Faith

This article discusses faith in a religious context.

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The word faith has various uses; its central meaning is similar to "belief", "trust" or "confidence", but unlike these terms, "faith" tends to imply a transpersonal rather than interpersonal relationship ? with God or a higher power. The object of faith can be a person (or even an inanimate object or state of affairs) or a proposition (or body of propositions, such as a religious credo). In each case, however, the faithful subject's faith is in an aspect of the object that cannot be rationally proven or objectively known.

Related Topics:
Belief - Trust - Confidence - Transpersonal - Interpersonal - God - Higher power - Proposition - Religious credo - Hope - Action

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In religious contexts, "faith" has several different meanings. Sometimes, it means loyalty to one's religion. It is in the latter sense in which one can speak of, for example, "the Catholic faith" or "the Islamic faith." For creedal religions, faith also means that one accepts the religious tenets of the religion as true. For non-creedal religions, faith often means that one is loyal to a particular religious community. In general, faith means being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see with your physical (as opposed to spiritual) eyes.

Related Topics:
Religion - Catholic faith - Islamic faith - Creed - Religious tenet

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Sometimes, faith means a belief in a relationship with a deity. In this case, "faith" is used in the sense of "fidelity." Such a commitment need not be blind or submissive, although it often shares these types of characteristics. For many Jews, for example, the Hebrew Bible and Talmud depict a committed but contentious relationship between their God and the Children of Israel. For quite a lot of people, faith or the lack thereof, is an important part of their identities. E.g. a person will identify him or herself as a Muslim or a skeptic.

Related Topics:
Deity - Hebrew Bible - Talmud - Identities - Skeptic

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Many religious rationalists, as well as non-religious people, criticise implicit faith as being irrational. In this view, belief should be restricted to what is directly supportable by logic or evidence.

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Sometimes, faith means a belief in the existence of a deity, and can be used to distinguish individual belief in deities from belief in deities within religion. However it can also be used in context of belief in deities within religions. Many Hindus, Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that there is adequate historical evidence of their God's existence and their God's interaction with human beings. As such, they may believe that there is no need for "faith" in God in the sense of belief against or despite evidence; rather, they hold that evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that their God certainly exists, and that particular beliefs, concerning who or what their God is and why this God is to be trusted, are vindicated by evidence and logic. For people in this category, "faith" in a God simply means "belief that one has knowledge of God". It is logically impossible that all these different religions with their mutually contradictory beliefs can simultaneously be true. Therefore the majority of believers have faith in a belief system which is in some ways false, which they have difficulty describing at least. This is disputed though by some religious traditions especially in Hinduism who hold the view that the several different faiths are just aspects of the ultimate truth that the several religions have difficulty to describe and understand. They see the different religions as just different paths to the same goal. This does not explain away all logical contradictions between faiths but these traditions say that all seeming contradictions will be understood once a person has an experience of the Hindu concept of moksha.

Related Topics:
Hindus - Historical evidence - Existence - Interaction - Knowledge - Moksha

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What is believed concerning God, in this sense, is at least in principle only as reliable as the evidence and the logic by which faith is supported.

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Finally, some religious believers ? and many of their critics ? often use the term "faith" as the affirmation of belief without an ongoing test of evidence, and even despite evidence apparently to the contrary. Most Jews, Christians and Muslims admit that whatever particular evidence or reason they may possess that their God exists and is deserving of trust, is not ultimately the basis for their believing. Thus, in this sense faith refers to belief beyond evidence or logical arguments, sometimes called "implicit faith". Another form of this kind of faith is fideism: one ought to believe that God exists, but one should not base that belief on any other beliefs; one should, instead, accept it without any reasons at all. Faith in this sense, grounded simply in the sincerity of faith, belief on the basis of believing, is often associated with Søren Kierkegaard for example, and some other existentialist religious thinkers; his views are presented in Fear and Trembling. William Sloane Coffin counters that faith is not acceptance without proof, but trust without reservation.

Related Topics:
Affirmation - Belief - Test - Evidence - Jew - Christian - Muslim - Logical argument - Fideism - Reason - Søren Kierkegaard - Existentialist - Fear and Trembling - William Sloane Coffin

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