What is Faith?
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Gal. 2:16).
This is one of these questions which challenge our understanding. St Paul distinguishes between faith IN Christ and the faith OF Christ. A superficial emotional understanding considers them the same.
It seems that all a Christian needs is faith yet we don't have it. An Absurd contradiction or something far deeper?
Matthew 17:20, Jesus said, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
What does it all mean? Who knows the difference between the faith OF Christ and faith IN Christ?
Biblical understanding is relative. It can be taken superficially but we are invited to think deeper and discover the meaning it is capable of awakening us to.
Comments (62)
I'm not being critical but obviously you are unaware of the difference between faith IN Christ and the Faith OF Christ. Yet people attack Christianity and faith unaware of this essential distinction.
I understand (religious) "faith" as follows:
[b]n. A dogma consisting in 'mysteries, magic or fairytales' (i.e. just-so Woo-of-the-Gaps stories) the questioning of which more often than not triggers cognitive dissonance & increased anxiety in its adherents (i.e. 'true believers').
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v. To trust - hope - mysteries (e.g. miracles, prophesies) or magic (e.g. spells, curses) or fairytales (e.g. exposing conspiracies) are true in spite of contrary, or without any, evidence, and usually to the degree trusting is (psychologically) easier than distrusting said mysteries, etc.[/b]
@OP -
"Faith of" suggests having trust like another, or, as in the NT context, 'like Jesus'. "Faith in", on the other hand, denotes trusting some 'entity' itself (e.g. Jesus).
Just my two shekels.
You are describing faith IN Christ. But what of the faith OF Christ or the quality the Apostles didn't have but wanted to become capable of.
Paul couldn't have proceeded without that prior incarnation of faith manifested in Christ.
Since you proclaim it as an essential distinction, you must already have some idea as to what that is and not merely proclaim as some mystery one must ponder. Actually the biblical quote is quite clear in its meaning. If there is a mystery, it is the mystery of faith itself.
Why did Jesus say the faith of the centurion was such great faith? Many people have faith in Christ but why is the faith of the Centurion so exceptional? If no one explains it, I'll explain what I believe to be the the difference tomorrow.
Matthew 8:5-13
The Faith of the Centurion
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
Faith OF Christ: His faith in god
Faith IN Christ: Our faith in Christ
The intriguing mystery that needs a solving:
Our faith in Christ was/is/probably will be based on a certain set of miracles Christ performed - feeding five thousand with nothing but a loaf of bread, walking on water, restoring sight to a blind man, and resurrecting from the dead, etc. A good mix of miracles in my humble opinion but it needs mentioning that they wouldn't have convinced a modern person who's got just that right amount of scientific knowledge under faer belt to prevent or delay an inference of divinity.
Add to this the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion that miracles, in and on themselves, don't imply anything divine and Hitchens makes complete sense: imagine yourself, with a couple of hi-tech gadgets, wandering in the Amazon jungle and meeting one of the tribes whose most advanced tech is poison-tipped arrows. I'm willing to bet a considerable sum of money, not that I have any, that you'd be treated as a god when the truth is you aren't.
In essence, and I just realized this, the notion of our faith in Christ doesn't make sense. Miracles = Evidence or at least they were meant to be. It appears that I, probably others too, was/were mistaken all this while. Christianity isn't about faith as I thought; evidence of God was produced in the form of miracles. That's that!
As for Christ's faith in god, I suppose the miracles he performed convinced him too of his own divine nature. In other words, Christ himself was given miraculous evidence of god's existence and faer interest in the affairs of humanity.
In short, faith seems a totally inappropriate concept to attach to Christ, Christians, or Christianity. :chin:
Quoting Tliusin
I agree.
The epistles attributed to Paul never or hardly ever mention any miracle. At least, they do not mention the spectacular miracles of which the Gospels are full. Paul's faith seems to be centered on a personal call from the Christ. And that is enough to believe the absurdities of a religion that reason rejects, according him. Therefore, there seems to be a faith based on an overabundance of miracles and a faith based on inner persuasion. Are they the same faith? That would have to be discussed, but it does not seem to be the issue now. They are the same in that they are beliefs inspired by anti-reason.
Therefore, my definition is clear in the traditional philosophical sense: a belief that is unjustified or even contrary to reason.
To say that faith is trust in something is confusing, because no one would call trust in natural laws 'faith'. Unless it is said metaphorically, by partial similarity.
Some people faithfully go to every match of the local team. The faith that moves mountains consists of arising, taking up one's pick and shovel, and making a start.
Succinct. :up:
Pauline Christanity - 'our faith in Christ's faith' ... :roll: (just as "the bible" is a bronze age anthology of secondary, tertiary, etc hearsay oral-to-written accounts of "divinely revealed" messages (i.e. miracles)).
Quoting unenlightened
Like trusting ... obeying ... submitting ...
Excellent! It's turtles all the way down :grin:
I'm more of a Christian Platonist so the ideas I've learned from Plato and Plotinus also permeate Christianity. Rather than man made Christianity or what Kierkegaard described as Christendom, its origin is top down so must be remembered.
Plato described the human organism as a tripartite soul made up of three distinct parts: appetites or animal needs, spirit, and reason. When they are in balance, a person becomes capable of balanced understanding which my lead to noesis or intuition.
The faith OF Christ is our conscious potential to balance these three parts of ourselves rather than living in opposition where these parts oppose one another and we turn in circles. Plato's chariot describes the efforts of the balanced Man. Of course we don't have this quality of consciousness that can sustain balance. We may have it for a moment and a person gives us a nasty look and we lose it to automatic reactions. Ye human conscious evolution requires a person to become capable of conscious faith. The apostles asked Jesus to increase our faith. Even thou they had faith in Jesus they lacked the quality of consciousness necessary for conscious faith
The faith of the Centurion was considered so high because he was master of himself. His appetites were slave to reason giving their power to act by spiritual energy. The lower parts of his tripartite soul were sick. Jesus gave him the quality of energy necessary to heal and retain balance. Efforts towards Conscious faith provides the means to awaken from being captive to the shadows on the wall in Plato's cave or the darkness of the World in Christianity.
That's one religion... my religion is more pick and shovel.
IYO what does the excerpt from Galatians I posted mean to you? Do you see IN and BY as the same?
I'm a little unusual. My great great grand uncle was an archbishop in the Armenian church and as I understand it, was friendly with Madam Blavtsky so is easy for me to gravitate towards Platonic Christianity. It ansers my questions. I am not the only one as seen in this link.
http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/cp.htm.
Rebirth or being born again is only possible from being born from above. Jesus said he brings a sword. Obviously the great struggle of the human condition is being born from below and born from above. Instead of the lower ruling the higher normal for fallen Man, a person must allow the higher to rule the lower and not be a slave to appetites. This is very difficult since the habits of the lower are very strong.
Even when I read the literal translation it is unclear.
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/galatians/2-16.htm
Through faith Christ or by faith. How can we understand what through means?
John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
A superficial understanding believes through refers to blind belief the body of Jesus. Yet Jesus is referring to the great chain of being in which the level of the being of Man is below the level of the Christ which is between the Christ and the Father. The Christ is the conscious quality between God and Man. The way to the Father is through the level of the Son.
But explain to me why if all a person needs to be a Christian is to have faith in Christ yet the Apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith. Obviously faith is a profound concept the truth of which is beyond superficial understanding
The Bible isn't a historic document but a psychological one. We have to open to the psychology of faith and the difference between emotional and conscious faith
I agree that details can be misunderstood but the New Testament has an essential message that a person can grow to understand by pondering it. The essential message is re-birth: becoming the New Man. It isn't about morality but re-birth. Acquiring the ability to sustain conscious attention which makes conscious faith possible is a beginning.
Even if you are reading the original Greek, you must be an expert in the popular Greek of the time (Koine) to understand certain passages that translators interpret in different ways. That is, even if you are an expert in the language of the Gospels, you must be confronted with different versions in different manuscripts and other experts who translate the same passage in different ways. Sometimes these are important for understanding the message.
The least you can think of is that God chose a very strange way to publish His message. It is as if I were writing this in Aramaic. I think you would have every right to protest or doubt my honesty or intelligence. Since none of them can be doubted in the case of God, all that remains is to manifest, once again, that the Lord's designs are absolutely inscrutable. And to move on to another subject that is intelligible.
Of course, a believer will tell us that he solves the riddle with faith, but he can only explain the solution to those who have the same faith. My option continues to be to greet the believer attentively and move on to another subject. As long as the belief in the believer does not attack me in any way, of course.
Casting my vote here.
Quoting Hippyhead
It is usually said that faith is the motive why people believe and do certain things. However, I can't find any way for people to do things if they don't believe something. For example, they go to church on Sundays because they believe that God commands it. You kill infidels because you think God commands it. Etc.Behind acts that are not reflexes there is always a belief. Specially in the field of religion.
It depends on what you mean by "conscious faith". Can you consciously choose slavery? Is it rational to choose irrationality intentionally? Where does this lead? To the same abyss, I'm afraid.
I think your choice would be understandable as long as it moves in the realm of banality or inevitable choices. But I don't think the choice between believing in God and not believing is inevitable. Nor is it banal.
Sure. People often move away from freedom, let other people decide things for them. Cults work like this. But more mundanely how many people allow media and marketing to determine what they choose to wear. People dislike anxiety, and I do feel empathy for that, and its not just fascist leaders who offer to make decisions for us.
That is a very materialist view. I put my faith in truth and justice without having to believe they exist or prevail. If I lay down my life for my friends without believing it will profit me in the afterlife, that is why it is called the greatest love of man. It is exactly when one's god has forsaken one, that the faithful Jesus is distinguished from his treacherous followers.
Actually, I think rather few church goers believe that God commands that they go. So they make no fuss when governments command that churches be shut for health reasons.
My questions follow:
Quoting David Mo
Faith is general used as a term focusing on religion. But we all make assumptions because they seem to work for us or we don't even notice them and without some kind of scientific or deductive base. Our ideas about parenting, the opposite sex, how to succeed, when we have been rational long enough on an issue, who to avoid, how to determine what we want, when to be on alert, how to solve all sorts of problems that come up where rational analysis would need to much time or there is information overload or we have done it so long intuition is best, and so on. Some people have excellent intuitions, in general or in specific areas. It is rational to allow for that non-rational process to lead to decisions in many areas of life. It would be irrational to make all decisions rationally.
Pardon me if this went far off on a tangent or three.
Like "my language", what does that mean?
That is impossible. The man who chooses to submit to the will of another is doing so freely and weighing the advantages of doing so. The doctor knows more than I do, the master protects me from greater evils, my employer pays me a good salary, etc. If he thinks that by doing so he has lost the use of reason and freedom he is definitely deceiving himself. At any time he can revoke his decision rationally and freely. In other words, reason and freedom are two indispensable elements of the human condition. The believer who chooses the blindness of faith does so because he wants to, even if he then tries to hide this choice and become a slave of his god or his tyrant.
What needs to be discussed is whether there are special circumstances in which it is preferable to renounce reason and freedom. And I am not talking about banal circumstances. Turning irrationality and submission into a life project seems to me to be contemptible.
A hypothesis is not faith. It is something provisional that must be contrasted in experience. No scientist says that a hypothesis is true before it is tested. Faith is blind, by definition. It believes that it is sufficient in itself to proclaim a truth superior to any other.
Written by a technically illiterate person. 1. He says the same thing three times. 2. He does not realize that he just did that. 3. he calls the one and very same thing all these three: the premise, the reasoning and the conclusion. 4. He (the person who originally wrote this passage) does not realize that he is a blockhead.
You are saying nobody has any faith, not even like a grain of mustard seed. No occurrance of moving mountains by saying a few words, and by saying a few words only, has been demonstrated to move mountains. Not even the bible has any passage of this. So the obvious concluson is that nobody has any faith.
The other conclusion is that whoever considers the bible true, is either incapable of rational thought, or else decides not to practice his god-given duty to use his own brain for its originally intended purpose, for crying out loud.
Because the difference is a complete nonsequitor. Come over to my place, move the mountain in front of my house, and I'll change my by your unapproved ways.
I understand what you are saying. You are saying that it is a linguistic nuance, a non-understanding of which is the block that stops the world from becoming Christian.
How many Christians do you know in your immediate circles who never even thought of spotting this distinction, let alone understanding it?
And I really, but really am itching to challenge you to demonstrate that YOU understand the difference, and theh after that demonsrate that your understanding is correct.
One caveat: you are not allowed to use logic, clear thinking of a sound mind, in this endeavour. You have survived and built a huge faith by doing the requirements of the caveat; why stop now? the going is still good, you still are in complete denial of the falsehoods in the bible, so just carry on, and enjoy the ride.
This is a first occurrance of naming size of faith by volume. A person has a faith the size of a mustard seed. The other person has faith of a bucket of water. A third person has the faith of a couple of D-Cups. yet another man has the faith of the Cromaides Supernova.
If you think this is stupid, then the only other interpretation (linguistically valid), is that mustard seeds themselves have faith. Size is not given in this instant, but mustard seeds are potentially capable of moving mountains, and luckly they don't because we haven't taught them how to speak. Once a mustard seed acquires language skills, with its faith it can move mountains with just a few words. Google maps would be exhausted constantly rubbing out mountains from the maps and putting them somewhere else where the mustard seed says it must go. Would be a veritable programming nightmare. But it would be not impossible, and chances are Google would hire enough programmers to adapt to this changing world.
But beyond all this it seems obvious to me that many people prefer even more radical losses of freedom. Being attracted to a Hitler or Stalin or even quite nice versions (a guru who is gentle and nice but does give out the rules). This is a preference. It is a prefence many people have. It is not illogical or logical. It is something they desire. They want someone to make choices for them. Given that want it is logical to find someone. It seems to me you are mixed is and ought. Or really is and value. They have different values from you and from me for that matter. But what one wants one's life to be like in this general way is not illogical. Ants are not less logical than bull elephants because the latter are more individualistic and less collective in their behaviors. And humans vary in their tasts wildly.
Like I already said, it's what I do. Are you asking for an account of my life? It doesn't include a lot of church-going.
Quoting 180 Proof
I haven't noticed people doing a lot of this - especially not Abrahamic religionists. This is Christian theory, maybe, but practice is rather different. My claim here is that faith is practice, not theory. That's my theory and this is my practice.
No person gets out of bed without believing the floor is there and will hold them. In order to test a hypothesis, one needs faith in the things they hold to be true. To challenge core agreements takes faith in the unseen. To get past sensory data running the show, faith is required. We have all seen things that we are forced to justify by some rational means, but this is surely to keep us from going insane. If it applies “here”, it should apply “there”, and due to that very agreement, we apply our will, and move to test our predictions.
Knowledge maintains and solidifies, according to Scripture. They term it “Belief”. Faith is to get one to the Belief that changes things typically Experienced. But if one takes the Experience as the only possible outcome, without trying to believe otherwise, without trying to do the work to reach that Belief, one stays in a sphere of the same controlled system; taught to experience what they experience.
The bigger issue here is when experience is misinterpreted as Truth. We all experience lies daily. But it takes “faith, the substance of things unseen”, to affect change Legally.
Excuse me, but I find your writing rather confusing. You use too many colloquial expressions and it is not easy to follow your arguments.
But, to begin with, you should focus on the subject a little. We were not talking about beliefs in everyday life, but whether science is supported by some kind of faith. If you are talking about science, to say that you have faith in the invisible is to confuse things. Science talks about a multitude of invisible entities: forces, electric charges, protons, etc. What makes them scientific is not that they are visible, but that they are indispensable conditions to explain visible phenomena. Do not confuse visible phenomena with scientific entities.
That is why it can be said that every scientific statement is justified by experience, not that every scientific entity is visible.
What falls outside the field of science is what is not a phenomenon nor can it be part of a theory with predictive power, that is, it has no basis in experience of any kind. This is the case with fairies and cherubs. For different reasons they are excluded by scientific thought. If you want to believe in them you will have to get faith. This is not the case with atoms or magnetic fields. This is no a question of faith but of evidence.
If you are clear about this, we can go on.
No. Predictions are not a matter of will. Prediction is the basis of the scientific method because one can control the facts by means of it . The position of the moon at any given time is predicted and the rocket lands in the Sea of Tranquillity. You cannot predict nor control facts by faith. As has been proved countless times, religious prophecies are either very vague or fail miserably. The scientific method, based on prediction, has had enough success over the centuries to be called knowledge. The failure of prophecy has brought about enough failure that it can be said to be based on illusory thinking.
So much for science. If you object no more we can move on to the thinking of the common man.
Sir, I follow you quite well. I just don't understand how the laws of force and momentum can ever allow for something concrete, when all they seem to offer is a watery perception that changes from person to person? Here, if allowed, I would dare to mention the "sorcery" or "mind control" of popular education, being tested and then reinforced in society via classes and such. Taking the very momentum of belief, and forcing it upon the lesser, thereby determining/forcing a specific outcome.
Now to bring this back to faith, the reason certain writings are so "undefined", is because there is only One Who is meant to decide the manifestation of those things, at that appointed time. On could say that this indeed is the basis of faith. Not needing a determined form until the determined form is brought to manifestation.
Here again though, requires a certain mindset that is not allowed in education systems. The education forces a mindset, that one must indeed go against the grain and fight the fires of the world mind. The hive-mind, if you will. To fight against this mind is a fire. The Truth though, believed, is a Fire, by which to put the fires of the world under subjection. This requires a faith, to reach the belief it takes to overcome the momentum of the hive-mind.
Forgive me for trying to shine some light on an obviously hard to even hear topic. The cognitive dissonance though, is founded on momentum of agreements. The only way to step out of those agreements, to experience something new, requires faith.
I'm sorry to say that I still don't know what you're talking about. The only law of momentum I know says:
It is a law of physics. Sociology has its own laws. I don't know what it has to do with education and social classes.
Quoting PseudoB
It seems to me that you are a bit solipsistic. I mean you carry your own closed line of thought.
If you don't respond to other people's comments this discussion goes nowhere. I'm sorry.
Sir Mo,
let's start one step at a time. What is your core issue with my stream of thought? If you base all your issues with my writing upon a universal understanding of the laws of physics, then I simply contest, with a faith and biblical basis. I'm not saying u have to agree with me either. But a scientific basis for a philosophical conversation can only go as far as the "sphere" allows. I am coming from outside that sphere, and simply pointing out two contrasting views, and foundational points of each, that do seem to cause a divide. A separation. And rightly so. The psychology of man is a simple basis for argument here. Most shrinks would agree that the agreements one holds, determine what a person will say and do, given a specific situation. It's all based on the laws of momentum, applied to things non-physical, being thoughts and agreements with those thoughts. When put in perspective of the media we are constantly bombarded by, with a basic education as a typical education, then one can simply and easily see the chance for possible indoctrination. I'm not saying you have been indoctrinated, but simply that any belief founded on a divided system such as force and potential energy, is doomed to fail, eventually. All of nature backs this up. This is not so easy to accept, due to the cognitive dissonance and the life we have given to lies immediately fending for self. Funny, the bible calls these lying beliefs, "idols". It all begins to make some amazing sense if one is willing to look past the so-called "science" they have been taught, and start to question the more foundational things: How do u experience anything at all? A brain and a nervous system, right? Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin, all sending data to a brain to interpret, right?
So what if Jesus said something that totally dissolves a brain altogether??
Like you, if you're not going to answer my questions, then I will call this conversation over with too, but it does not have to be. I have some extremely wild things that I see, and I can admit that. It took me quite a while to not argue with myself. So I know how hard the path is to reach certain conclusions and accept the validity of them. But if ur basis for argument is science, then I stand on the common sense that force requiring potential energy to become more forceful, is a house divided, and cannot stand the test of time.
So what is faith??
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." -- Hebrews 11:1 KJV
But I can go much, much farther with this line of reasoning than most are willing to hear.
If you wanna destroy "science" with me, I'm happy to entertain the notion.
Are u???
In His healing of the centurion's servant, Jesus told the man to "Go! As you have believed, so be it done unto you".
Now we can easily contest science here, at least as far as how most have been taught. They have been taught to believe a criteria based upon sensory data, when the belief itself determines the sensory data.
Do you see a problem here?
Now comes the issue of momentum of belief, or as is biblically known as "iniquity".... the momentum of lying beliefs. They affect how we experience our world. And it take quite the effort to overthrow these lying beliefs, once believed. Kinda like trying to un-know something. Not so simple. Once we know it, we know it.
That is not to say it cannot be done tho. But then it becomes threatening to societies everywhere, because this "believer" of some "idea", actually stands to restructure the entire lying system.
Therefore, that is why Pilot allowed the Jews to crucify the Master.
Faith is to get us to a belief that changes things.
Excuse me, but you entered the sphere of science when you stated that science is based on faith. I have replied to you about this. If you do not want to pursue this issue, I have no problem. Let's go outside.
Quoting PseudoB
The laws of social psychology - if they exist - are not like the laws of physics. You call the "law of momentum" a simple empirical generalisation : many people are strongly influenced by some (which?) social agents. This is not very precise but we can take it as a starting point. I agree. The churches are a good example. Many people are indoctrinated by them and lose their ability to think for themselves. The priest says "Kill!" and they kill. "Hate X!" and they hate X. MIchel Foucault wrote a very good book on the techniques of indoctrination by confession in the Catholic Church. But the scenes of mass hysteria in other Christian meetings or the killers of Allah are other examples among many others.
Quoting PseudoB
Well, now it seems that you want to enter into biblical exegesis. I don't mind. I know something about it. I suffered from the Church's indoctrination techniques for a few years. But in my readings of the Bible I never found Jesus engaged in "dissolving" brains. If so, what a danger!
Quoting PseudoB
If you are going to take a two thousand year old doctrinal text as an English dictionary we are lost.
At the time of the Epistle to the Hebrews there was no science in the present sense and the author does not seem to know anything about his philosophy of the time. For example, Plato believed that the true reality is invisible but he did not claim by faith but by reason. That is why defining faith as the knowledge of the invisible is neither clear nor distinct.
If you want to take a biblical reference I think Paul is a better reference.
You see: Faith is the knowledge that God gives to believers against the wisdom of reason. Pure irrationality. This has if it means anything.
Quoting PseudoB
I don't want to destroy "science" with you. I will not go into Pauline fanaticism. I think that irrationality is a bad option for man. But I will be glad to discuss abut this with you on the plane of rational arguments. If you come here to indoctrinate with Sunday sermons I am not interested at all.
Faith is a type of belief. Belief means an opinion or idea that is held to be true. Faith is a belief that is not based on rational arguments. It is a pure opinion. These are the usual meanings of the word faith.
If you think that faith is not a belief, define both terms to know where we are going.
Quoting PseudoB
I don't have a problem. You have a problem. Science does not believe in sense data without reason. It uses sense data to predict facts. Belief in sense data is not irrational but is based on the success of the prediction. Your problem is that I have already explained this to you a day ago and you are ignoring my explanation.
Please answer this, and we can continue.
The lights of reason promoted by enlightened philosophers have led to open societies and the doctrine of human rights. What has faith contributed? The wars of religion and the inquisitorial fires. Of course, faith manages to change things... towards intolerance and sectarianism. It would be better if it did not change them.
I find two beliefs trying to coexist, in your attack on faith. Don’t get me wrong, I see the very same inquisition fires and fanatical groups, but on all sides of the coin. To me, there is that which feeds life, and appears to be that which feeds death.
Life grows.
Death consumes, and is never full.
I personally cannot separate faith from science. Any time we place a set of laws on our actions, to reach a specific goal, it’s a science we are seeking. So then I guess I have to retract my desire to “destroy science”.
I am set on the belief of the Bible, and more from common sense than anything. But if looked at as a Science of how to achieve the miracles discussed, along with a path to Heaven, it does seem rational. One “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” finally gets understood as the Mind, a great many miracles become attainable.
That is another word needing defined as well. What is a miracle? A manifestation of Truth in a world full of lying experiences.
If the Bible claims to be the Truth, then our Science should be seeking to reach those goals. Not a Science to “do as thou wilt”.
But again we get sidetracked from our main topic. “What is faith”?
First of all, this “2000 year old doctrinal book”, as you described it, is a compilation of 60 books, from multiple places, having no more communication than horseback delivered messages, traveling through opposition much less restrained than our times, yet still managing to reach the cohesion necessary to be understood and practiced. Different writers had never communicated with others whatsoever. Yet all come together perfectly.
The control tactics of the church buildings of the past are despicable. Yes it gets worse as time goes on. Just because it’s not openly torching people does not mean it’s less extreme measures are less effective.
Let’s separate the buildings from the writings tho. If one claims a faith, it should be in the writings, or founded therein. Not an organization of man.
1Sam. 8 clarifies this issue rather clearly.
Again tho, we are back to “what is faith”?
If as you say, faith and belief are one and the same, then we must indeed trash the entire book that says we can reach these “miracles” by faith, which you say is belief. If that is all the further you choose to search it out, then that is all that you will get.
Faith questions the norm. Just because it is accepted that “what goes up must come down”, Faith challenges that belief.
But it’s what one puts their faith in that matters. Faith in man? Or faith in the Truth? Faith in experience? Or faith in the Truth?
Only by Faith can we reach experience of the Truth, due to the circular problem of basing our truth off of experiences. That is not how the Book says to experience the Truth. So we experience lies, and justify them as Truth. But if we can experience lies, that throws a damaging blow to our science, wouldn’t u say??
If one looks at what helps “life” grow, and what helps “death” grow, the murder of murderers would in fact be “life sustaining”, thereby justifying even the wars in the Bible itself.
Taken out of context tho, this would be used as license to do as thou wilt.
No different than restraining a child from running into traffic. Are u withholding their freedom from them?? Or saving a life?
To wipe out an entire nation, would only be justified by God Alone. Otherwise it is the eugenicists that believe that the whole must be destroyed.
Now if God chose to do so, is He not justified?? How He chooses to do it, using man, or fire from Heaven, or whatever other method, seems to me justified. If “we have nothing that wasn’t given”, as the Bible claims, then that includes our thoughts, and leaves only two sides for their source.
To look past the supposed boundaries of societies, is to ask to be put outside society, and that, most find to be insanity to chase after.
It is a monster to wrestle with. To be looked down on from all of society, simply because you challenge the ways of that society. But to do that, it risks your housing, food, friendships, etc.
That requires Faith.
To begin to dissolve the lying risks.
Force requires potential energy to grow more forceful, right? Are not the risks forcing upon the mind?? And who gives the life to the risks?
You are the PE.
Unless you’re gonna say that the risks are there regardless of whether or not you believe them to be? Now we enter into the hive-mind. Society.
I'm sorry, I'm not interested in hearing sermons.
Hi TheMadFool,
It seems to me as though in your post you claim that the faith that Christians have in Christ is based on a certain set of miracles He performed (such as the ones you mention feeding five thousand with a loaf of bread, etc.) I would like to offer an alternative, however. The notion of faith I have is not one that is based directly from the miracles Christ performed. After all, how could my beliefs be founded directly on evidence I can’t set my eyes to or perceive on my own. But what I (at least myself) claim my faith to be based off is on the testimony of such miracles. I know it sounds even more far-fetched that believing directly on said miracles Christ performed. But I believe this account of faith avoids a common problem of perceiving it as beliefs on the basis of no evidence. But are testimonies not an acceptable means of evidence in court? I believe it is not irrational to have faith in Christ and His person based on testimonies from His time and the miracles He performed. I do not wish to persuade you into believing, of course. But I do aim to offer a more rational understanding on the notion of faith at least some Christians have. If I am not wrong, I believe the hard part of holding a faith in Christ is not necessarily believing in the miracles described, but rather in believing the sources by which we come to know of said miracles. Suppose you were to bear witness to a miracle such as Christ healing a crippled by standing 1 foot away from the act. Such an example, it seems to be (and I would love to hear your thought ?) puts into perspective what is truly hard about having faith in Christ. I personally believe it is harder due to the available sources in which we need to believe in order to have faith in Him, than it is hard due to the surprising miracles we read about in the Bible.
Let me know what you think! Pleasure talking to you.
In no court would an anonymous and contradictory text written hundreds of years ago (it is not very well known when) be admitted as testimony, telling fantastic stories with the obvious purpose of lifting up to the heavens someone we do not know for sure existed.
To believe in the testimony of the gospels is to swim against the tide. Even Christian exegetes recognized long ago (Bultmann, Schweitzer, etc.) that the gospels cannot be taken as historical documents.
If your faith is based on that testimony it has very little basis.
Hi David Mo,
My mistake. I did not intend to claim that testimonies of the Bible written thousands of years ago would be admitted as valid testimony today. I only meant to make a distinction between faith based on miracles and faith based on testimony.
I do not think faith in Christ is dictated merely by the miracles Jesus Christ (well, aside from the resurrection from the cross). Jesus’ interpretation and fulfillment of the Torah is just as good as a reason to believe he is the Messiah. He was responsible for sharing revolutionary ideas about faith and allowed a once considered “unclean” nation to be able to receive salvation from sin. During the passion narrative, Jesus’ words spoken at the Passover dinner are just as important to base faith off of than the miracles he performed. As he shared bread and wine with his close followers, Jesus subverted the remembrance of deliverance from Egypt to the mark of the New Covenant (Mark 14:22). In this act, he predicted that his death would bring a new deliverance to the Gentile nations. That point alone is probably good enough reason to believe that Jesus was not an ordinary person, though it would be difficult to argue Jesus’ divinity without mentioning faith.
It would be curious to look at the other miracles of Jesus’ ministry logically to see if they would still communicate the same message of Jesus’ divinity. Take the feeding of the five thousand for example: It is clearly impossible for any sort of human to duplicate five loaves of bread and two fish to feed an entire mountainside of people. But what if we looked at this scene logically instead of literally? Perhaps the kid who had the food was moved by Jesus’ teaching and prompted him to share his food with others who did not have any. Maybe this could have inspired the other people listening to Jesus’ message to share their own food with others too. In the end, five thousand people would have been fed on that mountainside. Instead of some act of magic performed by Jesus, the people heard the words from Jesus and saw the action of that one faithful kid, which sparked a huge act of kindness and generosity from the others around them. That image of this “miracle” seems a lot more powerful that way to me at least and it still would be able to validate the faith that people had in Jesus, the messiah.
I do not believe that the interpretation of the Torah, nor the extension of faith to the Gentiles, nor the "rationalistic" interpretation of miracles serve to convince anyone of Christ's divinity who is not convinced beforehand. Moreover, it will not even convince anyone that Jesus was an exceptional being. He will first have to convince that Jesus existed and that the facts and sayings attributed to him were not invented by the early Christians. Secondly, he will have to show that these sayings were really original. I think this is an impossible mission. That is why, in discussions with non-believers, Christians always end up showing their faith off, which is something that does not convince anyone.