DBT
Contributor
There are some breathtaking attempts at justifying faith being floated.
Here is an example, enjoy:
Quote;
''What then is faith? As a first pass, we should understand faith as simple trust. When we trust, there is always some thing (or person) that we trust. This is to say that faith always has an object. That is, one cannot have faith in some nebulous way. There must be some thing or person one has faith in. So this could be a chair one is considering sitting in. Or one could trust an airplane one is waiting to board. Or one may place one’s trust in a person to whom one is about to say “I do” in a wedding ceremony. The object of one’s faith would be the chair or the airplane or the soon-to-be-if-all-goes-well spouse.
Notice that, on this understanding of faith, faith is not, by itself, a set of beliefs, or a proposition, or even a claim. So an immediate problem with the above caricatures of faith is that they do not place faith in the right sort category. Faith cannot be “belief without evidence” since it is not a belief to begin with. It is a state that may involve beliefs or may be caused by beliefs, although it is not itself a belief. Rather, it is a state of trust.
But we don’t have faith in something from a distance. Faith seems to connote the idea that we trust in action. When we genuinely place our faith in an object, we always venture something. If we trust the safety of the airplane, but we never get on board, then we haven’t really placed our faith in the airplane.
Faith requires not trust from a distance but an entrusting ourselves where we venture or risk ourselves and our wellbeing to some thing or person. To truly place our faith in a chair, we must sit down and risk the chair’s collapsing. Or a much better illustration is the risk one takes when one gets married. A healthy marriage requires us to entrust virtually every area of our lives to our spouse and this opens us up to the deepest hurt when there is betrayal. A toxic marriage is of course one in which there is deep distrust and suspicion. But the marriage will also suffer if one merely trusts from a distance. A healthy marriage requires us to jump in with deep and mutual ventured trust.''
''Everyone has faith, in this sense, insofar as they entrust themselves to someone or something. Again, when we get married, we entrust our feelings, wellbeing, livelihood, possessions, etc., to our spouses. When we fly on an air plane, we entrust ourselves to the aircraft, the pilots, the mechanics who serviced the plane, etc. When we do science, we entrust ourselves to certain methodologies, prior theories and data, and our empirical and mental faculties. There is nothing unique about Christian faith other than the object of that faith.''
Here is an example, enjoy:
Quote;
''What then is faith? As a first pass, we should understand faith as simple trust. When we trust, there is always some thing (or person) that we trust. This is to say that faith always has an object. That is, one cannot have faith in some nebulous way. There must be some thing or person one has faith in. So this could be a chair one is considering sitting in. Or one could trust an airplane one is waiting to board. Or one may place one’s trust in a person to whom one is about to say “I do” in a wedding ceremony. The object of one’s faith would be the chair or the airplane or the soon-to-be-if-all-goes-well spouse.
Notice that, on this understanding of faith, faith is not, by itself, a set of beliefs, or a proposition, or even a claim. So an immediate problem with the above caricatures of faith is that they do not place faith in the right sort category. Faith cannot be “belief without evidence” since it is not a belief to begin with. It is a state that may involve beliefs or may be caused by beliefs, although it is not itself a belief. Rather, it is a state of trust.
But we don’t have faith in something from a distance. Faith seems to connote the idea that we trust in action. When we genuinely place our faith in an object, we always venture something. If we trust the safety of the airplane, but we never get on board, then we haven’t really placed our faith in the airplane.
Faith requires not trust from a distance but an entrusting ourselves where we venture or risk ourselves and our wellbeing to some thing or person. To truly place our faith in a chair, we must sit down and risk the chair’s collapsing. Or a much better illustration is the risk one takes when one gets married. A healthy marriage requires us to entrust virtually every area of our lives to our spouse and this opens us up to the deepest hurt when there is betrayal. A toxic marriage is of course one in which there is deep distrust and suspicion. But the marriage will also suffer if one merely trusts from a distance. A healthy marriage requires us to jump in with deep and mutual ventured trust.''
''Everyone has faith, in this sense, insofar as they entrust themselves to someone or something. Again, when we get married, we entrust our feelings, wellbeing, livelihood, possessions, etc., to our spouses. When we fly on an air plane, we entrust ourselves to the aircraft, the pilots, the mechanics who serviced the plane, etc. When we do science, we entrust ourselves to certain methodologies, prior theories and data, and our empirical and mental faculties. There is nothing unique about Christian faith other than the object of that faith.''