person must have a set of beliefs. And so, regardless o our traditions, regardless of our prejudices, regardless of any preconceived ideas we may have had, since a man must believe something, the only logical thing for him to do is to search all the days of his life, by study and by prayer and by looking about him, for yet greater and more truth—for those things which he can safely make a part of his belief—things which find harmony with the message of Scripture, the utterances of the prophets, the conclusive findings of the true men of science, and of able and honorable scholars and searchers for truth in every field—things which are in harmony with the Spirit of truth within us. Such things we may safely believe.
March 16, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,604