I think, often, of faith as a kind of "in-process" trust. "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
I see trust as a more mature, graduated faith. The faith has proven true sooo extensively soooo often that it is almost not faith any more--it has a kind of certainty about it that is MORE settled, MORE confident, MORE matter-of-fact.
But, I think they are a lot interchangeable. So, I suppose, in many--most of the areas I noted, trust could be used. I would still see that trust as a kind of faith. One can call one's Faith in God a certainty, a trust--in God's faithfulness--as He IS the ultimate in trustworthiness. . . though He sometimes has interesting twists compared to what we expected would be the resulting package. . . it can take different forms than expected. . . another topic.
About 20 yrs go I was a hard charging Lieutenant of Marines, well-educated, could hold my own intellectually with the best of them, had 5 yrs at a most competitive institute in science and engineering witho only 4-5 hrs of sleep per night continuously for several years. My duties at the time included running alongside junior Marines for several hundred yards parallel to heavy machine gun fire and down range of artillery and tank fire, exposed to essentially to every form of conventional weaponry and then some and could keep a clear head when observing the ground around us peppered with .50 cal fire to grab a handful of Marines and throw them in a ditch to stay safe.
It was a typical day's work and we'd continue for about 4-6 weeks at a time and then get a weekend off. In the evenings, I'd return to a barracks, a single rack in a concrete tilt-wall room and read a little before I fell asleep.
I'd vary my reading literature between history, philosophy, science, mathematics, engineering, architecture, and some religious material, but was basically agnostic to atheist in my beliefs at the time. I had prayed to God and felt I was Christian at age of about 7, but had essentially fallen away or become carnal in many areas since that time, but worldly in many of my views.
In epistemology, there are 6-15 issues which arise regarding the theory of knowledge which have very real and distinct meanings and the variation of emphasis in one or two of these make the difference of entire philosophical systems. These issues include, meaning, truth, justification, memory, logic, belief, psychological certainty, insight, intuition, faith, naming, identity, to mention a few major topics.
One evening as I was contemplating what to read, a simple argument dawned upon me,...how could I consider myself well educated if I hadn't even read the Bible all the way through, and yet I could read Kant, Peirce, and quantum theory. It really seemed a bit lop-sided. So I began reading some Scripture. I noticed how some key passages in Scripture indicated that one was saved by faith and not by works, while another indicated that we are to believe in Him and we would be saved.
Herein I had a simple question.
I understood that secularly, entire philosohphical frameworks cold hinge upon to choice of one of these words, yet here within Scripture, which I trusted at the time was at least time tested by many rigorous matured, devout, studious, followers, seemed to use these terms in a distinct fashion.
So I studied their use a bit, but discovered that regardless, the issue of salvation touched in one case upon faith and seemingly upon belief in another, but I knew there was discernable differences between the two, but didn't understand the difference. So I mad a very simple prayer (be careful, the simple prayers somehow seem to be the ones that get answered and for some reason I always get my ass kicked when they do, but out of well-deserved divine discipline I might add).
I prayed simply, after confessing my sins, through Christ, that if it was His will, for me to be shown the difference between faith and belief.
Oh, how little I knew at the time.
About a week later, maybe several nights later, I was in bed, just finished Wittenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and remember thinking to myself that Austin's 'private language' was a much better educated and concise rendition of much of Wittenstein's effort, and went to sleep. While asleep, I became conscious that some person seemed to be encroaching upon my room as though a prowler or a thief. I was asleep, but aware yet unable to move or awake. At that moment somebody grabbed my ankle, I awoke, and leapt out of bed.
Upon leaping, I essetially kipped myself up out of bed and turned to stand, but the person in the roon still had a grasp on my ankle as I was hitting the floor with my other leg and I stumbled, nearly falling on my face from being thrown off balance by the grasp. The grasp was similar to that one would feel if somebody wore a rubber Halloween gorilla glove, but with sharp fingernails, almost claw like, extraordinarily strong hand grasp, large, but not body temperature, almost a cold blooded thing.
The grasp sprung free and I was fully awake from within the bed to now standing by the light switch in the room. The room was about 20'x20' adjoined to another parallel room by a restroom with mirror imaging doors into the restroom. I had a small light on in the other room and had immediately leapt from the bed, came out swinging, thinking one of my fellow Lieutenants must have snuck into the room and was messing with me as a practical joke. But when I turned on the light, there was nobody there.
I immediately searched the room. No carpet, two closets, concrete walls, ceiling, and a sink. Doors were solid core, with dead bolts in both rooms. The room I slept in had a door with 2 locks, and no key to them, so access was only by the other room through the bathroom. I searched both rooms quickly simply by walking through and returning to the light switch by the bedroom door.
Sometime about then, I felt I must have been dreaming, yet I distinctly and vividly remembered the grasp of my ankle and the sense I had that somebody had been in my room. I was pinching myself and had was certain I was awake, yet couldn't figure out how this could have happened.
About then, I felt somebody immediately behind me, over my shoulder, as though they were breathing on me. No touch, but a sense as though somebody had invaded your 'private space' or the similar feeling as though you're in the kitchen with an open cupboard door near the back of your head/neck, which you don't touch but the sound or air near your 'private space' sort of reminds you the door is open even though you forgot you had opened the cabinet,...that sort of feeling, except, a great deal of fear and sense of impending danger or threat of something about to strike me loomed.
I turned around to fight the person, yet nobody was there.
Again, I thought to myself, I must be imagining things, this must be some weird sleeping mental state or awakening state where I'm not thinking straight, and I turned again all around just to make sure nothing was there, but calmed myself, that nothing existed.
As I was standing there, once again I felt the same presence, in my private space, and have never been so terrified in my life. I sincerely felt as though something was about to strike me, when I simply blurted out "In the name of Jesus Christ, be gone." Please note, that at that time of my life I wasn't a Bible thumper, agnostic to carnal Christian is about as gracious a description one could attempt to label me if liberally emphasizing any righteousness in me. So this appeal, wasn't with any power I had in mind, it was simply a desparate appeal for help and this in a time of my life when witnessing .50cal rounds pepper the area within feet of me didn't strike fear merely well rational response.
Within a split second of uttering these words, in a simple desparate appeal, the presensce left and I heard a noise in the other room.
(The following is testimony to how carnal and unbelieving I was at the time) I immediately thought to myself,..Ah-Ha , I was right, one of my Lieutenant buddies is messing with me, and I immediately rushed into the other room and blocked the door,..the only route of access or egress.
By this time all lights were on and I was quickly walking darting about to and fro checking behind a sofa and speakers for any indication of trespass and ready to pummel any violator.
I discovered a plaque which had set on my speakers for at least 6 monthes undisturbed, was now sprawled on the floor, explaining the noise I heard on the far side of the room away from the door.
All doors were still dead bolted from the inside and double locked. I searched the area twice, to no avail. I then carefully opened the one door to the outside and blocked the exit corridor so nobody or animal could escape without my observation. It was deadly calm outside, cold enough in the desert air that all ventilation in the building had been sealed, and no footprints in the sand outside.
All this took place in a rather short period of time, to where even without effort, I probably would have observed any theif in the night attempting to leave the vicinity regardless of my perceptions or intuition, yet, I returned and bolted the door again and double checked to make sure the person hadn't doubled back on me.
I rechecked the rooms several times, pinched myself, took a shower to make sure I was awake and then slept with the lights on,...(what the hell, why not.)
Upon closer review, several things dawned on me. First, the distinction between faith and belief. When I evoked the name of Christ, if anything, I probably didn't believe very much about Christianity. I definitely didnt have psychological certainty about Christ. I did however, appeal to His name,...again not in psychological belief, bt rather in a simple faith. There existed and remains in me a basic faith that He is God incarnate, a Perfect Sacrifice. That He is real and does exist. Similar to my typing this response on a computer where I have faith that another person is out there who I am typing this testimonial as an addressee,....although in this faith I see much mire evidence substatiating and bearing further testimony to His (not only existence, but) Sovereignty.
I also consider that the odds of my sensing something, perceiving something, both asleep and awake, and then simply blurting out some sound, yet physical objects moved within a split second of that response in another room, without proximate explicable cause other than the existence of another person,...the odds of that simply being happenstance seem much further removed than the acceptance of the existence of some other person in that room with me that night.
Remarkably, if such a person existed, the behavior observed, perceived, and exhibited is remarkably consistant with that described by many others as that of either a fallen angel or power or principality, which if so powerful, still immediately responded to the name of Jesus Christ.
I find it much more plausible that any man in that situation who fails to acknowledge God, to be more heinous than one who would simply humble themselves and at least get a clue that maybe, just maybe... God exists. Quite a bit more can be said about this and I recognize that there isn't any evidence I can provide to show any third man that this happened,..but then again, this is merely what I described it to be,...a simple testimonial. A funny thing about how heinous I am,....you see,...and this is so true of so many men scarred in our lack of faith in Him,...I still will approach this issue from a point of view of trying to be 'scientific' or to evidence and fully describe what occurred, when quite truthfully, it really doesn;t matter. What mattered is and was for us all, all persons, man and otherwise, to follow His will and not our own. All else is vanity.