What is Faith ?

What is Faith and why is faith important in Christianity? Many an atheist thinks faith is synonymous with gullibility(the quality of readily believing information without any thought or questioning) while Charismatics think faith is a sort of force or permission which men wield or grant God for Him to do something for us and so the stronger our faith, the more likely we are to get our prayers answered and vice versa. Growing up, Christianity and church seemed untouchable, what I mean by this is, children or anyone for that matter was not allowed to question the pastor or the bible - where I grew up at least - and anyone who did question anything in scripture were either shut down by his parents or the church or booed by mates, but his questions, though legitimate were left unanswered. And so many grew up with questions but were not willing to ask for fear of getting shut down or simply not getting answers. When they became teens and eventually adults, they walked away from Christianity, viewing it as one of many religions which has a bit of truth in it at least or an absurd religion at most, requiring its believers to abandon the use of their common sense and to believe things without questioning their claim to truth.

In this series of posts(this being the first), my goal is to provide a biblical definition of faith. On the one hand, to explain why faith is not synonymous with gullibility and that God doesn't call anyone to blindly believe in anything and on the other hand that faith is not a thing in itself that we can use to manipulate God.

1 - Faith is not synonymous with Gullibility

If you are a Christian, you may have already heard this accusation from atheists (in some way or another): "Christians do not make use of their common sense". Unfortunately for atheists, this accusation is not the newest. It has been hurled at Christians for centuries and sadly, atheists who continue to throw these accusations at Christians have either been misled into truly believing it or are not being generous towards Christians. The source of all Christian doctrines is found in the Bible, and the Bible has been proven many times to be historically, archaeologically, scientifically and theologically correct. So, it would only be reasonable to let the Bible define faith for us. Biblical faith is defined in

Hebrews 11v1: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
It's important to note that it says things "...hoped for..." and "...things not seen" not "things which aren't true", "blindly believing in myths" or "believing without questioning".

The reason why the author of Hebrews can define faith in this manner is that the chapter goes on to give many examples of people who had commendable faith. These people are listed together with their actions, and none of their actions can be deemed gullible. A few of them did not believe immediately but asked for further evidence(Abraham, Sarah and Gideon come to mind). The point I am getting at is this: Biblical faith is always associated with a knowledge of who God is, His power and His character. That's why David can write "In you our fathers trusted ... and you delivered them"- Psalm 22v4 and "our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days"- Psalm 44v1 ESV. David and many others like him trusted in the Lord because of His past actions, they had been told and had themselves seen with their own eyes what God could do and so with all their might they trusted in God, not in absence of reason, but because of it. They were not being gullible, they were being reasonable.

Today, we do not hear God speak from heaven nor see the Lord Jesus Christ walking on water or raising the dead. Does this mean we have no ground to stand on to trust Him? Certainly not, for we have an account of His life ¹written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses, they report supernatural events that took place in the fulfilment of prophecies. We have their testimony today, testimony that they sealed with their lives, namely the New Testament

At this point, an objection can be rightly raised:

"many people die for things which are not true, so the apostles might have sealed it with their blood, but it doesn't make it true".

Yes indeed, but sane people would not accept being tortured to death for something they know is not true

Of the 12 disciples of the Lord Jesus, except for Judas Iscariot who committed suicide and John who died of old age, the rest were martyred because of their testimony. They unanimously testified to having seen the same Jesus who had been beaten, nailed to a cross and who had died on that cross, alive and healthy 3 days later and that this Jesus went to heaven before their very eyes. Were they being gullible or reasonable? Their faith was merely a reasonable response to all that they had seen. They trusted in Him who is capable of raising them from the dead just as Christ was raised from the dead.

Faith as defined in the Bible is not a belief in things which are not true or even a call to believe things without questioning their veracity. No, the bible calls us to apply our hearts to study the scripture and check its truth. Acts 17v10-11 says:

"The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so ".

God never demands blind faith, that is not a quality, it is stupidity. God always invites us to trust Him because He has already proven to be who He says He is. Just like a son trusting in his father, or the bank granting a loan because they know their customer is trustworthy or a wife trusting her husband because he is faithful and loves her. So too, God calls us to trust Him, because He is Faithful.

I recognise that this does not prove the veracity of the Bible. As I said at the start, this is just me trying to define terms, to make sure we understand what Christians mean when we say "we have Faith in God".

In my next post, I will try to explain what I think charismatics get wrong about faith.