Definitions of Faith

by Shawn10538 31 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Gopher

  This faith/belief thing has been bugging me. Here's an interesting distinction I found at "Yahoo answers":

  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060927090759AA5ApFJ

  I believe there is a 20% chance of rain tomorrow. Do I have faith that there is a 20% chance of rain tomorrow?
  
  Generally, beliefs are flexible enough to be stated in terms of probabilities. The word "faith" carries connotations that normally restrict it to beliefs about "black or white" or "all or nothing" propositions.

  So faith is stated in terms of greater certainty than belief. That does not make it more valid, except in the mind of the one holding the thought.
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  Shawn10538

  I think Emy hit on something. If she is right, and also Undecided, then it would only make sense to use the word faith when speaking about the future. You can have faith that something WILL happen, but it doesn't work with matters of doctrine (I believe in God because I have faith.) This statement is completely nonsensical because it is begging the question. The question is WHY do you believe in God. FAITH can never be offered as a reason why you believe in something. It would be the same as saying, I believe in God because I believe in God. This is why it is so frustrating talking with the "faithful." Whenever they don't know why they believe in something, they just "insert F-A-I-T-H where knowledge is lacking. This does not seem like a virtue to me. It seems like a cowrd's (or lazy person's) refuge. It's a HUGE conversation stopper. It ends all debate. It completely derails dialogue. After having introduced the concept of faith, there is no need to seek evidence, support, proof etc.

  For example I was speaking to my student, a fundamentalist Christian, and I asked him how it was that God created light before he created the stars and moon and sun. "That's easy" he said, "Faith!" So, let me get this straight, no matter how ridiculous a statement is in the Bible, it will always be true because you must have faith that it is true because the Bible says you must have faith? This is circular reasoning. The Bible believer already has faith that the Bible is true before he even reads Gen. 1:1. His belief has nothing whatsoever tio do with whether the contents of the Bible are verifiable facts. Historically, this is exactly how the faithful have believed. The world isflat? Not a problem for the faithful. The sun stood still in ther sky without scorching the earth? No problem! Just have faith! Problem solved!

  I'm going to start calling "faith abuse" on some of those people.
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  Carmel

  ...faith is believing you have accurately connected the dots...and dots are usually subjecive tidbits that may or may not have positional logicality. carmel
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  John Doe

  Faith is merely a belief that something exists, whether or not empirical evidence supports the belief.
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  Black Sheep

  I describe my father's version of faith as....
  
  Belief in spite of any, and all, evidence to the contrary.
  
  
  Cheers
  
  Chris
• 

  funkyderek

  Shawn10538:

  I'd love to see some definitions for faith that you all can come up with. My suspicion is that there is no such thing as faith and that it is a muddled concept at best, poorly defined and unknown to anyone.

  I concur. I think it's deliberately kept that way so that those with faith can avoid rational arguments against it. Is it belief based on evidence? Not exactly. So the fact that there's no evidence for a particular belief doesn't shake the faith of a believer. Is it believing without evidence? You'd think it must be, but no, if you have faith, you apparently get the evidence or get to understand why you don't need it. Evidence supporting their beliefs (alleged miracles, apparent design in nature) seems to be eagerly used by people of faith whereas a lack of evidence can be easily dismissed as faith doesn't require it. Even negative evidence can be rejected as for the true believer, faith trumps reason.
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  Clam

  To have faith is to believe something to a degree of certainty which exceeds what is warranted by the available evidence.
• 

  t33ap80c

  Hi Shawn,

  What Is "Faith"? "Faith is the assured expectation of thing hoped for,
  the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." Hebrews 11:1, NWT)

  You reasoned, "You don't ‘just know’ the sun is coming up (tomorrow morning). You know it because it has been proven through science that it is there, and the world is spinning, so as long as the world does not stop spinning, we will see the sun ‘rise’ (tomorrow).

  I notice that you are using the exact same reasoning that Paul used in Hebrews 11:1 in his definition of "faith." You both agree that in order to be able to confidently believe in something we have not seen (like the sun rising tomorrow morning) we must have sufficient reliable evidence first. The King James Bible refers to "the evidence of things not seen." The NWT renders it, "the evident demonstration of reality though not beheld." You referred to such evidence as "proven through science."

  The point is that the reason why we can have "the assured expectation" (i.e. "faith") that the sun will come up tomorrow morning is because as far as we know it has always come up every day in the past. In this case there is so much reliable evidence to base such a faith on that we don’t normally think of such a belief as "faith." We just think it is the only reasonable conclusion to come to.

  But according to Hebrews 11:1such a confident belief about something that is expected to happen tomorrow morning is "faith." We can say that we believe that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. But according to the above definition we could also say, "We have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning." Those who know the right evidence will even have faith in the exact time it will begin to rise.

  Such a belief is not based on faith. Rather their faith (i.e. "assured expectation") is based on an understanding of massive amount of established scientific fact or evidence.

  Another example I think of has to do with the astronauts and their space shuttle. They obviously must have "the assured expectation" that they are going to survive their trip. How can they have so much confidence in such a dangerous mission? I’m sure they can list tons of scientific evidence they have based their faith on.

  Later you asked:

  Where is faith needed if there is evidence or even proof available?"

  Paul said that faith is needed only when dealing with things "not seen" and that in order to believe such things there must be "evidence or even proof available" first. Without the evidence or proof then such beliefs will likely lead to disappointment.

  You concluded: "I'm pretty sure no one thinks that belief in the sun requires faith. The sun is observable with more than one of our senses. One does not need faith to believe in the sun."

  Again, according to Hebrews 11:1 "faith" is only necessary to believe in things that cannot be seen. Therefore faith is not necessary for "belief in the sun" because, as you said, "the sun is observable with more than one of our senses." Faith is not necessary to believe that the sun exists or that it came up this morning because we saw it come up this morning. But faith is necessary in order to believe that it will come up tomorrow morning.

  This is the way I understand the faith that Paul was referring to.

  Don Cameron

  P.S. Shawn: Did you see my thank you note for the "then" and "than" lesson you gave me?
• 

  Narkissos

  Just a side note on Hebrews 11:1 -- a text which is easily misunderstood when one ignores or overlooks its particular intellectual context, i.e. Middle-Platonism. In Hebrews earthly phenomena (e.g. the temple and sacrifices) are constantly depicted as shadows, in the sense of imperfect and transitory manifestations of the heavenly, permanent, eternal, divine, ideal realities (cf. Plato's allegory of the cave). Hupostasis is used thrice (1:3; 3:14; 11:1) and always points to the "substance" or "true being" of the heavenly things as manifested in the Son (1:3), grasped by the believers from the beginning to the end (3:14), and received/attested by faith (11:1). If we want to get the author's point we must reverse our usual line of thinking: faith (by Hebrews) is not mere human subjective activity trying to figure out what's happening upstairs (in heaven) or what will happen in the future, but the very manifestation of the eternal/heavenly/divine realities within the transitory human sphere (a bit like the earthly temple is to the heavenly sanctuary). The Protestant tradition of translating hupostasis as sure confidence (cf. the NWT "assured expectation"), which can be traced back to Melanchthon, misses the point. (Cf. the excellent article hupostasis in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. VIII.)
• 

  t33ap80c

  What Hebrews 11:1 Does & Does Not Say

  According to Hebrews 11:1 "faith" is a very confident belief in something that is "not beheld" (NWT) or "not seen" (KJV). And that such confidence or "assured expectation" is based on sufficient reliable "evidence" (KJV) or "the evident demonstration of realities." (NWT).

  But I’ve noticed several definitions on this forum that are quite different…

  Calm:

  To have faith is to believe something to a degree of certainty which exceeds what is warranted by the available evidence . Hebrews 11:1 indicates that there must be some kind of evidence before we can be expected to believe in something we cannot see.

  Black Sheep’s Father:

  "Belief in spite of any, and all, evidence to the contrary." Hebrews 11:1’s definition is the exact opposite. The kind of faith Paul was defining requires evidence that is not contrary to reality. It is belief because "of any and all evidence" not in spite of such evidence.

  John Doe:

  Faith is merely a belief that something exists, whether or not empirical evidence supports the belief. Hebrews 11:1 says that empirical evidence needs to be present before we should 'believe that something exists.'

  Undecided:

  Faith is about like a little child thinking Santa is coming at Christmas. Hebrews 11:1 has to do with "realities." Santa Clause is not a reality. Believing that Jesus is coming requires faith. Believing that Santa Clause is coming requires credulity.

  Emy the Infidel: Faith is believing in something that you know just aint so. Believing the impossible . Hebrews 11:1 says it is believing in something that the available evidence reasonably indicates isso.

  Gopher:

  (In the Bible) it is stated that once you see a thing, faith ends because you have seen it. That sounds correct.

  Shawn:

  Faith seems to be a synonym for several words at the same time: substance, evidence, expectation, demonstration, loyalty, hope and belief. The more you try to really nail down what it is, it just branches off and becomes muddled. Does anyone else out there have a hard time defining faith?

  The way I "nail down" Hebrews 11:1 is to use the NWT's version and break it into two parts:

  1. How one feels when they have faith in something they cannot see: "The assured expectation of things hoped for."
  2. The reason why one can feel so confident is because there is "evident demonstrationof realities though not beheld."

  This has helped me to not "have a hard time defining faith." In my next post I’ll try to show an example of how Paul applied his definition.

  Don Cameron