experiences. What results, it is believed, is that the testator’s claim is justified.Reference to other peoples’ experience is indirect testimony. I can testify that since he became a believer Sam has become a better person. Statement of what has happened to the speaker is direct testimony. But it may well be evidence, and in the secondary sense of testimony it is thus also testimony. ‘John has become sober and honest after coming to believe’ is a different kind of evidence from ‘I have become sober and honest after coming to believe.’ If there were no other way of knowing either about Sam or about me, such testimony, the conditions being right. would be sufficient to provide justification for my belief.2 Different Kinds Of Beliefs: The Book Of ActsThe book of Acts in the New Testament provides us with examples of many kinds of beliefs. We may not be aware as we read scriptural writings that understanding them demands several kinds of belief. Some of these are more easily achieved than others and some are not achievable at all by some readers. A typical Christian ‘believer’ will hold the following beliefs and so could preface each of the following propositions with the statement ‘I believe. . . .’ Those marked with an asterisk are amenable to historical assessment. As such they can be verified or falsified empiricially. The others are not amenable to such assessment. That is to say they are beyond historical confirmation.Luke wrote the book of Acts.*Acts was not the first writing Luke composed.*Luke used various sources in writing the book.*Luke’s account is in detail literally true and so trustworthy as a report of actual events. For example, Luke gives a trustworthy account of the day of Pentecost in chapter 2.Peter healed the lame man who came to the Temple by being carried, and left leaping about in his joy.Luke records amazement of the crowds at the healing of the man lame from birth.*The healing was a miracle.The crowds were amazed.Luke knew by report about the conversion of Saul on the way to Damascus.*Luke’s report of this conversion is authentic.*Saul was converted on the way to Damascus.*Luke was a companion of Paul and accompanied him on some journeys.*Paul lived two years in his own house in Rome.*Luke could have written about the last months and the death of Paul, but (as far as we know) he did not.*What is most interesting about these beliefs is that they are not all of the same kind. So, since our task is to analyse what it means to believe, we will distinguish the kinds of belief we have instanced in this list.These beliefs fall into different classes:Belief about historical fact e.g.: about the bookBelief about what the book says took placeBelief about the trustworthiness of the evidence of testimonyBelief in miracle i.e. that the unusual event reported took placeBelief in the possibility of an event which either did not happen or of which we are ignorant.Some of these overlap. For someone who believes that the supernatural can and does intervene in the natural course of events there will be a different assessment of reports about extraordinary events from the one who does not so believe. One will be sceptical about purported testimony to such events. The other will simply accept that testimony. An interesting case is that of the believer who readily accepts reports of miracles within his own religion but is sceptical about those from another religion, even if they are similar. This raises the question about the demands of consistency in the process of evaluation of reports and testimony.The non-believer and the believer would agree about several of the beliefs listed. The ‘non-believer’ would have reservations about several. The beliefs both might agree about are the ones starred on the above list. We may go further and ask whether there could be disagreement about any of the above between believers calling themselves Christian. The one principle all would agree about is that a physical event not considered possible today, for good reasons that can readily be given, could not have happened at any previous time. So people of a different religion have difficulty with reports of miracles claimed within a religious context different from their own. Sometimes this causes them to question the possibility of miracles claimed within their own religious context. If a physical miracle cannot happen now and we can give good reasons for that claim, then it cannot have happened at any time. We know that a lame man is not instantly healed by the mere words of another, that atrophied limbs are not at once made operative, we do not say restored, because, in the case we took as an example, the man was lame from birth. So the believer either does not give the matter thought and takes the account as literally true or, after reflecting on the passage, finds an explanation he can accept but others cannot.
3 Consciousness and BeliefHow many of your beliefs are you conscious of at this moment? Why none at all! Of course, now that the question has been asked you can start recalling one after another till you have an exhaustive list. You can then say, ‘These are my conscious beliefs now.’ But does it seem strange to talk about an unconscious belief?We are interested in the concept of consciousness for two reasons. So we can pursue our discussionin relation to belief: whether to hold a belief I have to be conscious of having it. Must it be explicit to my consciousness? There are related problems, to explain what it means to lack the awareness of a belief/to be aware of a belief.in relation to the possibility of holding contradictory beliefs: lacking awareness of one, or of both, or having awareness of both.in relation to the idea of personal identity. Is identity of consciousness the criterion for identity of the person?What does having the consciousness of a belief, being conscious of a belief, mean? Are either of the following correct?You don’t have to be conscious to have a belief.You don’t have to be conscious of it, to have a belief.We are not conscious of most of the beliefs we have at any given moment, even when we are conscious. To produce such a sentence, we use the word ‘conscious’ in two different ways. There are other ways as well.I am conscious if I am not unconscious, i.e. not under anaesthetic, not suffering the effect of a wallop on the head, not in a dreamless sleep. For example, I have been in a coma. But I have now ‘come round’. So I am conscious. This is the intransitive use of the term.Contrast to this the transitive use of ‘conscious’. This may take various forms, variations of a basic mode, namely ‘I am conscious that . . . .’ I say, ‘I believe that I once lived in Nashville.’ ‘I am conscious that p (‘I once lived in Nashville’). In this case the belief in the proposition is explicit since the content of the proposition is held before my mind and I assent to it. But I can be said to have the belief even when I am not at the moment aware of its specific content, even if I am not now holding it in my consciousness.
What does it mean to believe, say, that Mary was espoused to Joseph? Must the belief be explicit in their consciousness for anyone to say that they believe the proposition? Do I still believe it when I am not thinking about it, when a lot of other things are in my mind, when my concerns of the present have pushed it and many other beliefs out of my conscious thought. Am I a believer when I am asleep?
Take for example, ‘I believe Elizabeth is in the library’. My first level of awareness is of the belief. The belief is explicit in my mind. I am now assenting to the proposition ‘E is in L’. There is also a second level of belief. That occurs when I am aware that I am entertaining this belief. I step back, so to speak, and think of myself thinking my belief. If I express this I will say, ‘I am now aware that I believe that Elizabeth is in the library’. The second level of awareness occurs when e.g. I am aware of my belief that. . . . or when I am aware of my awareness. So, ‘I believe Elizabeth is in the library’, is a first level belief. So, I go looking for her. I walk here and there in the library. Then I reflect on my state of mind and become aware of my belief that Elizabeth is in the library. This is a second level awareness. I am aware that I believe that Elizabeth is in the library. If later I reflect on an act I did not notice at the time, that I walked to the opposite end of the room on the strength of my belief, I am now aware that I may not have been explicitly aware of it then when I was taking significant action at the moment of taking it. Yet I must have been in some sense conscious of taking it, to enable me to have taken it. It was my act, after all. My action is like that of the motorist who avoids an obstacle in the road but at the time is not consciously aware that he is doing so. Such sub-conscious acts sometimes reveal our beliefs, even if while performing those acts the belief that stimulates the act is not then conscious nor the act consciously connected with it. If someone had met me and asked what I was doing rather than say, ‘I am walking in the library’, I would have said, ‘I am looking for Elisabeth’. If he asked, Why? I could then have said, ‘Because I believe she is here, somewhere’, thus appealing to my belief as a reason for my action. I may of course have wanted it to be the case that she is in the building. This might lead to the consequence that, holding fast to my belief, I do not consider the evidence
