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| | Biblical '''Faith''' (from the Greek, πίστις or ''pistis'') refers to ''trust'', and if applied refers to applying a confidence in what is already known about God, to a situation where every detail is not laid out in full. | | Biblical '''Faith''' (from the Greek, πίστις or ''pistis'') refers to ''trust'', and if applied refers to applying a confidence in what is already known about God, to a situation where every detail is not laid out in full. |
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| − | The verb for the word "faith" in Greek is πιστεύω (pisteuo), which is translated most often as "believe" in English. Having faith, believing, trusting, or having confidence are all things that imply much more than a simple head knowledge about something, and more specifically God himself. For example, it is possible to acknowledge God's existence and know it as a fact deduced from logical arguments, and yet still not make God a practical faith, belief, trust, or confidence in your life. | + | The verb for the word "faith" in Greek is πιστεύω (pisteuo), which is translated most often as "believe" in English. Having faith, believing, trusting, or having confidence are all things that imply much more than a simple head knowledge about something, and more specifically God himself. For example, it is possible to acknowledge God's existence and know it as a fact deduced from logical arguments, and yet still not make God a practical faith, belief, trust, or confidence in your life. Faith, then, is a trusting action taken based on knowledge. |
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| | Often times the example of a chair is given to illustrate the practicality of biblical faith. When you sit down in a chair (and perhaps you are now, while reading this article), do you generally worry whether that chair will hold you up? Usually, one will never think about the chair, and take it for granted. Another way to think of that same illustration is a person who sits on the edge of their seat, because they are nervous about the chair. They are not sitting back and resting in the chair, but tensed and ready just in case it turns out that the chair becomes untrustworthy and falls over. | | Often times the example of a chair is given to illustrate the practicality of biblical faith. When you sit down in a chair (and perhaps you are now, while reading this article), do you generally worry whether that chair will hold you up? Usually, one will never think about the chair, and take it for granted. Another way to think of that same illustration is a person who sits on the edge of their seat, because they are nervous about the chair. They are not sitting back and resting in the chair, but tensed and ready just in case it turns out that the chair becomes untrustworthy and falls over. |
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| | In the bible, faith is never offered in opposition to knowledge, but it is in opposition to ''sight'' ("for we walk by faith, not by sight" — 2 Corinthians 5:7). In the modern context, ''sight'', or the use of the five senses, is almost always used as a limiter for the extent of knowledge. This is unfortunate, however, because there are practical things that people interact with all the time that cannot be sensed. For example, friendship, love, truth, beauty, and even knowledge itself are all things, which in essence, cannot be observed with the senses. These are all things that we have some sort of ''knowledge'' about, and yet they cannot be empirically tested, if "empirical" means the five senses. | | In the bible, faith is never offered in opposition to knowledge, but it is in opposition to ''sight'' ("for we walk by faith, not by sight" — 2 Corinthians 5:7). In the modern context, ''sight'', or the use of the five senses, is almost always used as a limiter for the extent of knowledge. This is unfortunate, however, because there are practical things that people interact with all the time that cannot be sensed. For example, friendship, love, truth, beauty, and even knowledge itself are all things, which in essence, cannot be observed with the senses. These are all things that we have some sort of ''knowledge'' about, and yet they cannot be empirically tested, if "empirical" means the five senses. |
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| | + | ==The Opposite of Faith: Doubt== |
| | + | If faith is ''a trusting action taken based on knowledge'', then doubt is having that knowledge but not trusting it to aid you through an unknown circumstance. For example, it would be like saying, ''I know about God and what He is capable of, but I won't trust that knowledge in this situation because of all the unknown factors involved''. |
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| | + | Jesus acknowledges that doubt is that opposite of faith. |
| | + | :And Jesus answered and said to them, "Truly I say to you, <u>if you have faith and do not doubt</u>, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen." (Matthew 21:21, NASB) |
| | + | Taking the definition of faith and doubt as described above, Jesus is basically saying here, ''If you have a knowledge of who I am [and they did because they were with Jesus and saw that he was God], and they trusted that knowledge in a practical sense, they would be capable of great things''. |
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| | ==Biblical examples== | | ==Biblical examples== |