Generally, faith is an intellectual act (habit) by which one
(i) gives intellectual assent, (Knowledge)
(ii) prompted by the will out of trust, (Trust)
(iii) for the sake of acquiring some good, (Virtue)
(iv) to propositions that are not themselves evident or intellectually compelling to one, but that one sees as being communicated as truths by someone who is in a position to know.
In Religion and the Knowledge of God, Gustave Weigel noted that Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles proposes explicitly that:
· Things not knowable by natural reason left to itself are known by faith, which gives us information beyond the capacities of natural reason.
· Hence it is that God in his mercy has told us many things so that by faith we can quickly and securely get the trust.
· In this catalogue Thomas used to approaches to arrive at the reality of God. That is, by faith and the other one is the natural use of the reason. (P. 121-122)
The primacy of faith is maintained, and the reason for it is that faith is more perfect than natural reason. Hence, given faith, we have a guide for natural reason, pointing out to it fields of investigation and guiding it in those fields.
The skeptics' bias against God and miracles is like a chair missing a leg and they still put their faith in it. But when we put them to the test like we have today, their skepticism and conclusions don't hold them up. To put our faith in something that has been proven to not hold up under pressure is foolish. In contrast, when we look at the abundant evidence available to us we have every reason, every right to believe in God. Faith is therefore a commitment in the face of uncertainty: and the greater that uncertainty, the greater the faith that is demanded. The greatest faith of all is belief in the impossible and that is exactly how Kierkegaard saw the Christian faith. Christianity, he argued, is a paradox and 'absurd' in its claims of God becoming Man. To believe therefore in this absurd God requires a monumental act of will, a passionate commitment, a leap of faith.
William James, the American Pragmatist, was deeply interested in the practical effects of faith and religious experience. Pragmatism is a school of thought that argues that the truth of a belief should derive from the tangible difference it makes to our lives – the measure of truth, James liked to say, is its 'cash value' or practical payoff. If a person adopts a belief, and that belief proves useful, helpful and productive, then in the Pragmatist's sense it becomes 'true'. Understood in these terms, there may well be a real value to religious faith that is not diminished by uncertainty about its rational claims.
Zane Hodges defines faith in his response to the Lordship Salvation as “firm conviction, “childlike trust,” an “act of appropriation” of the truth of the gospel, and an “act of trust.” Absolutely Free! 31
Many theologians have attempted to compartmentalize faith into intellectual, emotional, and volitional elements. For example, Demarest contends that:
Faith . . . involves an intellectual element—knowledge of the Gospel, an emotional element—feeling the sufficiency of Christ’s grace, and a voluntary element—trusting Christ as Savior and Lord.--- The Cross and Salvation, 249.
We may read or hear of “The Hindu Faith,” an individual’s faith in God, faith in one’s country, faith in one’s physician, and faith in a body of teachings. Underlying all these usages is an attitude of trust. “The Hindu Faith” refers to the religious teachings and practices trusted by millions of people of India for nearly four thousand years. Moses’ faith in God refers to his personal trust in God. Patriotic faith means the allegiance or loyalty to one’s country. Faith in a physician denotes confidence in the doctor’s professional judgments. Faith in teachings (also called doctrines) signifies agreement with particular beliefs. Faith can be primarily a matter of the heart (such as trust in someone), a matter of the mind such as trust in particular beliefs, or a blend of emotional and rational trust in someone or something.
Naive faith is an attitude of trust without justification; faith is present without sufficient experience or explanation. Examples of naive or uninformed faith are (a) trust in mere acquaintances, such that they are unquestioningly loaned your car and (b) trust placed in unexamined teachings. Informed faith is an attitude of trust justified by adequate experience and explanation. Examples of informed faith are (a) trust in some friends you know well, such that they are loaned your car confidently and (b) trust in teachings supported by a suitable rationale. Not surprisingly, philosophers prefer informed faith.
The Soliloquies of Augustine (354-430) was written in this vein; the soul searches for God. It desires to know him, as a person knows his friend. The demonstration that God exists is contracted with the knowledge of God. On this view, what the gaining of understanding provides, in so far as it is achieved, is an increasingly informed acquaintance with the one who is, initially trusted in faith.
Schuon noted in Stations of Wisdom that Moslem faith embraces in its own way what Christianity calls the “theological virtues”, as also virtue in action, for acts of virtue are then being connected with faith in the sense that they increase it—in respect of “conviction” or “sincerity”, not in respect of dogmatic “acceptance”—while acts of disobedience diminish it. There is no faith (īmān) without submission (religious submission, islām)—says Abu Hanifah—and no submission without faith”. According to a hadīth, “the most excellent faith is to love him who loves God, to hate him who hates God, to use the tongue ceaselessly in repeating the Name of God, to treat men as you would wish them to treat you and to reject for others what you would reject for yourselves”. Now what makes faith most excellent is virtue (spiritual virtue, ihsān): it is thanks to virtue that faith results in the “knowing” which is “being”, at the “Oneness (or indivisibility) of Reality” (wahdat al-Wujūd).--- Nature and Argument of Faith, P. 12
Taking as his starting point Kierkegaard's concept of 'the infinite qualitative distinction' between man and God, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth has argued that we can never develop knowledge of God through natural theology. That knowledge is disclosed only through revelation. Revelation is God's self-unveiling to humanity – through scripture of course, but for Christians primarily through Jesus Christ and the doctrine of atonement. Of course, claims of revelation beg the very question of God's existence: for skeptics, the assertions of the scriptures and particularly the evidence of miracles are not considered reliable. It is also worth noting that there are many religions in the world that offer revelations of eternal truth.
Belief in God, the Religious believers will say is not a matter for abstract intellectual speculation, but rather for personal commitment. It is a matter of faith not of the clever employment of reason.
Faith involves trust. If I’m climbing a mountain and I put my faith in the strength of my rope, then I trust that it will hold me if I should lose my footing and fall, though I cannot be absolutely certain that it will hold me until I put it to the test. For some people faith in God is like faith in the strength of the rope: there is no established proof that God exists and cares for every individual, but the believer trusts that God does indeed exist and lives his or her life accordingly.
To conclude, faith is the conformity of the intelligence and the will to revealed truths: this conformity is either formal alone or else essential, in the sense that the object of faith is a dogmatic form and, behind this, an essence of Truth. Faith is belief when the volitive element predominates over the intellectual; it is knowledge or gnosis when the intellectual element predominates over the volitive. But there are also certitude and fervor, the latter being volitive and the former intellectual: fervor gives belief its spiritual quality; certitude is an intrinsic quality of gnosis. The term “faith” could not mean exclusively belief or fervor, nor exclusively knowledge or certitude; it cannot be said either of belief that it is all that is possible in the way of faith, or of knowledge is not faith at all.
REFERENCE LIST
Demarest, Bruce (1997). The Cross and Salvation. Wheaton: Crossway. 249.
Helm, Paul (1997). Faith and Understanding. Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids. pp 3-18.
Hodges, Zane (1989). Absolutely Free! A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation. Dallas, TX: Grand Rapids: Academie, 31.
Kenny, Anthony (1992). What is Faith? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“Faith”. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus 5th Edition. (2008) Ultimate Reference Suite.
Schuon, Frithjof (1995). “The Nature and Arguments of Faith” in Stations of Wisdom/ www.worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx
Swedenborg, Emmanuel (2009). The Doctrine of Faith. Ed. William Ross Woofenden, Pennsylvania: Swedenborg Foundation
Weigel, Gustave(1961). Religion and the Knowledge of God. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc. p 119-125
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