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Belief Plus Knowledge Equals Faith

Updated: Jan 28

The priest at my mother’s funeral in April this year told me after the service as he held my hands in his “Croyez, croyez!”, which means “Believe, believe!” or rather “Have Faith, Have Faith!” Faith gives you courage. Faith makes you whole.


My sponsor told me recently, at all times, to “Stay close to God.”


Belief plus knowledge (in the form of experience) equals Faith. But what does this mean?


Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that “Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.” Faith is a force of Nature which also inhabits the depths of pure consciousness. Albert Einstein wrote “That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.” Faith is a choice: Blaise Pascal wrote that “In Faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't… Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.” Doubt creates misery and as Khalil Gibran wrote “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that Faith is his twin brother.” Why fight? C. S. Lewis wrote “I gave in, and admitted that God was God.” Saint Augustine wrote “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this Faith is to see what you believe.”


Faith is always belief, but belief is not always Faith. Faith must come through the experience of the knowledge of God. That's the reason that in the Bible in Romans 10:17 it says “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.” The amount of Faith that you operate in is directly proportional to the revelation knowledge that you have of God through his word. In the Bible it says in Matthew 21:22 "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have Faith"; in Luke 1:37 it states "For nothing will be impossible with God."; in 2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we walk by Faith, not by sight."; Romans 10:17 "So Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." This is why in healing we seek to increase our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. It is in the silence that we hear the intuitive guidance. For this there must be trust.


For anything significant to happen in your life, in Matthew 6:33, it states "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Faith is the bedrock upon which your new life will be built. Prayer and meditation are the daily direct-dial smartphone to the intuition of your Higher Power. William Wordsworth wrote that “Faith is a passionate intuition.”


In healing and recovery, the two superpowers that turbocharge the healing of your psyche are an unconditionally loving connection and the spiritual experience (or awakening). Pain is just weakness leaving your body. Our world is dysfunctional and Dystopian right now: Helen Keller wrote that “Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.”


So, what are belief, knowledge, experience, and Faith, and how are they all connected? Let me explain...



Albert Einstein wrote that “God always takes the simplest way.” My mission in life is to serve you, like a breath of fresh air, with a gently guiding hand, and to bring simplicity to the complex and profound concepts surrounding a philosophical transformative spiritual solution to your perceived difficulties.


You can believe in something without having Faith, but you cannot have Faith without belief. A belief is something that we think, or accept, is true about the world or that something exists. Beliefs may be held consciously (explicit beliefs) or unconsciously (implicit beliefs). If belief is a bubble, both knowledge and Faith are contained in that bubble. In other words, knowledge and belief are subsets of belief. Beliefs may be true or false. Beliefs may be justified or unjustified. Blaise Pascal wrote that “Belief is a wise wager. Granted that Faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its Truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”


Knowledge is justified true belief and it may be explicit or implicit. The support for justification is classically taken in philosophy as evidence ('a posteriori') or logic ('a priori'). If truth, belief, and justification were bubbles in a Venn diagram, then knowledge is the overlap of all three. Yet there is a third form of support for justification: Direct inner experience - what I will call 'a interiori': What you know to be True as you can feel it. Faith lies inside the belief bubble, outside the justification bubble, and may be true or untrue. Faith is a belief that is not justified by classical philosophical proof, whether it is true or not. Faith is trust or confidence in someone or something. This is why we talk about a ‘leap of Faith’ but not about a ‘leap of belief’. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” Because Faith is not connected to any classical proof, it is resistant to change. Beliefs without justification are the ones that people hang on to the hardest. They are also the ones that are the hardest to adopt. Yet once adopted they become cast in iron like the hinges on a heavy door. People who believe things without justification often think that they have very good reasons for justification, believing that evidence and logic are on their side. This seems true of theists and atheists. Christians often perceive Faith as something entirely positive. If evidence and logic were on their side, they would not need Faith. Yet when Carl Jung was asked if he believed in God, he said that he did not need to believe, saying “I know.” In the Bible in John 20:29 it says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” The most common and persistent reason for people’s spiritual belief and Faith is direct experience. We have evidence of the Universe all around us, but, according to atheists, we have no direct evidence that God made it. Yet we experience the awe and wonder of a tree dancing in the wind, of the starry night sky, in gazing at the inexpressible beauty of thr panorama of the ocean at sunset, of falling in love, of experiencing consciousness as an observer, or of seeing infinity in the petals of a flower. We can also feel God inside us: For me it's a visceral tingling and feeling of total wellbeing. This is the ‘a interiori’ proof. At times the spiritual bliss can almost be overwhelming, but that's because I previously had lived for decades without it. This is no longer the case. I have an ever expanding connection with my Higher Power. Khalil Gibran wrote “Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” Martin Luther wrote that “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's Grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.“


Voltaire said that “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” Reason has its limits and is second to wisdom. Khalil Gibran wrote that “Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the (slow, gauche, and cumbersome) caravan of thinking.” Thomas Aquinas wrote that “To one who has Faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without Faith, no explanation is possible”. Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation. Ravindranath Tagore wrote “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”


Opinions are a view or judgement formed about something, which is not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Everyone has an opinion, and as these are not necessarily true they may be ignored. The media is full of opinion, and very little of it bares any relation to Truth, that's what makes it poison. Opinions are nothing to do with Truth, and that is what makes them opinions. In fact 'opinions' are an anagram of 'in poison'! Delusions are what are held as truth but are actually unjustified and untrue.


Faith involves reliance and trust, and it endures in the face of doubts, whereas belief is simply something we take to be true. Faith never precedes knowledge. Faith is defined as the small fraction of our beliefs that actually meet the scientific standard of evidence. An opinion is something that is only true about your self, like your preference for chocolate ice cream. Opinions should not be allowed to slide into the realm of true facts as they are only opinions. They should never implicate other people into the value judgement. Who are you to judge anyway? This is the domain of projection, that was so clearly expounded by Carl Jung.


Agnosticism means 'without knowledge'.


Spirituality means to have Faith. Having Faith means to have God-consciousness. This means invoking your 'God-Mode'. This is how you go from a state of personal powerlessness to tuning into your limitless real personal Higher Power. For me that is Jesus, as he was simply a great human philosopher who only came from a place of unconditional love. This was his superpower. This is what made him the most memorable and powerful human being who ever lived. Jesus is a supercoach to all who follow him. To quote Michael Hutchence from INXS's classic power song 'Never Tear Us Apart':


"I told you

That we could fly

'Cause we all have wings

But some of us don't know why."


When you take the leap of Faith, you must trust 100 percent that you have wings, that you can fly, and you must know the reason why: The reason why is to give birth to your own saviour: The real you - who the Universe intended for you to be.


Atheism states arrogantly that there is no God, despite all the evidence. Atheists have Faith that there is no God in exactly the same way that those who choose to have Faith that there is a God. Each to their own I guess.


For Albert Einstein, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." He told William Hermanns in an interview that "God is a mystery. But a comprehensible mystery.”


Do you have Faith? Do you have knowledge of God? This means to have experienced his Grace - to have your life and soul touched by God. To see through the lens of unconditional love and to experience miracles and to feel spiritual bliss.


Jesus said, "For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within YOU" in response to the Pharisees asking when the Kingdom of God will come. You feel it don’t you? God doesn’t hide on a mountaintop. He lives in your heart. The Truth of God is in your experience of him. The evidence that God gives you to enable Faith is 'a interiori' direct experience. It results in a monumental character shift, or a complete change in your psyche, that is sufficient to bring about your full recovery and healing to wellbeing. Why don't you give it a try? You will see miracles unfold. Alan Watts wrote “To have Faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” This is surrender. As your Faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit. Seeds of Faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth. Without Faith we are restless, irritable, and discontent. With it we are happy, joyous, and free. I speak from direct experience. Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of Faith. Martin Luther wrote “Pray, and let God worry.” It’s worth a try, don’t you think? Mahatma Gandhi concludes that “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any Faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever... Each one prays to God according to his own light.” Fear and Faith do not live in the same house: Fear knocks at the door, and when Faith answers, there is no one there. You are the light at the door. Michelangelo said “I live and love in God's peculiar light“, and so may you…


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


George Bernard Shaw wrote that “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Are you ready to change your mind?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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