The Bible and Dublethink

Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: For as he thinkth in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. (Proverbs 23: 6,7)

Some explanation may be in order to reconcile my metaphysical outlook (I am an anti-anti-realist!) with my view of faith and it's effects on the real world.

Jesus said:

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. (Matthew 12:35)

What we set our mind to becomes the circumstances of our lives. Our state of mind can influence how we act and what is attracted to us, not what realty is. In other words, as Frank Outlaw puts it:

Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character for it will become your destiny.

The Bible tells us that when we do a thing, it has consequences (the principle of reaping and sewing, Galatians 6: 7- 10). This is often more of a psychological phenomenon than the way the world works, but the reality of our health, our finances, friendships, the state of our physical surroundings do change because of how we think. What IS reality is different than how we can change reality.

What of faith? Does faith change reality? If mustard seed faith can "move mountains" (Matthew 18:12) then reality is truly mutable, right? In a metaphysical sense, that is not a necessary conclusion. First of all, I doubt Jesus meant that, if I so chose, I could just think really hard about moving Mt. Hood to, say, Seaside, and it would suddenly appear on the Oregon coast. Faith, if it exists as I understand it, is a power, a real power not in our heads but one which flows through us. It does change reality, but in much the same way that a T.V. remote changes channels. The idea here is that our faith seems to be a tool to change circumstances, our attitudes and our relationship with God, not how reality itself works. I would, probably, still need to get a pretty big dumptruck to start hauling Mt. Hood to the beach. My faith though could still play a pretty big part in the process, by attracting helpers, financiers, equipment and the dogged determination to get this monumental task done.