Posted on 01/31/2014 2:06:06 PM PST by James R. Aist
Several years ago I heard someone make the statement that "To help someone accept Christ, just show them that they already use faith in their everyday life, and explain to them that all they have to do is use the same faith to believe in Jesus." Well, I didn't know why at first, but that statement just didn't seem to ring true, especially in light of what the Bible actually says about faith. So, I began to search it out more carefully, and that's how I came to realize that there are actually two kinds of faith, and that they are really very different.
(Excerpt) Read more at ipost.christianpost.com ...
This thread is not about evidence for God’s existence. It’s about how to define the word faith.
All atheist/agnostic argumentation has defined faith as belief without evidence. It is the most prominent reason for their choice of agnosticism/atheism.
If atheists/agnostics are confident that their answer to the question of God’s existence is the best answer, then they will necessarily have confidence in their own reasoning.
If however they have lost confidence in use of the term faith to mean “belief without evidence,” and if they are interested in truth more than in saving face, then they should come to terms with it.
Right, and I think that the word faith has been overused by religious apologists to the point that it has been rendered meaningless. If faith is going to describe everything from belief in turning an ignition key to theism, and that faith in Jim Jones and faith in electromagnetism are the same thing, then faith can literally mean anything. A word that can mean anything means nothing in a discussion.
If however they have lost confidence in use of the term faith to mean “belief without evidence,” and if they are interested in truth more than in saving face, then they should come to terms with it.
I see no evidence that the definition of the word faith has any bearing whatsoever on the arguments of either side. You seem to have glommed onto this superfluous argument and run with it. As you can plainly see in above posts, a discussion about theism almost instantly turned into a discussion of evidence. Every argument I've seen between theism and non-theism at some point turned into an evidentiary discussion, so however the word faith is defined is completely irrelevant.
If God doesn’t exist, then you’re right—faith in the engine ignition involves prior experience while faith in God does not. But the only way to conclude that these two faiths are different is first to establish that God doesn’t exist.
But if God does exist, then faith in God and faith in the ignition are the same kind of thing. That is, all experience has to do with God because God created everything. So faith in God comes from experiencing God and faith in the behavior of material objects comes from experiencing them.
So to solve the problem of this thread, we have to know which is the correct initial premise. The premise that God exists or the premise that God doesn’t exist. In order to know which premise to accept, we have to establish whether or not God exists.
Faith- defined. Faith is an action or a readiness to act based on the confidence one has in the object of their belief. It is primarily a verb.
Not a human work, but it is the work of God the Father.
Joh 6:29 (29) Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Same word is used for faith and belief.
From a secular perspective, faith is rarely understood and frequently misidentified as a dual of knowledge.
Secular epistemology hinges about 10 words expressing very different concepts of Knowledge:
Faith,
Truth,
Naming / Identification,
Meaning,
Justification,
Intuition / Understanding,
Belief / (Psychological) Certainty,
Perception,
Logic,
Memory.
Secular definitions of knowledge tend to follow something such as, “a soundly justified true belief”.
In Christianity, two different passages describe salvation and how one is saved. John3:16 and Eph 2:8-9
Joh 3:16-18
(16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
(18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Eph 2:8-9
(8) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
(9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.
In the Greek, the words translated as faith and believe are the same word. This may help is better understanding its meaning.
Knowledge in Biblical Greek, is discernible from secular studies, because the source is more authoritative. The veracity of God is immutable, whereas the secular man-made definition assumes our ability to discern truth.
An additional element in God given faith involves perception.
The anthropology of man in the New Testament is trichotomous: Body, Soul, and Spirit.
Each have a system of perception. The Body has 5 senses of perception, also a basis of Empiricism. The soul has a system of perception as a basis for Rationalism. Faith is the system of perception of the human spirit of the spiritual domain.
Things which are spiritual are spiritually discerned, but unbelievers do not have a living spirit until they have faith in Christ. They are dead to spiritual things. Spiritual language to the unbeliever is foolishness, because they lack the faculties to spiritually perceive. This doesn’t make the spiritual domain any less real, nor its consequences upon us.
On the contrary, faith is the beginning of true knowledge, far exceeding the limited perspectives of Empiricism and Rationalism. Believers will place priority on faith, over empiricism of rationalism, because the latter 2 systems of perception allow many spiritual errors resulting in death, but understanding life requires all three, with faith being sufficient for all things which we have been created to perform.
Until one understands faith, their grasp of knowledge is sophomoric at best.
Good description.
If man were to establish God exists, He wouldn't be God.
If God exists, and He does, His existence is not dependent upon us, nor our establishment, but instead we are dependent upon Him.
Such is an ignorant knowledge.
Ignoring the only system of perception for a domain imperceivable to empiricism or rationalism, but which may directly effect the body and soul renders the advocate,...ignorant.
Great post. Thanks.
Well good luck with that.
Which god are you going to start with? The God of Abraham or Odin?
Let me restate what I meant in that sentence: In order to know which premise to accept, we must first know which premise is true.
Our language can illustrate only within the context of human understanding. When we speak to those who don’t have knowledge of God, it becomes necessary to paint the picture as they see it.
From what I can tell, language is the substance of rationalism. Our language, which can do nothing more than impart information, is not the same as God’s language which sets the stars in their place in the heavens.
The only God who has given evidence of his existence, the God who became human and died for us on the cross to be raised in the flesh on the third day in fulfillment of scripture.
Once again, the word faith is irrelevant, and we're back to arguing evidence.
Nonsense! You are looking at faith as a blind leap into the dark. Let me paint a picture for you.
At first glance the Christian faith may give the appearance of a blind leap into the dark, but in reality ii is based on evidence, HISTORICAL EVIDENCE, and one cannot come to a saving knowledge of the Christian's God, without that evidence being introduced into the picture.
God's grace first opens our heart to His message. Then Christians present some of the evidence to the unbeliever over time, and it may be that it takes hundreds of witnesses to get their attention. Then the unbelievr has the responsibility for examing the evidence. That is how faith is built.
OK, fine. I'll let you take that up with the Dictionary committee; I don't care.
Can you please let the world know the English language word that describes "belief without evidence"? What is that word?
Some of the most evil people I have ever known and read about would be considered 'intelligent'. And I am not referencing Einstein or anyone in particular, just my observations. Common sense tells me if God gave the instruction to build a spacecraft He would give His specifications.
So where is Einstein now?
I previously stated, "Faith is an action or a readiness to act based on the confidence one has in the object of their belief. It is primarily a verb."
You can go to your English dictionary if you wish. However, I'm a theologian, and it's my job to paint a picture as to how God defines Biblical faith. Maybe your definition of faith does not have an object or the need for confidence in that object, which puzzles me. That said, how can one have confidence in nothing? Is that what science teaches you?
That's fine. My point was that to very religious people, faith has a strong evidentiary component.
I see the word in these discussions to be relatively useless. If you're going to be arguing with non-believers and people of other religions, they're not going to agree with you on the definition of faith, and it seems to make more sense to jump to evidence, instead of trying to convince others that faith in gravity and faith in the inerrancy of the Bible are the same thing.
He's dead.
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