The problem is not that we do not have enough faith, but that we don\u2019t really understand what faith is, and because believers themselves do not understand the concept of faith, and hawk about the wrong ideas of faith it gives ammunition to the doubters, atheists and agnostics.<\/p>\n
So, some people believe that having \u2018faith\u2019 is believing something which they secretly think is a load of codswallop. Somehow or other they have to try very hard to suspend their disbelief and \u2018have faith\u2019 in propositions and stories which everybody really knows are just untrue.<\/p>\n
Others use have \u2018faith\u2019 in the God of the gaps. That is to say, where scientific and historical evidence stop\u2013faith begins. They\u2019re good as long as they can be practical and utilitarian and sensible. Then when all that doesn\u2019t work anymore and they\u2019re confronted with something for which they do not have an explanation, then \u2018faith\u2019 kicks in.<\/p>\n
Then there are the sentimentalists\u2013for them \u2018faith\u2019 is a personal experience. It\u2019s a feeling about what is right. It is the moment when they decided to \u2018trust Jesus\u2019 or \u2018accept Jesus into their heart.\u2019 Their faith is validated, they feel, because they have had a memorable emotional experience of repentance and this was combined with \u2018faith\u2019 in Jesus Christ to save them from their sins.<\/p>\n
For others \u2018faith\u2019 is an intellectual assent to a certain credal proposition. They believe in a certain set of doctrines and moral precepts, and by \u2018believe\u2019 they mean that they believe them to be true or correct or at least the most practical and positive. This kind of \u2018faith\u2019 is a kind of intellectual agreement.<\/p>\n
True faith, however, is something different from all these things, and yet perhaps inclusive of all these things. The man of faith begins with evidence\u2013not lack of evidence. He sees that the world works a certain way. He has particular experiences which give him evidence that he must account for. The religious explanation is the one which he has figured out has the most possibilities of answering the questions that have arisen from the evidence he has gathered and the experiences he has had. He then takes action based on those conclusions, consequently he believes certain things to be true, and on these beliefs and personal experiences he takes action, and begins to live in a certain way. All of this together comprises \u2018faith\u2019.<\/p>\n
The man of faith therefore has certain experiences, believes certain truths, has certain emotions and holds to certain ways of looking at the world, and these things combined enable him to live in a particular way\u2013the way of faith.<\/p>\n
Too often religious people have offered only \u00a0truncated view of faith, and no version of Christianity does this more than Protestantism which offers \u2018salvation by faith alone.\u2019 In this heresy the beliefs and trust and emotions are separated out from the actions which come from faith. The actions don\u2019t matter. But \u2018faith without works is dead.\u2019 The faithful actions that result from the step of faith are what make the faith real and make faith a dynamic and living force\u2013rather than a dead and past event.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The problem is not that we do not have enough faith, but that we don\u2019t really understand what faith is, and because believers themselves do not understand the concept of faith, and hawk about the wrong ideas of faith it gives ammunition to the doubters, atheists and agnostics. So, some people believe that having \u2018faith\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n