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Published on Monday, 03 October 2011 00:00

Krista Tippett, on her radio show Krista Tippett on Being, interviewed Rabbi David Hartman.  While listening to it he made a really interesting comment,

I believe philosophy becomes true when it's anchored in the intimacy of your life. I think within the concrete. . .  I remember my students saying to me, "Rabbi Hartman, I want you to know, but don't get upset with me. I became an atheist." I said, "When did you become an atheist?" He said, "Wednesday." "Oh, boy, that's a remarkable thing. What were you Tuesday? You were a believer, right? And what happened on Thursday?" I said, "Is there any difference between the way you lived when you were a believer and when you became an atheist?" And that's the criterion for me.

This quote got me thinking about what it means to believe.  Maybe many of us who claim to believe don't really and many who claim to be atheists aren't.  If I understand Hartman correctly, belief is only belief when it is put into action - when you act upon what you speak.  If we claim to believe in God and follow God's ways, if we pray and read the Bible, but our lives bear no evidence of this whatsoever, can we truly say that we believe?  Are we any different than an atheist?  Hartman may be speaking from a Jewish perspective, but his point is also very Christian.   After all in the Epistle of James, the Bible says, "But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith"(James 2:18) or "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead" (James 2:26).  

I guess what both Hartman and the book of James are saying is that we can't really hold a belief without acting upon it.  We can't have faith without expressing it in action.  We can't believe that God is active in leading us, without following.  We can't believe that we love our children without showing it.  We can't believe in the grace of Jesus Christ has set us free without it somehow showing up in how we live our lives.  

I'm sure there are many who will argue with this position, but I find it quite persuasive.  It certainly challenges me to look at my own life and see what it has to say about what I really believe.  If you were the student of whom Rabbi Hartman speaks, what would your life say about what you believe? Would you essentially have been an atheist all along or would your acts display a trust in a benevolent creator who leads you to love others?