Faith is the longing for faith, not perception of God’s presence.
Evidence
And in a more general way it has always seemed to me that the nonbeliever strengthens his adversary’s case by his tendency (a properly superstitious one, we might point out) to attribute some unique and specialized, intrinsically other type of psychological or spiritual experience to the believer; and this, even though it is made plain in theological literature from the very outset that faith is to be described essentially as the longing to have faith, that the nature of belief lies not so much in some apprehension of the presence of God as rather of his silence, his absence—in short, that there is basically no real difference between a believer and a nonbeliever in the first place. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 235
Categorization
- XREF: The idea that belief is constituted by divine absence rather than presence resonates with apophatic theology and with Benjamin’s Messianic absence — a strand Jameson weaves through the Frankfurt lineage. — connects to: Faith is a cultivated disposition, not a guarantee of God’s existence. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 439; Believers experience their truths as felt certainty, not testable belief. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 768; Islamic faith is a cultivated habit of obedience, not epistemic belief (+5 more)
- SHARE: This ‘no real difference between believer and nonbeliever’ claim is a perfect provocation to send to a theologian friend.
Broader Connections
- Faith is a cultivated disposition, not a guarantee of God’s existence.
#expands(0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 439 - The totality toward which human reality strives is itself, not a transcendent God.
#expands(0.85) - True believers hold convictions as unquestionable faith, not fallible knowledge
#contradicts(0.80) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 298 - Islamic faith is a cultivated habit of obedience, not epistemic belief
#exemplifies(0.75) - Believers experience their truths as felt certainty, not testable belief.
#qualifies(0.72) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 768 - Bad faith is a form of belief, not a lie or certainty
#expands(0.70) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 315