Faith Isn't Knowledge...Nor Should It Be

[rusra02]

The premise that faith does not demand evidence is not a scriptural teaching.
The Bible defines faith this way: "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." (Hebrews 11:1)
Thus faith is based on realities, not on things for which there is no proof. I was told as a child that Santa Claus was real, and I firmly believed it, but that was not true faith, and led to disappointment.
True faith is based on accurate knowledge, thus assuring us that what we hope for is real, and the evidence (evident demonstration) for God is overwhelming. Jesus did not expect his disciples to exercise faith in him without any evidence. He stilled the sea, raised the dead, healed many, performed miracles to prove he was the promised Messiah and God's Son. "Faith follows the thing heard" (Romans 10:16,17)
So we have faith by the record in the Bible that convinces us that God is real and his promises are true. We are persuaded by the evidence. (2 Timothy 3:14-16)

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[pwfaith]

I had a conversation with one of the ministers at my church this weekend about crises of faith and the idea that faith is a state of mind that should abhor proof and the search for it.

As an atheist I had opportunity on almost a daily basis (usually on Twitter) to argue with believers and it never struck me as odd that the vast majority of them had constructed or utilized pre-constructed and vastly complex arguments for the existence of God. In fact, the practice of religious apologetics goes back essentially to the birth of mainstream acceptance of monotheism. Defenders of the faith; attempting to use logic to prove God exists for millennia.

As a newly baptized Christian, I have to ask, why?

Everywhere in the three big monotheistic traditions the importance of faith is extolled. The idea that, by believing in something that I cannot possibly prove, I undergo a transformative experience by that very thing, is a staple of Christianity in particular. Jesus is constantly lamenting that his disciples don't fully believe or understand the scope of His power and condemns those who blatantly refuse to believe without evidence.

The fact that He makes a distinction between those who come to believe after seeing a miracle, and those who will not believe until they do is interesting to me, and sparked the discussion I mentioned up top. Those who need evidence in order to believe don't actually have faith if they receive that evidence; they have knowledge. They've ruined the process of questioning that faith requires by demanding answers. If we're right the answers will come; if we're wrong it won't matter. What's the rush?

We spend an incredible amount of time trying to find and offer proof. Whole institutions of sham science (like the I.D. crowd or Creation "Science" or Y.E. Geology) have sprung up like weeds to both bring ridicule upon Christians in general, and do tremendous damage to the intellectual development of our children; all in the name of "proving" that God is real. To justify faith.

I don't understand why there is so much blindness at play here. One of the most important commandments placed upon us by Christ is the requirement to simply believe; not to seek out knowledge, but to trust that His message was true and that the little voice that informs our experience and choices is the Spirit of Truth guiding us when we ask.

We are a people commanded to believe, not to know. Is the experience of faith not enough in itself? Isn't the process of asking the questions; trying to better understand and listen to God, not more important than expending time trying to justify those attempts to people who either aren't there yet or might never be?

You hold open a door for the person behind you, you don't spend half an hour trying to drag them through it.

Maybe if we put less pressure on ourselves to be right in the eyes of everyone else, we'd be less inclined to periods of doubt.

Thoughts?

While I agree with much of what you said, esp about Jesus words on needing proof. Knowledge is not a bad thing. Proverbs talks about the difference between wisdom, understanding and insight, in chapter 2. Wisdom seems to be a more general term meaning knowledge that leads to the knowledge of God. Understanding conveys discernment, and insight refers to a basic grasp of moral and ethical principles as they apply to life.

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 1 Peter 3:15

How can "always be prepared" without knowledge of the topics/issues/subjects people ask us about in order to be able to give reason for the hope we have? I do agree that people sometimes give TOO much knowledge to these things, but again I don't think it's entirely wrong. Is it wrong if it is done for the individual and helps them grow closer to God? I don't think so. I find reading sites like AOG to do that for me. DH looked at AOG with his dad for several years and it was through the Holy Spirit that gave him a divine understanding of those things, not fully but enough to draw him closer and closer to God by answering some of the questions he had in those areas ultimately leading him to faith in God. His faith wasn't based on his knowledge but it did help.

 

[UntemperedSchism]

This sounds very unhealthy. There are people who "just believe" that they are Napoleon Bonaparte too.

Heh. Lets rephrase then, shall we? I believe because, despite my knowledge of all the reasons not to and my well reasoned arguments against doing so, belief was instilled in me. I have no explanation for it; the fact that it happened to me is sufficient reason for me to accept it.

How would Christian faith be any more valid, if evidence be irrelevant, than the faith of a Muslim, Satanist or Hindu?
It strikes me as odd that one's eternal life would lie in the luck of the draw, so to speak.

So this gets a bit closer to the heart of the issue.

For me, faith is the process by which we try to understand God. It is an incorporation of belief that profoundly affects you and changes how you view the world and your place in it. It is inconceivable to a person of faith that their hopes and dreams aren't true. Rather, this possibility is only ever expressed as a fear; it's never 'I could be wrong,' but rather, "what meaning would life have if I were wrong?'

But it is not truth, at least not in the sense that it endows me with rights to act and claim it as knowledge to the world. To me though, it feels like truth, and I am striving to live up to it, as best as I can.

This is the conclusion that I came to in solving your greater dilemma:

All paths lead to God; the important thing is to find a path and take a step. God will take you the rest of the way.

And by all paths, I mean all paths. Including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Bahai, Zoroaster etc. Whatever you hold to be true, what you believe with all your heart, that is the springboard that launches you into exploration of the divine.

This, to a great many people who have allowed faith to become static and dogmatic, is anathema to their belief systems; impossible to reconcile with doctrines that preach the absoluteness of revealed truth. But I believe that people who cling to the minutiae of faith are missing the big picture. The saying goes; “The Devil’s in the details.” If that’s true, then God is the broad strokes encompassing everything.

If I ask a hundred men to draw a tree, each one will create a different image. Some will be accurate, some will be interpretive. Some will be colorful, some will be grim. The images might inspire, or depress; provoke thought, calm or confrontation.

But none of them will be a tree.

All we are capable of creating are impressions, or representations of the way we view the world; we can’t create actual truth. Are some men inspired by a deeper connection to the divine? I believe so. I’ve read portions of the Bible that made my heart sing, and others that had the clear residue of men promoting their own legends out of self interest. I’ve come to believe that there are always men who are a little closer to God than the rest of us; we call them prophets and we hang on their words, and that’s fine; truth tends to call out to those who are looking for it. But we also have to remember that, though touched by a power beyond our knowledge they might be, they are still just men, capable of all the grace and the sin that comes with that condition.

If faith is a process, then it is one of learning and adapting to new information and new thought. That means it is, fundamentally, questioning. Each of the world’s religion’s grew out of a slightly different way of asking the same questions; who are we, why are we here, for what purpose is life, the universe and everything? The way we ask those questions is a product of our cultural differences; the answers we come up with are just that; answers we’ve come up with. Faith should be about constantly trying to ask the right questions; it should cause us to ponder the immensity of the creation we’re trying to understand, and our place in it. It’s when we try to answer those questions, canonically and irrevocably, that we counteract the virtues of faith with our wrongheaded need to be right; to control the process; to place our stamp upon it.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t look for answers, but rather that we should test the answers we come up with, modify them, and let them grow and change as we grow and change. The universe is in a process of constant expansion and flux; if God created it that way with intent, it seems absurd to assume that the process by which we understand it should be static.

To abuse the tree analogy again; each branch of a tree is different; but they all connect to the same tree. From the perspective of the tree, is any one branch “right?”

Faith, for me, is the process by which I try to connect myself to the Will and Intent that formed all of Creation and elevate my life and the lives of those around me through the attempt; does God truly care if the road by which I come to Him isn’t Christian Variant Number Seven Thousand, Three Hundred and Forty Two?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Everywhere in the three big monotheistic traditions the importance of faith is extolled. The idea that, by believing in something that I cannot possibly prove, I undergo a transformative experience by that very thing, is a staple of Christianity in particular. Jesus is constantly lamenting that his disciples don't fully believe or understand the scope of His power and condemns those who blatantly refuse to believe without evidence.

The fact that He makes a distinction between those who come to believe after seeing a miracle, and those who will not believe until they do is interesting to me, and sparked the discussion I mentioned up top. Those who need evidence in order to believe don't actually have faith if they receive that evidence; they have knowledge. They've ruined the process of questioning that faith requires by demanding answers. If we're right the answers will come; if we're wrong it won't matter. What's the rush?

How is the sort of faith you describe a good thing?

Also, I think the sort of faith described in the Bible isn't so much "believe without evidence", but "trust" or "allegiance". There's plenty of room for evidence in that sort of faith.

I have faith in my friends; I trust them. This doesn't mean that I'm somehow undermining this faith if I check occasionally to make sure that they're still alive... that they still exist.

Maybe if we put less pressure on ourselves to be right in the eyes of everyone else, we'd be less inclined to periods of doubt.

Thoughts?

It sounds as if you don't care about whether the things you believe are true. I don't share this view.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I had a conversation with one of the ministers at my church this weekend about crises of faith and the idea that faith is a state of mind that should abhor proof and the search for it.

As an atheist I had opportunity on almost a daily basis (usually on Twitter) to argue with believers and it never struck me as odd that the vast majority of them had constructed or utilized pre-constructed and vastly complex arguments for the existence of God. In fact, the practice of religious apologetics goes back essentially to the birth of mainstream acceptance of monotheism. Defenders of the faith; attempting to use logic to prove God exists for millennia.

As a newly baptized Christian, I have to ask, why?

Everywhere in the three big monotheistic traditions the importance of faith is extolled. The idea that, by believing in something that I cannot possibly prove, I undergo a transformative experience by that very thing, is a staple of Christianity in particular. Jesus is constantly lamenting that his disciples don't fully believe or understand the scope of His power and condemns those who blatantly refuse to believe without evidence.

The fact that He makes a distinction between those who come to believe after seeing a miracle, and those who will not believe until they do is interesting to me, and sparked the discussion I mentioned up top. Those who need evidence in order to believe don't actually have faith if they receive that evidence; they have knowledge. They've ruined the process of questioning that faith requires by demanding answers. If we're right the answers will come; if we're wrong it won't matter. What's the rush?

We spend an incredible amount of time trying to find and offer proof. Whole institutions of sham science (like the I.D. crowd or Creation "Science" or Y.E. Geology) have sprung up like weeds to both bring ridicule upon Christians in general, and do tremendous damage to the intellectual development of our children; all in the name of "proving" that God is real. To justify faith.

I don't understand why there is so much blindness at play here. One of the most important commandments placed upon us by Christ is the requirement to simply believe; not to seek out knowledge, but to trust that His message was true and that the little voice that informs our experience and choices is the Spirit of Truth guiding us when we ask.

We are a people commanded to believe, not to know. Is the experience of faith not enough in itself? Isn't the process of asking the questions; trying to better understand and listen to God, not more important than expending time trying to justify those attempts to people who either aren't there yet or might never be?

You hold open a door for the person behind you, you don't spend half an hour trying to drag them through it.

Maybe if we put less pressure on ourselves to be right in the eyes of everyone else, we'd be less inclined to periods of doubt.

Thoughts?

Mostly is seems to me that people argue apples instead of oranges.

 

[UntemperedSchism]

The premise that faith does not demand evidence is not a scriptural teaching.
The Bible defines faith this way: "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." (Hebrews 11:1)

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To your first point; so? Scripture is written by men. They are trying to articulate things they've seen or experienced that are sometimes profoundly beyond them; sometimes ego or prejudice (as is my reading of much of the Gospel of John) gets in the way and obscures the message.

To your second, "things hoped for" This is the key phrase for me here. Faith is elevated hope. It's hope based on things we hold to be self-evident based on intangible and often poorly articulated experience. But it is real genuine hope that what we believe is true. But that doesn't make it objectively true.

I believe with all my heart that Jesus was the Son of God and that through him we find our salvation, but how that belief manifests in me, how it causes me to behave in the world and how it causes me to read scripture are all going to be different from the experiences of another. For example, when I pray it is always to give thanks for my blessings and ask for better understanding of God and knowledge of how I can better serve Him. My faith gives me a focal point; a defined concept of who exactly I'm praying to, but it doesn't guarantee that my concept is correct, or that God will hear my prayer or that He will guide me any further than he already has, by setting me on a path to find Him.

How then, can I claim to have knowledge of the things I hope for? How can I possibly have the arrogance and hubris to assume that my relationship with God is the be all and end all of relationships with God and that my experience should be translated as objective truth?

Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:17 "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

I read this and Matthew 18:3 "And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." as calls to lay down arrogance and pre-conceptions and claims to knowledge and seek Jesus through belief in the same way I believed as a child. Purely and without the need to be right.

I am grateful everyday that I have found a way to reach for God; I don't need to know that mine is the only correct way.

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 1 Peter 3:15

Easy for Peter to talk about giving reason when he was present to witness the events that are his reasons. The rest of us aren't quite so lucky.

The reason I give when people ask is that, even when I had no reason to expect any kind of answer and actively mocked those who's beliefs I now share, when I first asked God to help me better understand Him, my worldview shifted. Where there had been no belief before, I was now filled with it and with a desire to better understand His Word.

You're right, knowledge isn't a bad thing. But it's not required in order to have faith. Give God some room to work in your heart and mind and He will, whether you've been given proof or not.

I just think that the search for proof or arguments that purport to be proof takes away from contemplation and the search to connect.

 

[UntemperedSchism]

It sounds as if you don't care about whether the things you believe are true. I don't share this view.

I care that the things I claim to know are true. I hope that the things I believe are true.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I care that the things I claim to know are true. I hope that the things I believe are true.

But if the things you believe are wrong, you wouldn't care to know?

 

[UntemperedSchism]

But if the things you believe are wrong, you wouldn't care to know?

Absolutely. But since I can't know with certainty until I die, I'm not going to spend my life trying to back up my position on... life lol. I'm content to live a life dedicated to fostering peace, spreading hope and searching for understanding. Why do I need to know that the vehicle I use to do so is objectively true?

For me the point of faith is to place myself in God's hands and hope that He guides me to truth. It's not to start with a declaration of truth and try to fit God into it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Absolutely. But since I can't know with certainty until I die, I'm not going to spend my life trying to back up my position on... life lol. I'm content to live a life dedicated to fostering peace, spreading hope and searching for understanding. Why do I need to know that the vehicle I use to do so is objectively true?

For me the point of faith is to place myself in God's hands and hope that He guides me to truth. It's not to start with a declaration of truth and try to fit God into it.

But if you've picked your god for absolutely no good reason, then you're just making a crap shoot. Where's the value in that?

Also, I think that you're setting too high a bar when you talk about knowing "with certainty". Even though our knowledge is limited, we can still recognize that some ideas are better than others based on the facts at hand.

I don't know about you, but I want my beliefs to be as true as I can make them. I wouldn't be satisfied to settle for some belief system that's unsupported by fact but not entirely eliminated from a slim theoretical chance of being possible.

 

[no-body]

Unfortunately the people that need to understand this message the most will never, ever adhere to it. When your entire world view/subconscious fear of death is being challenged you don't just lay over.

 

[Skwim]

I disagree that one has to give up anything to have faith. I have faith where before I didn't, not because I was commanded, threatened or cajoled, or because it suddenly made sense to do so but because it was just there one day. I believe things I have no good reason to believe for no reason other than that I believe. It's an odd sensation and one that caused me no shortage of discomfort initially because I was intensely anti-theistic. Any kind of seismic shift to worldview is going to be uncomfortable. But it had nothing to do with either fear or sudden negativity in my life or a need for comfort. Faith snuck up like a thief in the night and I am profoundly changed by it.

You may not recognize the reason---something other than "it was just there one day"---but there was something far more demanding in you that prompted your decision.

 

[SCHIZO]

Faith is a darkness if you can't see the workings of truth behind it. The key to life is not faith but the question answered. If you seek nothing out of faith then there is nothing to receive.

People that tell you to blindly follow a faith are just spitting out what they were told and what others were told before them and before them. It is because they don't have the answers that they tell you to blindly follow faith, thinking that it will somehow makeup for not having the answers. If a religion (faith) cannot face an assault of questions and challenges then it most likely means that that faith is wrong, hence all religion in the world.

 

[Awoon]

Faith is the substance of things now in existence.

 

[SCHIZO]

Faith is the substance of things now in existence.

visible and invisible?

 

[pwfaith]

Easy for Peter to talk about giving reason when he was present to witness the events that are his reasons. The rest of us aren't quite so lucky.

I disagree. We have just as much in our lives and the world around us to rely on, if we choose to. But I get what you're saying

The reason I give when people ask is that, even when I had no reason to expect any kind of answer and actively mocked those who's beliefs I now share, when I first asked God to help me better understand Him, my worldview shifted. Where there had been no belief before, I was now filled with it and with a desire to better understand His Word.

That's awesome! Welcome to the family! My son just recently accepted Christ and is awaiting the next baptismal service. He has 4 sisters (the only boy!) and his first words to my husband were "Now I don't feel lonely anymore b/c all the other Christian boys/men in the world are now my brothers" For days he was SO excited about that One thing I love is how different everyone's "story" is and the "reason for the hope they have" is different as well but all united by God.

You're right, knowledge isn't a bad thing. But it's not required in order to have faith. Give God some room to work in your heart and mind and He will, whether you've been given proof or not.

I absolutely agree!

I just think that the search for proof or arguments that purport to be proof takes away from contemplation and the search to connect.

I can see that, sometimes. When I first started debating I would get so frustrated and spend hours trying to "answer" people. Now, I just answer and let it go. I try not to "argue" so much as discuss but the moment it feels like it's just a waste of time and there is no contemplation from the other person I try to walk away. Many times I will post a verse or article or quote and just pray "God let someone, somewhere reading this be touched by your Spirit".

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Faith is the substance of things now in existence.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not seen (now in existence).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the substance of things not seen (now in existence).

What does that even mean? How is faith any sort of "substance"?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

What does that even mean? How is faith any sort of "substance"?

It comes from the book of Hebrews. It most likey refers to it's essential nature rather than a physical substance.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It comes from the book of Hebrews.

I know. I didn't ask for the source; I asked for the meaning. Presumably you had some meaning in mind when you used the phrase.

It most likey refers to it's essential nature rather than a physical substance.

What is "essential nature"? How does it equate to faith?