Thoughts on Faith

x

x

You Lucky People, haha, today I have been very busy and am going to bed instead of composing a epistle about my day. However I know that Lisa checks my Blog everyday, so, so as not to disappoint and deprive her of her vicarious life I am posting a teeny tiny portion of one of the assignments I wrote last year. (I got a High Distinction for the whole assignment, by the way! Yes I am Boasting!!)

1.  What in essence is religious faith?

Faith is defined in many ways, for example, Gillespie (1988) and Rasi (1998) suggests that among other things faith is: a set of beliefs, a source or consequence of action, an object, a commitment, an experience, a relationship and a gift.

My personal definition is that ‘faith is the belief that an object will live up to its claims and therefore one can act on this belief with the full assurance that those actions will be successful.’ 

There are two corollaries to this definition, to have faith in an object it is necessary to:

1.    know what claims are made by the object

2.    to test or act on those claims to see if the object is faithful.

Therefore the core around which the faith is constructed is the object in which faith is placed. As Gillespie (1988, p. 24) states “the trustworthiness of the faith object is more significant than the actual experience of faith. The actual presence of faith and its concomitant surety is directly related to the object in which we have faith.” Because, as the object proves itself to be faithful the faith placed in the object increases, conversely if the object proves itself to be faithless the faith placed in the object decreases.

From this we can see that the core of religious faith is the god on whom the religion focuses.  This leads to the understanding that the core of Christian faith is Jesus Christ.

To increase one’s faith in Jesus one therefore needs to do two things:

1.    increase one’s knowledge of Jesus, who He is, what He claimed about Himself, what He has promised, and

2.    to test or act on this knowledge to experience the faithfulness of Jesus.

Given the above discussion it is not surprising that there are so many definitions for faith, as it can be viewed as:

1. a set of beliefs about Christ, His claims, promises, teachings and actions
2. a source of action, because we act, based on the faith that has already been developed
3. a consequence of action, because faith increases when Christ again proves Himself to be faithful
4. an object in that faith is something the individual ‘owns’ or possesses
5. a commitment to a set of beliefs regarding Jesus and His history of dealings with mankind
6. an experience of ‘walking’ by faith, that is testing and acting on the individuals beliefs
7. a relationship with Christ
8. a gift that we receive in the person of Christ ‘the author and finisher of our faith.’ ("The Holy Bible (NASV)," p. Hebrews 12:12)