Q&A: Why Is Implicit Belief Not Belief?
Why Is Implicit Belief Not Belief?
Question
What is the reasoning behind your view that, on the one hand, there is not so much of a problem with philosophical inquiry into faith / belief, since even if we reach the conclusion that there is no God, that basically indicates that a person did not believe to begin with (even before the inquiry). But on the other hand, your view is that belief in God is not sufficient if it exists only in a hidden form, but must also exist in an explicit form. In other words, there is an asymmetry here between belief and heresy.
Answer
I was already asked a similar question here in the past (maybe even one of the columns was devoted to it. I no longer remember at the moment). It’s worth searching, because I discussed it in detail there.
In short, indeed, in my view implicit belief has no value. What counts as a person’s view is what he decides upon explicitly. But here we are talking about error, not the subconscious. The person you described is not a believer even on the conscious level. He is simply living in error and thinks that he believes.