The story of Gideon in Judges 6 provides a narrative for discerning magical thinking from faith. What I love about Gideon’s story in Judges is how it helps me understand where faith and reason can help us break down the magical thinking often bubbling to the surface in Sunday lessons and our lives. Remember from my previous post that magical thinking is the idea that by a grand sacrifice, magical action, or special connection, you can earn special privileges to information or prevent causally unrelated misfortunes to you or others.

Comparing Scientism, Faith, and Magical Thinking Over the years, we have all seen the battle between religion and science, faith and logic, belief and reason, Christian and Atheists, or however it is called in the latest stir-up. These contrived battles between perceived ‘opposites’ put many of us into thought camps that may make us hold on to fallacies much longer than we should. I was raised in a family of faith that wanted to make sure I never succumbed to science’s intellectualism, which has helped me hold on to a few ‘magical beliefs’ much longer than I should have.

The Chosen TV series is framing many attributes of God in such a fantastic way. I especially enjoy Season 1 Episode 6 for how it depicts Christ’s interactions with those around him. The scene starts with Jesus sharing the parable of the importuning widow found in Luke 18 then it builds to the moment where two different characters make a petition of Jesus. The contrast of these three examples of petitioning God provides excellent insight into how we should petition Him.

There are a few of us that would believe outlandish lies. People have differing beliefs on Big Foot’s reality, whether we landed on the moon, or if COVID-19 is a health pandemic. What makes the belief of those concepts different from believing in God the Father? The fascinating relationship between all of these beliefs is humanity’s inability to comprehend rare occurrences. What we often refer to as possible outcomes instead of probable outcomes is hard to imagine.

Our western society has been diverging quickly on the understanding of knowledge. Some feel that it is our personal liberty to know what we want to know and that our individual freedom allows us to ignore experts that have spent a lifetime building up knowledge in a domain. Others argue that all deference must be given to experts and that we are not justified in criticizing experts as our understanding is too limited.

In Romans 3:3, we encounter a bold statement from Paul about God. He says, ‘For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?’ Paul’s question forces all readers of the bible to ask, ‘What is the faith of God?’ A quick search on the internet will leave a searcher wanting concerning any explanation about the ‘faith of God’ because any description of the attributes of God leaves out faith.

Background The simple answer is yes. The more complicated conversation is in how God exercises faith. I hope to use scripture, the Lectures on Faith, and some insightful commentary around the first lecture to discuss how His faith could be applied.1 Lectures on Faith Latter-Day Saint history has a unique interaction with a set of philosophical notes on faith that were developed by early leaders of our church. For a long time, many would say that Joseph Smith was the author.