Jim
Nets of Wonder
Have you seen any answers to that question, in this thread, that you’ve never seen before?
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Faith in God
- Thread starter SalixIncendium
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Jim
Nets of Wonder
Has your question been answered yet? If the question is, why do people believe something sometimes, without thinking that they have any evidence for it other than what someone is telling them, one possible reason I can think of is because they trust what those people are telling them. Another is because they want to. I can’t think of any other reasons.
I’m wondering, is your question really, why do people sometimes trust what some other people are telling them, that you think is false, more than they trust what you think that science is saying? Or maybe, why are your reasons for thinking that their beliefs are false, not as convincing to them as they are to you?
That brings up another question, which may or may not be on topic in this thread. Do you think that anything that anyone calls “faith in God” is false or wrong? If so I’m curious how you think that you can know that what a person is saying is false or wrong, without knowing what they mean by it. If you have some particular meaning of “faith in God” in mind, can you explain what you mean by it?
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ecco
Veteran Member
I have hope that someday reason will eliminate most silly superstitious beliefs.
ecco
Veteran Member
"That day will come". Hmm, it seems I have heard that before.
ecco
Veteran Member
I have faith in reason and education because it opens the door of possibilities.
ecco
Veteran Member
That was a wonderous religious prophecy.
This is the reality.
https://www.historyguy.com/wars_of_lebanon.htm#.XS7_QOhKiUk
Lebanon has a long history of civil conflict involving its competing religious and ethnic factions. These factions include the Maronite Christian minority, who are often in conflict with the Muslim majority. The Muslims are themselves divided between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Shiite Muslim minority. The Druze peoples in the southern mountains form another distinct faction. Added to Lebanon's demographic divisions are the hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Muslim Palestinian refugees who live in permanent refugee settlements.
Lebanon has a long history of civil conflict involving its competing religious and ethnic factions. These factions include the Maronite Christian minority, who are often in conflict with the Muslim majority. The Muslims are themselves divided between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Shiite Muslim minority. The Druze peoples in the southern mountains form another distinct faction. Added to Lebanon's demographic divisions are the hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Muslim Palestinian refugees who live in permanent refugee settlements.
I already cited that lack of love, or nurturing environments have been shown, proven, to tobe detrimental to offspring development. It is well known that psychopathology is both a nature and nurture issue.
Harlow’s Classic Studies Revealed the Importance of Maternal Contact
What's old is still new again.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
One piece of objective evidence that something which is everywhere is most visible somewhere?
Your question, Captain, is . . . highly illogical.
I guess it might depend on what "objective evidence" means to you, but pretty sure your remove from your definition the supernatural.
Spartan
Well-Known Member
Wrong.
You also apparently think the following is something special:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
~ Epicurius (341-270 BC)"
That's nonsense. God destroys evil in the Book of Revelation. And he also casts stiff-necked unbelievers into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 21:8).
Praise the Lord!
Yes, and?
That was a wonderous religious prophecy.
This is the reality.
https://www.historyguy.com/wars_of_lebanon.htm#.XS7_QOhKiUk
Lebanon has a long history of civil conflict involving its competing religious and ethnic factions. These factions include the Maronite Christian minority, who are often in conflict with the Muslim majority. The Muslims are themselves divided between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Shiite Muslim minority. The Druze peoples in the southern mountains form another distinct faction. Added to Lebanon's demographic divisions are the hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Muslim Palestinian refugees who live in permanent refugee settlements.
That shows what you were looking for. It proved the prophecy though. As the glory of Lebanon was taken away and given to Mt Carmel.
Personally I would consider what was the glory of Lebanon, that is now evident on Mt Carmel.
I wish you well in life
Regards Tony
That was a wonderous religious prophecy.
This is the reality.
https://www.historyguy.com/wars_of_lebanon.htm#.XS7_QOhKiUk
Lebanon has a long history of civil conflict involving its competing religious and ethnic factions. These factions include the Maronite Christian minority, who are often in conflict with the Muslim majority. The Muslims are themselves divided between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Shiite Muslim minority. The Druze peoples in the southern mountains form another distinct faction. Added to Lebanon's demographic divisions are the hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Muslim Palestinian refugees who live in permanent refugee settlements.
This is the Glory of Lebanon that is now given to Mt Carmel;
"....Culturally, economically, and geographically, Lebanon is considered an important part of the Arab world and the Middle East. It is the birthplace of the alphabet and has always played the role of cultural junction between East and West beginning with the Roman School of Law of Berytus or old Beirut, up to the American and French schools and universities in 1820 and beyond. Lebanon enjoyed a privileged status in the Ottoman Empire and thus managed to import European trends to the Middle East. For instance, the printing press was imported to Lebanon in 1702 and the production of books printed in Arabic started in the beginning of the nineteenth century promoting an Arab identity in the midst of a collapsing Ottoman Empire. Therefore, Lebanon, which represents one one-fortieth of the total area of Arabia, produced 70 percent of Arabic publications....."
Lebanon - History Background
God allows and gives to our hearts what we are looking for. If it lives for the world, the heart belongs to the world. If you want to find God, your heart must become a true seeker after a lost love.
Regards Tony
I should point out, that this:
"You're either very confused or being dishonest because there is no way you could logically come to that conclusion from anything I wrote.",
was neither accusation nor ad hominem, but a simple statement of fact. I avoided accusing you of dishonestly strawmanning and gave you the benefit of the doubt by pointing out that you could also just be confused about what I said. But those were, factually, the only two options about why you could be so wrong in mischaracterizing what I said and misrepresenting my conclusions, because you did in fact mischaracterize and misrepresent what I said. The only question is whether you did it unintentionally out of confusion or intentionally as a "strawman" fallacy (Straw man - RationalWiki).
It must also be pointed out that you are misusing the concept of "ad hominem". In order for something to be an genuine ad hominem logical fallacy one must use insults as a way of trying to avoid responding to the logical challenges brought against their position (Argumentum ad hominem - RationalWiki). Merely choosing to be insulted when I speak the truth to you doesn't qualify as ad hominem, firstly because it was not intended to insult you (and even if it were, that alone wouldn't qualify as the logical fallacy of ad hominem), secondly because what I said was relevant to countering your claim, and thirdly because I directly addressed all your claims and made no attempt to avoid directly addressing your points by distracting you with insults.
This, however, would qualify as a genuine type of "ad hominem" logical fallacy, or at the very least a type of "appeal to ridicule" (Appeal to ridicule - Wikipedia) as it seeks to ridicule the opponent's position rather than address their logical points. Instead of addressing the logical arguments I presented about why your premise is flawed and wrong (your premise that a modern dictionary is the final authority on what God meant when he talked about "faith" in the context of the Bible), you instead try to avoid having to defend your premise by merely mocking my position as an "irrelevent" "bronze age" opinion, without giving any reasons why my position is wrong (Also, FYI: The "bronze age" in this region of the world ended up to a thousand years before the time of Jesus).
You also, in that same statement, commit the logical fallacy of "argument ad populum" (Argumentum ad populum - RationalWiki) when you try to imply that because you think the majority of people believe abide by the modern dictionary's definition of faith that it proves your claim about what the Bible meant when it used the ancient Greek word "pisteuo". The popularity of a position never logically proves the truth of it, especially when you are unable to deal with the arguments I presented that prove your claim to be untrue.
Worse yet, you commit the logical fallacy of "argumentum ad assertion" (Argument by assertion - RationalWiki). Merely stating that I did not disprove your premise doesn't make it true. You need to establish the truth of your statement with reason and logic, pointing out why my points were invalid or in error.
Merely claiming that a modern dictionary is the final authority, while refusing to address the points I raise about why your claim is wrong, is also trying to prove something is true merely by asserting it is true.
You're also at that point committing the logical fallacy of "circular reasoning" (Circular reasoning - RationalWiki). You assume your premise is true (that a modern dictionary is the final authority on this matter), and then use your premise to defend your claim against me disproving it. You merely respond by asserting that the modern dictionary is authoritative and therefore any points I've made that prove why it's not authoritative must be invalid because you take for granted the assumption that the modern dictionary must be authoritative. You don't defend a disproven premise by merely reasserting that your premise is true and therefore can't be challenged.
Your repeated use of "argumentum ad assertion" and circular reasoning also starts to put you into the territory of also committing argumentum ad nauseam (Argumentum ad nauseam - RationalWiki). This is the third time you've merely repeated your assertion and not even attempted to deal with the legitimate points I raised that disprove your premise. You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that by merely repeating a claim that has been disproven, that you are actually defending that claim as being true and invalidating the points raised against it. In reality, your repetition of a disproven claim doesn't change the fact that it has been disproven. You'd need to actually try to counter the points raised against your claim in order to defend the truth of your claim.
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You think?
My original post was clear, you are the one objecting. I have not changed by view, added to it or removed from it, this is the 21st century and the definition is accepted... How is that circular. More ad hom abounds eh?
And how many times have you repeated your bronze age apologetics?
P.s. i am not interested in apologetics, if you dont like the meaning of faith then talk to the compilers of dictionaries.
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Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
Prove it. Unless you can prove it? It remains a FACT that the DEFAULT is your god doesn't exist.
Without proof-- it's not real
That does not explain why there is evil. It only says that your god is a massive BULLY.
It also is absolutely NOT TRUE-- EVIL STILL EXISTS. Your god? Has-- as is it's HABIT-- failed-- UTTERLY -- to destroy evil.
Hail Satan--- the ONLY character in Eden who DOES NOT LIE.
Firstly, I never said Biblical faith is defined as mental assent to the truth of what is written. In fact, my entire post was aimed at disproving that fallacious understanding of faith.
Second, your statement also seems to be implying that you think it's wrong to base what you put faith in on what you read from Scripture because it's just a matter of subjective interpretation in your view - but I reject the premise of your conclusion. I have found the truth of Scripture can be objectively and logically determined. I will give examples of that further down in my response.
If you realized your premise were wrong, and that Scriptural truth can actually be objectively arrived at, then maybe you'd have a different perspective on what it means to put your faith in what you read in the Scripture.
It is understandable why you would have that supposition, when you see so many people who have different opinions about the same text; but you may be happy to know that it is possible to draw objective conclusions from scripture that stand up to any kind of objective logical scrutiny and therefore are not the product of mere personal bias.
The key to remember here is that the definition of faith I give you will either stand up to logical scrutiny in the context of it's usage in the Bible or it won't. And you have the capability to challenge my claim on a logical basis that will either fail or pass. My claim of faith's Biblical definition is falsifiable in the sense that you have the capability to try providing examples from the text that show why my definition is not consistent with what the Bible says by showing either how it conflicts with what I said, is out of context, or how there are other equally valid ways of reading the same passages.
If my definition of faith were merely subjective then you would be capable of demonstrating that there are other, better, definitions of faith that can be drawn from the text, or at least multiple definitions that have equal logical claim to being objectively right because we lack sufficient information to draw a conclusion either way (or, if the text were in error that would be another thing that could lead to conflicting but equal conclusions, but you won't find the text in error with regards to a consistent description of faith).
If you can't demonstrate why the definition of faith I give is not the best understanding of the text available then you have no basis to claim the definition I gave is merely subjective, biased, or one of many equally valid possibilities. Hence, we arrive at objective logical conclusions about what the Bible says by submitting every claim to contextual scrutiny until we see what stands alone as logically, historically, and contextually consistent. It's the same process by which logical truth is arrived at in any context of life and science.
The truth is most differing views of what the Bible says come from ignorance of what the whole text says and it's context. That's why most wrong ideas can be put down by a more thorough study. Although there are some things we lack sufficient information on to draw conclusions from, and perhaps aren't as important as people think they are anyway - these would be what Paul calls "disputable matters" not worth breaking relationship over (Romans 14). But, as I will demonstrate further down in this post, not every issue qualifies as a disputable matter not worth breaking relationship over.
I suspect you have somewhat of a misunderstanding of what is involved in hermeneutics. Pick up a book on hermeneutical principles and you'll see the majority of what is contained within it is essentially nothing more than basic logical reasoning principles, standard linguistic and historical analysis principles that would be used in any other secular discipline, and the common sense of applying proper context to what you read. It's the same mechanism by which we always use to figure out what is objective truth from subjective falsehoods in any field of study or research. It's not unique to studying the Bible. They are universal principles of logic that apply to everything.
There do exist aspects of hermeneutics that veer away from that into the territory of potentially just manmade ideas about how they think we should interpret scripture (like the law of first mention, which could just be a manmade rule. Or interpretations of esoteric symbolism that has the potential to be only man's mere speculation if the symbolism's interpretation has not been revealed to them by God - 2 Peter 1:20-21) - but the core and overwhelming majority of hermeneutics is simple reasoning and logic based on principles that are universally objective and which result in concrete conclusions about what scripture is or is not saying - and those conclusions do stand up to logical scrutiny if they are correct.
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This is an example of where your belief about scripture can be shown to be wrong by comparing it to verses which contradict your conclusions, as well as a closer look at the context of the verse you're referencing.
You are drawing too broad a conclusion from that verse because your conclusion is not consistent with the context of that verse or the rest of Scripture.
Paul specifically is referring to "disputable matters" in that verse related to eating certain kinds of food:
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them
Your mistake is confusing that limited context with a blank check to essentially regard all matters as disputable where people are only accountable to what they believe in their heart. However, that can be shown to not be a right conclusion consistent with even the rest of Paul's writings, let alone the Bible as a whole:
But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
1 Corinthians 5:11
hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 5:5
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11
When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Galatians 2:11-14
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4
Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
Galatians 1:8
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
1 Corinthians 6:9
No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:6
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8
Here we can clearly see that objective right and wrong exists, standards are applied, people are held accountable to them, relationships are broken off with believers who refuse to amend their ways, and you can't have the Kingdom of God and have sin at the same time. None of the rest of scripture can be true without your claim being false that all matters are essentially disputable and therefore everyone is only accountable to what they are personally convinced in their heart is right or wrong.
The man who was having sex with his step mother in 1 Corinthians was not absolved of guilt because he personally didn't feel like he had anything to be ashamed of for his actions. His belief about the rightness or wrongness of his actions doesn't change the objective truth of the fact that they were wrong and consequences exist for them.
It's kind of like the fact that gravity and it's effects don't cease to exist merely because one decides they don't believe in it. Truth doesn't stop being truth just because you don't believe it's truth. 2+2 always equals 4 regardless of how much you believe it must equal 5.
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Your view of what faith is, and what it looks like, isn't consistent with what Scripture shows us about what faith is.
First off, you can't have faith without something to first have faith in.
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ
...
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?.
-Romans 10
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
-1 Corinthians 1:21
Also:
-John 5:47
-John 10:38
It doesn't matter if it's God speaking directly to you, an angel delivering the message, or hearing/reading God's word recorded in some form - you can't follow what first hasn't been communicated to you. The disciples heard Jesus speak, they heard voices from Heaven, they heard and saw angels, they saw miracles, they had the OT scriptures to hear and read from. Later believers had the prophetic words, recorded words/deeds of Jesus, OT scriptures, and then writings of the apostles (NT) to put faith in and follow, as well as miracles
Now, you might be able to make a case from some scriptures in Romans that God convicts you in your heart and you deep down know what you're doing is wrong, which is why people who have never even heard the Gospel can be condemned for their sin. Because then you are held accountable for disobeying that feeling, even if you don't know intellectually where that feeling comes from. But ultimately faith is still a matter of obeying what God has communicated to you, and you can't get away from doing that if you aren't aware of God's truth or you refuse to acknowledge it as truth. Everyone is accountable for the truth of God that has been communicated to them, and if you have heard or read God's truth communicated to you then you are accountable for whether or not you choose to put faith in it.
Luke 12:47-48.
Notice how in Jesus's parable that here how even not knowing what you were suppose to do doesn't absolve you from being punished for the sin.
What you feel convinced of in your heart doesn't absolve you of the requirement to follow the truth of God's word that has been revealed to you. God doesn't lie and doesn't change, so he's not going to communicate a truth recorded in the NT and then later tell you something that contradicts that (Galatians 1:8).
Your heart cannot be the sole arbiter in your life or what is true or false because you may not have the willingness or the experience or the understanding to sift out what of your heart is sin vs truth. That's why the Holy Spirit and God's word to us is necessary to guide us into all truth (John 16:13).
And, if God's word being preached to people were not necessary to align them with truth, then Paul would not have said it was necessary in Romans 10. Sending prophets in OT times, or training the apostles in NT times to lead and evangelize, would have been pointless exercises unless it was necessary to help align people's hearts to accept and obey God's truth. In 2 Kings 22, finding a copy of the Scripture that had been lost to them at that time informs the king of things he never knew, moved him to repent, and then changes come about because of it. Prophets speaking to kings had similar effects at times, if they were receptive to hear the truth and willing to act on it. Not all kings were.
Nothing we see in the Bible conveys the idea that salvation comes by merely following your heart, whatever that may be. Two reasons.
1. Because some people have their consciences seared (1 Timothy 4:2) and won't be capable of responding to any conviction in their heart.
2. Their heart is set on wrong ideas and desires. The reason you see many verses in the Bible about deceptive or wicked hearts leading people astray from the truth is precisely why you need God's truth to intervene and set your heart strait:
Jeremiah 22:17, Isaiah 44:20, Proverbs 6:14, Jeremiah 17:9.
That is why we need to rely on God's word through his prophets and apostles, as a trustworthy source communicating what God told them directly, to help us determine what part of our heart is in the truth or mired in deceptive sin. If everyone could equally trust that their hearts were perfectly attuned to discern truth from falsehood then Paul would never have had to rebuke anyone for believing a lie, God would not have had to send prophets to rebuke kings, Jesus would not have to rebuke the Pharisees for telling people lies, Jesus would not have given the great commission to reach the world with the Gospel, and Paul would not have said preachers and teachers were necessary for the sake of the Gospel to spread and for people to be saved by it.
Salvation is always said to come by Faith in God.
Acts 16:1, Hebrews 10:39, Ephesians 2:8 - as a few examples out of many that pervade the NT.
So, since it is established that faith is what leads to salvation, it is necessary that we look more closely at the Bible to understand what faith means and what it actually looks like to be sure we are actually in faith.
To that end, let's look at Hebrews 11, wherein faith is defined as following in obedience to the truth God has communicated.
Hebrews 11 shows us that faith in the truth of what God says, or who He is (actually the two concepts are one in the same, but I digress), is always paired with a corresponding action on the part of the individual that proves they really do have faith in God. In every case they did something to obey God because they trusted Him. That's what faith is.
We also see this concept explained in James 2. He specifically says in verse 14 that faith without corresponding deeds is not a faith that you should expect can save you.
Faith without obedience to God just means you never really had faith to begin with. You can mentally assent to the truth that "Jesus is Lord", but if you never obeyed Him as Lord then you may find yourself having Jesus tell you at the end:
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
-Matthew 7
In 1 John 4 we see that acknowleding Jesus as the Son of God means we abide in God, know God, and love.
Linked with that we see above in Matthew 7 that Jesus links knowing Him with being saved from fire. He also links manifesting good fruit and salvation with obedience by referring to them as lawbreakers/evildoers/etc. Good fruit is also known, from John 15, to refer to loving/abiding/obeying God.
In John 15 we see that abiding in God, loving, and obeying God, are all linked together as essentially the same thing because you ultimately can't have one without the other. When God's command is that we love, then obeying Him and loving are inextricably linked together. Which is why in 1 John we see that anyone who doesn't love doesn't actually know or obey God. Further, we see in John 15 that manifesting good fruit is linked with abiding in Jesus - which ties in with what we see in Matthew 7 about how obeying Jesus, knowing Him, manifesting good fruit, salvation are all linked together.
But of all this also ties in with faith as something that is inextricably linked with the concepts of loving, abiding in, and obeying God. Faith is the entry point to it, but not everyone who says they have faith, or thinks they have faith, actually does. You'll only know that by whether or not they manifest fruit consistent with true faith.
The point of drawing out these connections about how different concepts are linked together is to demonstrate why Faith in your own ability to discern the quality of your heart is not enough. You must have faith in what God has said and commanded and pair that faith with action. If you truly believe then you will act in obedience to that truth. But that's where it becomes important that you know what the truth is first. You can't act rightly in concert with truth if you don't accept what God says is true but instead believe in a false truth. A false truth, even if you are faithful to that false truth, will not result in obedience to God. And then you have a problem.
If you don't think you need to abide by God's truth, but you think your own version of truth is sufficient because you feel right about it in your heart, then you put yourself in the position of disobeying God because you are putting your faith in something other than Him and His Word. And since one cannot be saved and be in faith if they are in rebellion to God, you can't say you are in faith if what you put your faith in is a lie that opposes what God has already said is true. Hence, the necessity of making sure what you believe in your heart lines up with what God has already said is true.
If you really believe the gospel is true in your heart, then the fruit of that will be manifest in all these other things like love and obedience. And if you do that then you will be abiding in God, which means you will start acting more in love, which means you know God because God is love.
It's also why Jesus said the real test for a person was the fruit they manifested. Are you obeying God and loving the way he would? Then you have real faith and it has saved you.
Do you claim that you have faith merely because you feel right about what you do and believe in your heart, but your actions don't line up with what God has said you should do and you don't really obey God? Better check what you're really putting your faith in before you end up surprised at the final judgement like the "evildoers" in Matthew 7 were.
There is much more we could bring up as examples, but I believe that should be sufficient to give you an idea of why the Bible has very clear definitions about what it means to be in faith, what results from that, and why your definition of faith is not consistent with what the Bible has outlined.
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And that is good to... but sometimes reason can reason oneself out of possibilities.
Whether or not the Bible introduced the modern concept of faith is irrelevant to the point I made.
The point being that when one is discussing what it means to have Biblical faith ("pisteuo") in the God of the Bible the only relevant question is what was God trying to convey through the authors about what we need to have when they used the word "pisteuo".
As I already pointed out in two previous posts, doing this requires two things:
1. A linguistic understanding of the Greek words used because there is rarely a perfect one to one equivalence between words when any language is translated into another, so some words may lose the full range of their meanings of the fullness of their connotation when translated into a different word.
2. Understanding of the context in which it was written. Only then can you fully understand what the authors meant to communicate by using the word "pisteuo". An example of how context helps us understand the meaning of a word is the fact that we can see from Scripture that being in a state of Biblical faith always corresponds with obedient action if it's real faith that can save a person.
As an example: You might invent a new definition and say "faith" now means you ride around on pink elephants until you reach valhalla - but you don't get to claim your new invented definition is what the authors of the Bible meant when they used words like "pisteuo". Contextually we know your definition doesn't work for them because it wouldn't make any sense. Linguistically we know it's not true because of how the word is used in other ancient sources.
That's also why when you do Biblical exegesis you look at the historical and cultural context of the individuals writing the books to help you understand it. Reading it through the perspective of 21st century western culture will leave you with an inaccurate understanding of what they were doing, why, and what it's significance was. You will also likely fail to understand a lot of the parables and idioms they used.
And I already pointed out why his comment was based on many logical fallacies and had no bearing on disproving the points I made.
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