Faith vs Intuition

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