CARL SAGAN was brilliant— it was obvious through popular works like Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and Pale Blue Dot. But it is one of his lesser-known works, Contact, that strikes me personally as the most exciting, luminous, and visionary expression of his genius.
The novel centers around Dr. Eleanor Arroway (played by an excellent Jodie Foster in the movie adaptation), a passionate and gifted scientist who spends her life searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, despite being ridiculed by her colleagues. Finally, her sign comes in the form of a radio signal from the Vega star system, 25 light years away. It pulses a repeating series of 26 prime numbers, something that could not, statistically speaking, happen by chance.
This news shakes the entire world. An international team of the best scientists and government officials is compiled to figure out what’s in the message. Eventually, they discover hidden in the pattern a blueprint for some kind of machine that looks like an extremely advanced transportation device. Though they have no idea what it will do, or where it will go, they spend a few years building it, and get ready to send a team, including Dr. Arroway, in it.
While this is happening, there are all kinds of speculations and ideas about what is going on: who sent the message? Why? Where will it take us? What is the meaning of it? But most of all, there are questions about God. Dr. Arroway is skeptical to the core, though not ready to rule God out completely because “the evidence isn’t in”. All along the way, she argues and debates with religious figures who want to claim her hard-earned data as proof of God. To her, this still isn’t clear enough proof:
“Why isn’t there a monster crucifix hovering over the Earth? Why isn’t the surface of the moon covered with the Ten Commandments? Why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?”
She gets more than she asked for when she travels with her team in the device. The journey takes them through a breathtaking system of wormholes and galaxies; the entire team is stunned to experience what was previously just theoretical and hypothetical. They end at a station, where they finally get to meet with the beings who gave them the message. The extraterrestrials say that they, too, are looking for something: the creators of the wormhole system, even more advanced beings who disappeared a long time ago.
They tell Dr. Arroway of something that astonishes her: if you calculate π far enough, farther than anyone on Earth ever has, the randomly varying numbers will stop and suddenly, there’s just ones and zeroes, before the randomness picks up again. Dr. Arroway, her spine tingling, realizes the implications of this— not only is this another pattern that couldn’t have happened arbitrarily, it is also embedded in mathematics, which means it is built into the fabric of the universe. If true, this would finally be a truly unambiguous sign of our universe having been built with intelligence.
When she gets back to Earth, all of her team remembers the journey but their video is completely garbled and on Earth it looked like the Machine went absolutely nowhere. All evidence of anything happening, other than their own stories, is completely gone. With no way to prove herself, Dr. Arroway focuses on calculating π far out enough, her vision transformed and expanded by her experience:
“This is the only thing that would convince a skeptic. Imagine we find something. It doesn’t have to be tremendously complicated. Just something more orderly than could accumulate by chance that many digits into pi. That’s all we need. Then mathematicians all over the world can find exactly the same pattern or message or whatever it proves to be. Then there are no sectarian divisions. Everybody begins reading the same Scripture. No one could then argue that the key miracle in the religion was some conjurer’s trick, or that later historians had falsified the record, or that it’s just hysteria or delusion or a substitute parent for when we grow up. Everyone would be a believer.”
FAITH AND BELIEF are generally used synonymously. This is unfortunate because faith is actually something that requires significantly more maturity and open-mindedness than belief does; such oversimplification and lack of discernment limits the conversation about spirituality to a very basic level. It also makes faith seem irrelevant, too simple for our increasingly complex times. What is sorely missing but absolutely necessary is an equally sophisticated perspective on religion and spirituality, one that enhances and deepens our notion of faith.
That is exactly what Contact does— it offers a rare look into what a modern, intelligent, and thoughtful version of faith might look like. So, in order to harness the power and relevance of this story, here are three differences between faith and belief that are illustrated by Contact:
1. CHOICE
When we are children, we grow up in a house. It provides us with shelter, roots, comfort, and the community of family; without it, we would be substantially more vulnerable.
The same thing happens with our beliefs. As responsibilities, decisions, and challenges arise, we find that being too open leaves us indecisive, ineffective, and helpless. So, we start choosing certain ideas as rules, even if we aren’t sure of their correctness— these become our beliefs. As we see the world through this filter, we start to build a house for ourselves out of our beliefs. We create a space of things we are okay with, and keep out what we’re aren’t okay with. To some psychologists, this house of beliefs is called your ego, and it gives our inner selves the same benefits that a physical house gives our bodies: safety in a treacherous world, establishment of “self”, avoidance of uncomfortable things, and identification with a group.
Eventually, though, we grow up and become capable enough to leave the house and go out into the world. But, many of us don’t. The house is familiar; the outside world is unknown and big. Even if we do leave, we won’t go far or for long. In doing so, we become afraid of reality, and choose the safety of our beliefs and assumptions instead.
But, inside of us, is a small part that keeps looking outside, keeps wondering what is out there. That small part of us is our faith. And at some point in time, something comes along that calls to it— a knock on the door, a mysterious pull from the other side.
For Dr. Arroway, that knock on the door came in the form of a radio wave pulsing through the computer speakers at 26 prime numbers a beat. When she followed it, opening the door even though she had no idea what was on the other side, she left the safety of what she knew and stepped out into the reality of our universe, the great mystery. It was a true act of faith.
In the words of the philosopher Alan Watts:
“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would ‘lief’ or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go.”
So, then, beliefs are your choices about what reality should be, while faith is about choosing reality, whatever it may be.
2. ENGAGEMENT
Ideally, as we mature as people, our ideas should also grow and adjust with us. However, it’s often easier to just not bother changing our beliefs: making sense of seemingly contradictory or illogical things can be a lot of work, especially when it means you have to change the way you act as a result. Some people, especially religious and atheistic zealots, would rather just put more and more energy into defending their beliefs instead. In the end, though, no matter how worked up they may get, as long as the true hard work of examining things closely and honestly is avoided, this is essentially a form of laziness and passivity.
Faith, on the other hand, cannot happen in a state of passivity. Yes, faith is about letting go, but just like many muscle relaxation exercises ask you to first tense up a muscle in order to specifically relax it, we must first become aware of being closed off to begin with. Awareness can happen in many different ways, from the stillness of meditation to the spiritedness of social activism, but the overall state is one of constant vigilance, brutal self-honesty, and discipline. Unless you yourself have a genuine desire for knowledge and understanding, this kind of a fearless pursuit of knowledge cannot be maintained, much less occur at all. That is why faith requires a deep and personally-driven engagement with truth, a process that A.W. Tozer likens to maintaining a healthy body:
"It is no sin to doubt some things... it may be fatal to believe everything. Faith never means gullibility. Credulity never honors God. The healthy soul, like the healthy blood system, has it's proper proportion of white and red blood cells. The red corpuscles are like faith: they carry the life giving oxygen to every part of the body. The white cells are like discernment: they pounce upon dead and toxic matter and carry it out to the drain. In the healthy heart there must be provision for keeping dead and poisonous matter out of the life stream. This the credulous person never suspects. He is all for ‘faith’”.
This is why God doesn’t ever try to force, push, or pull you out of your house of beliefs. He knows that if you’re not ready, you’ll just give up or run back inside the moment you’re released. Instead, He simply knocks on the door and waits, until you yourself actually rise up, walk over, and answer it. This way He sets up a situation where He calls for you, but you have complete control over whether or not you meet Him. Only then, with this demonstration that you truly want to learn more, will He know that your meeting Him was fully of your own volition and curiosity— and only then, will He take you any further.
Dr. Arroway models this quality of faith perfectly. Even if she didn’t say she had faith in “God”, she was relentless in her constant search for the truth. An incredibly smart woman, she could have taken the easy route, believing in extraterrestrial life but enjoying success by working on more mainstream research. Instead, she endured years of mocking and little funding in order to actively test out, experiment with, and explore her beliefs. She was willing to sacrifice her reputation and time, even though there was a chance she’d never have an answer. When it came time to go into the machine, she again put everything, including her life, on the line to find out if her beliefs were founded or not.
The ultimate test of her faith, though, came at the end. Though Dr. Arroway had spent her whole life being ardently skeptical about God, the moment she had an experience that pointed towards an intelligently-created universe, she immediately accepted and integrated this new perspective. By defending her story and dedicating herself to researching the clue about π, she, again, proved her passion and dedication to truth.
Therefore, while belief can survive on just passive acceptance, faith requires one to have a genuine desire to understand and engage with truth.
3. RESULTS
“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” -- Gerry Spence
In psychology, there’s a term called “core beliefs”:
“Core beliefs are the very essence of how we see ourselves, other people, the world, and the future…[they] are strongly-held, rigid, and inflexible beliefs that are maintained by the tendency to focus on information that supports the belief and ignoring evidence that contradicts it…Even neutral [information is] often interpreted as negative…over the years, this narrow focus gives strength to the belief and [the person] no longer thinks to question it. It is just totally and absolutely accepted. It is not surprising, then, that these types of beliefs are the hardest to shake.” -- Center for Clinical Interventions
Basically, with beliefs, the more we invest in them, the more we just get the same old results. That makes sense, because it would be impossible to learn anything new if you are closed off to it or just looking for things that confirm what you think is right. This is so fundamental to belief that even a belief in skepticism is susceptible to the same issue:
“If you’re only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything. You become a crotchety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) Since major discoveries at the borderlines of science are rare, experiences will tend to confirm your grumpiness. But every now and then a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you’re too resolutely and uncompromisingly skeptical, you’re going to miss (or resent) the transforming discoveries in science, and either way, you will be obstructing understanding and progress. Mere skepticism is not enough.” -- Carl Sagan
When you move towards faith instead of belief, though, things can actually start to change because we are more open-minded and flexible, allowing us to see and experience a markedly wider range of things. This leads to an incredible flow of new information that we could neither receive nor perceive before; like fresh air, it revitalizes us, stimulating and rejuvenating our curiosity, imagination, and spirits. You truly enter into a whole new world, as Dr. Arroway did, and recognize how small and limited your previous one was.
This is the experience of awe, and it is a result of your faith. Dacher Ketlner, a psychology professor at the University of California Berkeley, defines awe as the “feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world”. It is the sheer feeling of being in the presence of a great and terrible beauty that is larger and more perfect than you can ever fathom. It is the overwhelming awareness of being in an entirely new, yet strangely familiar, territory, that all the things you thought you knew are minor in comparison. Dr. Arroway described it as a “profound religious experience [she] can’t prove— [she could] barely fathom it”. Just like a disruptive event makes it impossible for things to continue in their old way and brings about evolution, so does the experience of awe make it impossible for you to accept the old answers anymore, and compels you to search for better ones.
The more you follow this desire, the more your faith will be rewarded with greater wisdom, knowledge and insight into the meaning of things. The truth is not, as many religious people would tell you, that God doesn’t want or need to give you proof. The truth is that there is proof everywhere, in all kinds of forms, but like any kind of information, its recognition depends on the level of the beholder’s understanding.
In Dr. Arroway’s case, venturing out in the device led her to meet the extraterrestrials, which led her to being given an incredible clue in the unexpected form of mathematics. If she had been given that clue before her eye-opening journey, she might not have had enough vision and perspective to see the larger implications and value of its meaning. The more we learn, then, the more we are able to see and comprehend the invisible workings all around us.
In short, while belief only begets the same old, faith is rewarded with new experiences, knowledge, and wisdom.
SO WHEN that call comes, that pull to leave everything you know behind and seek something more, don’t let the fear be all that you hear. Tune back into that small part of you that remains, despite the fear, curious. Feel it hum with the vibration of your desire to understand the answers to your deepest questions. Think of all the possibilities, the dazzling realizations, and the journeys that await you in far away places more amazing than you’ve ever imagined. Remind yourself of God’s fierce love for you as a person of individuality and free will, that He guides with meticulous patience and an unwaveringly steady hand, and that all you need to do is just trust Him enough to open the door.
Do this, and you will be rewarded with the light of a million stars, brighter than anything you’ve ever seen, and you will know the feeling I’ve described here. One taste of awe like that, and, I promise, you’ll be hooked— you’ve made contact, and there’s no going back.