Faith
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For other uses, see Faith (disambiguation).
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levi is a belief, trust, or confidence, not based merely on logic, reason, or empirical data, but based fundamentally on volition often associated with a transpersonal relationship with God, a higher power, a person, elements of nature, and/or a perception of the human race as a whole. Faith can be placed in a person, inanimate object, state of affairs, proposition or body of propositions such as a religious credo.
Faith is distinct from hope in that faith is typically general, rather than specific to an aspect, and in contrast to a "false hope" in a fantasy, the object of faith typically transcends what can be proven scientifically and sometimes exceeds what can be objectively defined. Faith can mean believing unconditionally. It can be acceptance of something that one has been told by one who is considered trustworthy. Faith, by its very nature, requires belief outside of known fact. Faith is formed through instinct, intuition, meditation, communing with nature, prayer, or perceived usefulness of a belief system. The raison d' etre for faith seems to lie in the fact that to some who have attained to a sufficient depth of it, it 'works' in lieu of, or even in addition to, rational reason, logic and science. In other words, faith and reason to some are 'inimical' while, to some others, both work in their respective spheres and in particular sets of circumstances. It is thus that we have scientists on the one hand - including for example top notch ones such as Erwin Schrodinger, Wernher von Braun, Albert Einstein - and religious and spiritual masters, on the other, who hold that faith and reason will both be necessary in order to comprehend reality in all its mystery, since reason is necessarily conditioned by just the four dimensions of space (comprising three dimensions as its elements) and time (one dimension) and as such rational reasoning, or faith, alone can only scratch the surface of reality. Those who understand limitations of reasoning point out that the mere knowledge of the micro organisms and the macro cosmos through science and application of engineering and technology, will never be able to satisfy the deepest urges of human curiosity and wonderment, and even be sufficient for ensuring the survival and thriving of countless species of organic beings.
Contents [show]
1 Context and usage
2 Faith as the basis for human knowledge
3 Religious faith
3.1 Judaism
3.2 Mormonism
3.3 Christianity
3.4 Islam
3.5 Buddhism
3.6 Bahá'í Faith
3.7 Rastafari
4 See also
5 Further reading
5.1 Classic reflections on the nature of faith
5.2 The Reformation view of faith
6 External links
[edit] Context and usage
Although faith has generated many roots in religion, it is not necessarily a religious word and is not exercised solely in God and god alone, but can apply to any situation where judgments are made irrespective of evidence.
Faith in something means to have experience with that something and then, due to this experience, judging and concluding so that you can predict an action of this something in a positive way. So for example a sister may leave the house for university, she returns in three years time to find her sister has not opened her diary which she explicitly asked her not too, even though her sister had every opportunity to open it without her knowledge or consent. The older sister would now have faith in the younger sister, judging by that experience she concludes that she can predict that anything else she trusts with here sister is safe. This is faith.
[edit] Faith as the basis for human knowledge
Many noted philosophers and theologians have espoused the idea that faith is the basis of all knowledge. One example is St. Augustine of Hippo. Known as one of his key contributions to philosophy, the idea of "faith seeking understanding" was set forth by St. Augustine in his statement "Crede, ut intelligas" ("Believe in order that you may understand"). This statement extends beyond the sphere of religion to encompass the totality of knowledge. In essence, faith must be present in order to know anything. In other words, one must assume, believe, or have faith in the credibility of a person, place, thing, or idea in order to have a basis for knowledge.
One illustration of this concept is in the development of knowledge in children. A child typically holds parental teaching as credible, in spite of the child's lack of sufficient research to establish such credibility empirically. That parental teaching, however fallible, becomes a foundation upon which future knowledge is built. The child’s faith in his/her parents teaching is based on a belief in their credibility. Unless/until the child’s belief in their parents’ credibility is superseded by a stronger belief, the parental teaching will serve as a filter through which other teaching must be processed and/or evaluated. Following this line of reasoning, and assuming that children have finite or limited empirical knowledge at birth, it follows that faith is the fundamental basis of all knowledge one has. Even adults attribute their basis of knowledge to so called "authorities" in a given field of study. This is true because one simply does not have the time or resources to evaluate all of his/her knowledge empirically and exhaustively. "Faith" is used instead.
It is sometimes argued that even scientific knowledge is dependent on 'faith' - for example, faith that the researcher responsible for an empirical conclusion is competent, and honest. Indeed, distinguished chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi argued that scientific discovery begins with a scientist's faith that an unknown discovery is possible. Scientific discovery thus requires a passionate commitment to a result that is unknowable at the outset. Polanyi argued that the scientific method is not an objective method removed from man's passion. On the contrary, scientific progress depends primarily on the unique capability of free man to notice and investigate patterns and connections, and on the individual scientist's willingness to commit time and resources to such investigation, which usually must begin before the truth is known or the benefits of the discovery are imagined, let alone understood fully.
Faith by definition is not related to proof. The main focus of faith is trust. It could then be argued that until one possesses all knowledge in totality one will need faith in order to believe an understanding to be correct or incorrect in total affirmation.
Philosopher Descartes sought to challenge this idea in his statement "I think, therefore I am." It has however been argued that even the statement "I think" is based on faith in the existence of a thing called "thought."
[edit] Religious faith
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 though 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 identity, for example a person who identifies himself or herself as a Muslim or a skeptic.
A certain number of religious rationalists, as well as non-religious people, criticize implicit faith as being irrational, and see faith as ignorance of reality: a strong belief in something with no tangible proof, or in spite of opposing evidence. In this view, belief should be restricted to what is directly supportable by logic or evidence and nothing should be believed unless supported by the Scientific method - being itself, ironically, a system of beliefs grounded in faith in positivism. Others say faith is perfectly compatible with and does not necessarily contradict reason.
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 Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that there is adequate historical evidence of their God's existence and 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.
No historical evidence has managed to convince the entirety of the community of historians on earth that any one religion is true. For people in this category, "faith" in a God simply means "belief that one has knowledge of [any particular] God". It is logically impossible that all these different religions with their mutually contradictory beliefs can simultaneously be objectively true. Therefore, most historians with religious beliefs hold others to be "false", or essentially wrong. This is a standard tenet of most religions as well, though there are exceptions. An example of this is some forms of Hinduism, which hold the view that the several different faiths are just aspects of the ultimate truth that the several religions have difficulty describing or understanding. 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.
What is believed concerning God, in other words, is a matter of faith supported - but not replaced by - facts.
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.
