The Nature Of Christian Faith
What Is “Faith”?
It is impossible to be a Christian without faith. But what is faith? What does it mean to have faith? Is faith opposed to science?
THESE ARE QUESTIONS OF EXTREME IMPORTANCE
The Bible says “Without, faith it is impossible to please God” - Heb 11:6
There are huge misunderstandings in our world about this topic
There are many ignorant, uneducated, superficial ideas floating around about “Faith”
Both uninformed Christians and uninformed atheists have this naïve idea that faith is “believing things without evidence”
This is false – THIS IS WHAT FAITH IS NOT
Here we are going to answer this question. We are seeking a deep, intelligent, accurate, nuanced understanding of CHRISTIAN FAITH traditionally understood
Topics Covered Here In This Lesson:
What I want to do is correct this. We are going to talk about
- What Faith Really Means - Go through the different true meanings of faith
- Why Faith is a Supernatural Virtue and What That Means
- How A Person Has Faith – where it exists in a person
- The Divisions Of Faith – different ways faith exists
What Faith Really Means
In Scripture and Christian tradition, the word “faith” has many different meanings, for example:
- Having confidence – don’t worry have faith
- Fidelity to a promise – God is faithful to His promises
- “The Faith” – set of beliefs - someone is a convert to “The Faith”
All of these meanings are true, but they aren’t what people mean when we say we believe something “on faith”
“Faith” In A Strict Sense = Believing Something On The Basis Of Authority
You believe something is true because someone who knows more than you has told you
Thinking that something is true because some authority told you
THIS IS A VERY RATIONAL THING TO DO IN GENERAL – we could know very little if we didn’t do that.
