As a Christian, we are called to
have faith in God. Unfortunately, as
rational-minded homo sapiens we tend to “Put one and two together.” The danger within putting one and two
together is that it sometimes may not equal to three. I know that may not make sense, but let’s see
what faith and intuition is, and how they relate to each other.
“Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 (Dake, 2012)
Faith is used in the New
Testament (NT) by way of the Greek word pistis.
Although pistis’ roots come from Greek mythology, it was always used in
the NT regarding “faith in God or Christ, or things spiritual.” (Thomas
Nelson, 1999) Pistis was the personification of good faith,
trust and reliability. With much of
Greek mythology having a Roman equivalent, Pistis was no exception with Fides. (Wikipedia
Foundation, Inc., 2013)
You may have heard the phrase “bona fides”, which is Latin and means
good faith; absence of fraud or deceit; the state of being exactly as claims or
appearances indicate. (Dictionary.com) If something or someone is stated to be bona
fide, one could immediately associate a level of trust in that particular thing
or person.
Similar to faith, which one
relies on God, there is intuition, but one relies on a self-determined
reasoning.
intuition:
noun
: a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without
any proof or evidence : a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way
without fully understanding why
:
something that is known or understood without proof or evidence
(Merriam-Webster, 2014)
Constructivism is a paradigm in
psychology that characterizes learning as a process of actively constructing
knowledge. Individuals create meaning
for themselves or make sense of new information by selecting, organizing, and
integrating information with other knowledge, often in the content of social
interactions. Constructivism can occur
in two ways: individual and social. Individual
constructivism is when a person constructs knowledge through cognitive
processes of their own experiences rather than by memorializing facts provided
by others. Social constructivism is when
individuals construct knowledge through an interaction between the knowledge
they bring to a situation and social or cultural exchanges within that content. (Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia, 2014) According to Juan Balbi in his
Post-rationalist developments Article, constructivists therapists believe the
mind is conceived as a passive system that gathers its contents from its
environment and, through the act of knowing, produces a copy of the order of
reality. (Balbi, 208)
Essentially, the mind does not
come to a conclusion without a basis of reasoning. In order for the mind to conclude, it has to
be able to tap into information individual or socially experienced. Once the information is able to be tapped, it
has to be able to be organized and integrated with other knowledge to make
sense of new information. As previously
stated, intuition relies on a self-determined reasoning, which is based on
feeling. Feeling, in psychology, is the
perception of events within the body, closely related to emotion. (Britannica) To rely on intuition is to rely on the
feeling, which is affected by the actively constructed knowledge the mind has
integrated.
The same logic can be applied to
the phrase, “A women’s intuition.” I
dislike the phrase because it denotes the fact that everyone capable of
cognitive thinking has intuition. It
also denotes that the mind is tapping into knowledge experienced combined other
knowledge, and make it seem like one has an uncanny power.
Sorry as I digressed, but
intuition being similar to faith, relies on the known as well as the
unknown. God requires us to have faith
in that He is exactly who He says He is, and will do exactly what He says He
will do. The part that many of us have a
hard time with is not knowing how and when God will do what He has already
promised. When we stop trying to
rationalize who, what, where, when, and how about God, we will experience
everything manifested as they should, at the perfect time.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Probers 3:5 (Dake, 2012) Who or what will you believe in? Will you have faith in God, or rely on your
own intuition? How can we believe in
God, but not trust in Him? It’s like
telling God, “I believe you can do anything, but I don’t trust you will do it.” The widow, who chose to abandon the
preparation of the last meal for herself and her son, to feed Elijah thought
twice about giving this man she had never met the last of her resources. I Kings 17:8-24 (Dake, 2012) It wasn’t until after Elijah stated, “For
thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither
shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the
earth,” and later cried unto God, “I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into
him again,” did the widow say, “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God,
and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.” The widow did not know how, where, or when
God would do as Elijah said, but she had faith.
She did not rely on intuition, which told her to prepare for the last
meal she and her son would eat. She did
what she was told in spite of wanting to do otherwise. Instead of eating one last meal, the widow
and her son, along with Elijah, was able to eat for many more days until it
rained. The significance of the rain is
due to a 3 ½ year drought. As you can
imagine, without rain, there is no vegetation, animals cannot eat, and it
continues all the way to the top of the food chain.
Try to imagine what God will
provide when we rely on faith and not intuition? We are only required to have faith the size
of a mustard seed to do the impossible. Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6
Works Cited
Balbi, J. (208). Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental
and Neuro Sciences. Retrieved March 4, 2014, from crossingdialogues.com:
http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-A08-01-6.pdf
Britannica, E. (n.d.). feeling. Retrieved
March 4, 2014, from britannica.com:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/203754/feeling
Dake, F. J. (2012). The Dake Annotated Referenced
Bible: King James Version. Lawrenceville: Dake Publishing.
Dictionary.com. (n.d.). fides. Retrieved March
4, 2014, from Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Fides
Merriam-Webster. (2014). intuition. Retrieved
March 4, 2014, from m-w.com:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intuition
Thomas Nelson. (1999). Strong's Concise
Concordance & Vine's Concise Dictionary of the Bible. Nashville:
Thomas Nelson.
Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. (2013, April 7). Pistis.
Retrieved March 4, 2014, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2014, March 1). Construct.
Retrieved March 4, 2014, from Developmental Psychology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_psychology