What is Faith? Part 1

This is a difficult question. 

One of my provocative teacher friends in Dalton recently posted a facebook status...

"Faith - firm belief in something for which there is no proof..."

With this, I disagree. 

In a qualified way.

Now it may be that we are simply working with different definitions of the word faith.  If that is all, I don't want to be nit-picky about words.  I also would not worry so much if he merely meant that something like Christian faith is not provable in the sense that the Pythagorean Theorem is provable.  I would agree that I cannot prove the truth of Christianity to any person such that they will invariably accept it.  God - if he is real - has not revealed himself in such a way as to remove any possibility of any doubt whatsoever.  If that is what is meant, that is cool with me. 

If, instead, my friend means that faith is by definition unreasonable, I would like to register a stronger disagreement.  Perhaps an intended corollary of his statement is that atheism is a priori more reasonable than theism.  I may be hasty in attributing this further corollary to my friend.  But those slippery ellipses are like a siren call to someone all too ready to write a blog entry at the feeblest provocation.  The temptation was too great...

And if the corollary was not intended in his instance, these sentiments are common enough to call for a general response anyway. 

I think it would only be fair if I took a stab at defining faith, too. 

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Faith is trust.  

Okay.  But that is a little vague.  Go a bit farther, please.

Faith is trust in something or someone.

Okay.  Go on.

Faith is believing in something or someone in such a way that you are willing to put your weight on it.  

What does that mean?

It means that you believe this something or someone will come through for you as expected.  You have placed faith in the chair you are sitting in.  

 I am not sure I would label my relationship with the chair as faith.  The chair is real.  I can see it and touch it.  I do not need faith to believe in it.  Faith is about things we can't prove or know or see.

You expect the chair to continue in working order and hold you up, right?

Yes.  I suppose that is so. 

You trust the chair to hold you because in your experience chairs have generally done this.  And maybe even this specific chair has worked for you in the past.  You expect it to work for you again.  

I should hope so.

Exactly.  

Huh?

You have seen the chair, yes, but you have not seen the future.  Your guarantee of the chair not breaking may be reasonable, but is yet to be seen.  You hope it will not break. There is a future-oriented hope to your faith in the chair.  

Fair enough.

This, I would say, is faith.  It contains an element of uncertainty and hope about the future, which is invisible to us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Everyday we lean into an unseen future, placing our practical trust in different things, doing things as best we can.

You seem to have broadened the definition of faith.  In this case, everyone has faith.

I agree.  Faith in different things, yes.  That is what I am saying.  Everyone in the natural course of living must place their trust in things.  Everyone must make decisions and follow a particular course of action or inaction.  If you keep asking why about those particular decisions, you get down to motivation.  And if you drill down, you find what you are leaning on.  Faith is not passive, but active.  You are choosing some terrain to walk... or some place to stay.  And you have placed your faith in that terrain.

This seems to trivialize faith.  By changing the definition, you make it to mean less than it did.  If everybody has it, does it still mean anything?  I still want a way to describe what I see as irrational.  Some people believe things they simply should not believe. 

I agree with that last bit.  Some people do believe in things they should not believe in.  Some people are irrational.  Some beliefs are irrational. 

You say that everyone has faith.  But not everyone is irrational.  So you place faith and rationality in different categories.  You are saying that to have faith does not mean to be irrational, right?  

Right.  It can, but it doesn't have to.  It would not be irrational to trust in your chair.  Placing your faith in the chair is generally a rational decision.  

I do not see trust in my chair as irrational either.  But when people talk about faith, they are usually talking about invisible things, like God.  It seems like believing in something visible and something invisible are very different. 

Yes.  They are not exactly the same.  But the problem I have is with automatically defining faith with irrationality.  Blind faith and faith in something you cannot see are not exactly the same thing.

What is blind faith?

Blind faith would be trusting in something or someone for no good reason.  

So there is a type of faith that isn't blind?

Yes.  There can be well-placed faith, just as there can be poorly-placed faith.  

So you think there can be a well-placed faith or trust in something you cannot see?

Absolutely!

To be continued...