Believing is Seeing

While I recognize there are better reasons to go to church, one of the things I love the most about daily mass is the short little 2-5 minute homily. It's just enough to give you something to think about without starting to bore you, and let's be honest, during a 30 minute Sunday special, none of us are immune.

All of that is building up to something I heard this past Tuesday. I wish I could properly credit the Priest, but I don't know his name, although he does say mass at the Basilica quite often. The gospel was John 6:30-35, in which the people demand a sign from Jesus in order to believe in him. Who can blame them? It's one thing to tell me that something amazing is happening, but as we all know, "seeing is believing." I remember vividly being woken up on Sept. 11, 2001 by my little brother (I was home sick from school) and I flat-out thought he was lying when he told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center--until I saw it on the news for myself. This mantra of "seeing is believing" is the basis of modern science and law and almost everything else: nothing can be accepted as factual until it is proven clearly and unambiguously.

Yet, Fr. Whats-his-name flipped the expression around, and I'd like to challenge you to try it on. "Believing is Seeing." For so many things, what we perceive as happening is shaped not by what we see, but by what we believe. If an atheist and a Christian (or any other theist, really) get into a discussion about the existence of God, the demand for proof invariably comes up. What a silly thing. The believer's faith in God illuminates everything, so flowers, mountains, a baby's laugh, the kindness of a stranger, even death and suffering are proofs of an omnipotent creator. For the atheist, all of those things mean nothing, and are even proof of a lack of God. In a lighter vein, I have been shown data again and again on how casino games favor the house, but anytime I get the chance, I believe that I will be able to come out a big winner.

On a more practical level, I think that "believing is seeing" has a lot of truth in the context of a relationship. When a man believes that a woman has no affection for him, even the grandest overtures of love from her will seem superficial and meaningless. If, on the other hand, he believes that she loves him, he sees evidence of this love in her subtle gestures, in the way she remembers how he likes his toast and even in her frustrated nagging. And, unlike the casino or God examples above, I would suggest that the believing in this case will have the potential to make it so--even if it were not that way before.

What do you think? Is believing seeing? Or is this way of thinking just self-delusion?