Written by Kallistos Ware (1934-2022), an English Eastern Orthodox bishop and theologian. This is an excerpt from his book “The Orthodox Way.”
In the [Apostles] Creed we do not say, “I believe that there is a God;” we say, “I believe in one God.” Between belief that and belief in, there is a crucial distinction. It is possible for me to believe that someone or something exists, and yet for this belief to have not practical effect on my life. I can open the telephone directory for Wigan and scan the names recorded on its pages; and, as I read, I am prepared to believe that some (or even most) of these people actually exist. But I know none of them personally, I hae never even visited Wigan, and so my belief that they exist makes no particular difference to me. When, on the other hand, I say to a much-loved friend, “I believe in you,” I am doing far more than expressing a belief that this person exists. “I believe in you” means: I turn to you, I rely upon you, I put my full trust in you, and I hope in you., That is what we are saying to God in the Creed. Faith in God, then, is not at all the same as the kind of logical certainty that we attain in Euclidean geometry. God is not the conclusion to a process of reasoning…To believe in God is not to accept the possibility of his existence because it has been “proved” to us by some theoretical argument, but it is to put our trust in One whom we know and love. Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there…Faith signifies a personal relationship with God.
And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. [Hebrews 11:11]
Pathways Press.com 