Faith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Faith is confidence
or trust in a person, thing, deity, or in the
doctrines or teachings of a religion. It is also belief that is not
based on proof.[1]
In religion,
faith often involves accepting claims about the character of a deity, nature,
or the universe. While some have argued that faith is opposed to reason, proponents of
faith argue that the proper domain of faith concerns questions which cannot be
settled by evidence. For example, faith can be
applied to predictions of the future, which (by definition) has not yet
occurred.
The word faith
is often used as a substitute for hope, trust or belief.
Etymology
The English
word is thought to date from 1200–50, from the Middle English feith, via
Anglo-French fed, Old French feid, feit from Latin fidem,
accusative of fidēs (trust), akin to fīdere (to trust).[2]
Faith in world religions
Bahá'í Faith
In the Bahá'í Faith, faith is ultimately the acceptance of
the divine authority of the Manifestations of God.[3]
In the religion's view, faith and knowledge are both required for spiritual
growth.[3]
Faith involves more than outward obedience to this authority, but also must be
based on a deep personal understanding of religious teachings.[3]
By faith is
meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.[4]
Buddhism
Faith (Pali: Saddhā,
Sanskrit: Śraddhā) is an important constituent element of the teachings
of Gautama
Buddha— in both the Theravada and the Mahayana
traditions. The teachings of Buddha were originally recorded in the language Pali and the word saddhā
is generally translated as "faith". In the teachings, saddhā is often
described as:
- a
conviction that something is
- a
determination to accomplish one's goals
- a sense of
joy deriving from the other two
While faith
in Buddhism does not imply "blind faith", Buddhist practice
nevertheless requires a degree of trust, primarily in the spiritual attainment
of Gautama
Buddha. Faith in Buddhism centers on the understanding that the Buddha is an
Awakened being, on his superior role as teacher, in the truth of his Dharma (spiritual
teachings), and in his Sangha (community of spiritually developed followers). Faith
in Buddhism can be summarised as faith in the Three
Jewels: the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It is intended to lead to the goal
of enlightenment, or bodhi,
and Nirvana.
Volitionally, faith implies a resolute and courageous act of will. It combines
the steadfast resolution that one will do a thing with the self-confidence that
one can do it.[5]
As a counter to
any form of "blind faith", the Buddha's teachings included those
included in the Kalama Sutra, exhorting his disciples to investigate
any teaching and to live by what is learnt and accepted, rather than believing
in something simply because it is taught.[6]
Christianity
Faith in
Christianity is based on the work and teachings of Jesus
Christ.[7]
Christianity declares not to be distinguished by faith, but by the object of
its faith. Rather than being passive, faith leads to an active life aligned
with the ideals and the example of the life of Jesus. It sees the mystery of God and his grace
and seeks to know and become obedient to God. To a Christian, faith is not
static but causes one to learn more of God and grow, and has its origin in God.[8]
In
Christianity, faith causes change as it seeks a greater understanding of God.
Faith is not fideism
or simple obedience to a set of rules or statements.[9]
Before Christians have faith, they must understand in whom and in what they
have faith. Without understanding, there cannot be true faith, and that
understanding is built on the foundation of the community of believers, the
scriptures and traditions and on the personal experiences of the believer.[10]
In English translations of the New Testament, the word faith generally
corresponds to the Greek noun πίστις (pistis) or the Greek verb πιστεύω
(pisteuo), meaning "to trust, to have confidence, faithfulness, to
be reliable, to assure".[11]
The Bible says that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen."[12]
Hinduism
Śraddhā (ITRANS: shraddhA)
is translated as faith in Sanskrit. All schools of Hindu
philosophy posit that consciousness (ātman) is distinct and independent from mind
and matter (prakṛti).
Therefore, Hindu faith is based on the premise that logic and reason are not
conclusive methods of epistemic knowing. Spiritual practice (sadhana) is
performed with the faith that knowledge beyond the mind and sense
perception will be revealed to the practitioner.
The schools of
Hindu philosophy differ in their recommended methods to cultivate faith,
including selfless action (karma-yoga), renunciation (jnana-yoga)
and devotion (bhakti-yoga).
In chapter 17
of the Bhagavad Gita[citation needed], Krishna describes
how faith, influenced by the three modes (guṇas) lead
to different approaches in worship, diet, sacrifice, austerity and charity.
Swami
Tripurari states:
Faith for good
reason arises out of the mystery that underlies the very structure and nature
of reality, a mystery that in its entirety will never be entirely demystified
despite what those who have placed reason on their altar might like us to
believe. The mystery of life that gives rise to faith as a supra-rational means
of unlocking life's mystery—one that reason does not hold the key to—suggests that
faith is fundamentally rational in that it is a logical response to the
mysterious.[13]
Islam
In Islam, faith (iman) is complete submission to
the will
of God, which includes belief, profession and the body's performance of
deeds, consistent with the commission as vicegerent on Earth, all according to
God's will[citation needed].
Iman has two
aspects:
- Recognizing
and affirming that there is one Creator
of the universe and only to this Creator is worship due. According to
Islamic thought[citation needed], this
comes naturally because faith is an instinct of the human soul. This
instinct is then trained via parents or guardians into specific religious
or spiritual paths. Likewise, the instinct may not be guided at all.
- Willingness
and commitment to submitting that God exists, and to His prescriptions for
living in accordance with vicegerency[citation needed]. The Qur'an is
understood as the dictation of God's prescriptions through the Prophet
Muhammad and is believed to have updated and completed the previous
revelations that God sent through earlier prophets.
In the Qur'an,
it is stated that (2:62): "Surely, those who believe, those who are Muslims, Jewish, the Christians,
and the Sabians;
anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads
a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have
nothing to fear, nor will they grieve."[14]
Judaism
Faith itself is
not a religious concept in Judaism. Although Judaism does recognize the positive value
of Emunah[15]
(generally translated as faith, trust in God) and the negative status of the Apikorus
(heretic), faith
is not as stressed or as central as it is in other religions, especially
compared with Christianity and Islam. It could be a
necessary means for being a practicing religious Jew, but the emphasis is
placed on practice rather than on faith itself. Very rarely does it relate to
any teaching that must be believed.[16]
Classical Judaism does not require one to explicitly identify God (a key tenet
of faith in Christianity), but rather to honour the idea of God.
In the Jewish
scriptures trust in God - Emunah - refers to how God acts toward his people and
how they are to respond to him; it is rooted in the everlasting covenant
established in the Torah,
notably[16]
Deuteronomy 7:9 (The Torah
- A Modern Commentary; Union of American Hebrew Congregations, NY 1981 by W. G.
Plaut)
"Know,
therefore, that only the LORD your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps His
gracious covenant to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep
His commandments"
The specific
tenets that compose required belief and their application to the times have
been disputed throughout Jewish history. Today many, but not all, Orthodox
Jews have accepted Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Belief.[17]
For a wide history of this dispute see: Shapiro, Marc: The Limits of
Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization (Series).)
A traditional
example of Emunah as seen in the Jewish annals is found in the person of Abraham. On a
number of occasions, Abraham both accepts statements from God that seem
impossible and offers obedient actions in response to direction from God to do
things that seem implausible (see Genesis
12-15).
"The Talmud describes
how a thief also believes in G‑d: On the brink of his forced entry, as he is
about to risk his life—and the life of his victim—he cries out with all
sincerity, 'G‑d help me!' The thief has faith that there is a G‑d who hears his
cries, yet it escapes him that this G‑d may be able to provide for him without
requiring that he abrogate G‑d’s will by stealing from others. For emunah to
affect him in this way he needs study and contemplation."[15]
Sikh
Sikhism, the fifth-largest organized religion in the
world,[18]
was founded in 15th-century Punjab on the teachings of Guru
Nanak Dev and ten successive Sikh gurus,
the last one being the sacred text Guru
Granth Sahib alongside the Guru Panth.[19]
The core philosophy
of the Sikh religion is described in the beginning hymn of the Guru Granth
Sahib,
There is one
supreme eternal reality; the truth; imminent in all things; creator of all
things; immanent in creation. Without fear and without hatred; not subject to
time; beyond birth and death; self-revealing. Known by the Guru's grace.[20]
Guru
Nanak, the founder of the faith, summed up the basis of Sikh lifestyle in
three requirements: Nām Japō (meditate on the holy name (Waheguru), Kirat
karō (work diligently and honestly) and Vaṇḍ chakkō (share one's fruits).[21]
Faith in other spiritual traditions
Meher Baba
Meher Baba
described three types of faith, emphasizing the importance of faith in a
spiritual master:
"One of
the most important qualifications for the aspirant is faith. There are three
kinds of faith: (i) faith in oneself, (ii) faith in the Master and (iii) faith
in life. Faith is so indispensable to life that unless it is present in some
degree, life itself would be impossible. It is because of faith that
cooperative and social life becomes possible. It is faith in each other that
facilitates a free give and take of love, a free sharing of work and its
results. When life is burdened with unjustified fear of one another it becomes
cramped and restricted....Faith in the Master becomes all-important because it
nourishes and sustains faith in oneself and faith in life in the very teeth of
set-backs and failures, handicaps and difficulties, limitations and failings.
Life, as man knows it in himself, or in most of his fellow-men, may be narrow,
twisted and perverse, but life as he sees it in the Master is unlimited, pure
and untainted. In the Master, man sees his own ideal realised; the Master is
what his own deeper self would rather be. He sees in the Master the reflection
of the best in himself which is yet to be, but which he will surely one day
attain. Faith in the Master therefore becomes the chief motive-power for
realising the divinity which is latent in man."[22]
Epistemological validity of faith
There is a wide
spectrum of opinion with respect to the epistemological
validity of faith. On one extreme is logical positivism, which denies the validity of
any beliefs held by faith; on the other extreme is fideism, which
holds that true belief can only arise from faith, because reason and physical
evidence cannot lead to truth. Some foundationalists,
such as St. Augustine of Hippo and Alvin
Plantinga, hold that all of our beliefs rest ultimately on beliefs accepted
by faith. Others, such as C.S. Lewis, hold that faith is merely the virtue by which we
hold to our reasoned ideas, despite moods to the contrary.[23]
William
James believed that the varieties of religious experiences should be sought
by psychologists, because they represent the closest thing to a microscope of
the mind—that is, they show us in drastically enlarged form the normal
processes of things[citation needed]. For a useful
interpretation of human reality, to share faith experience he said that we must
each make certain "over-beliefs" in things which, while they cannot be
proven on the basis of experience, help us to live fuller and better lives[citation needed].
Fideism
Fideism is not
a synonym for religious belief, but describes a particular philosophical
proposition in regard to the relationship between faith's appropriate
jurisdiction at arriving at truths, contrasted against reason. It states that
faith is needed to determine some philosophical and religious truths, and it
questions the ability of reason to arrive at all truth. The word and concept
had its origin in the mid- to late-19th century by way of Catholic
thought, in a movement called Traditionalism. The Roman Catholic Magisterium
has, however, repeatedly condemned fideism.[24]
Support
Religious epistemologists have formulated
and defended reasons for the rationality of accepting belief in God without the
support of an argument.[25]
Some religious epistemologists hold that belief in God is more analogous to
belief in a person than belief in a scientific hypothesis. Human relations
demand trust and commitment. If belief in God is more like belief in other
persons, then the trust that is appropriate to persons will be appropriate to
God. American psychologist and philosopher
William
James offers a similar argument in his lecture The Will to Believe.[25][26]
Foundationalism
is a view about the structure of justification or knowledge.[27][27]
Foundationalism holds that all knowledge and justified belief are ultimately based upon
what are called properly basic beliefs. This position is intended to
resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology.
According to foundationalism, a belief is epistemically justified only if it is
justified by properly basic beliefs. One of the significant developments in
foundationalism is the rise of reformed epistemology.[27]
Reformed
epistemology is a view about the epistemology of religious belief, which holds
that belief in God can be properly basic. Analytic philosophers Alvin
Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff develop this view.[28]
Plantinga holds that an individual may rationally believe in God even though
the individual does not possess sufficient evidence to convince an agnostic.
One difference between reformed epistemology and fideism is that
the former requires defence against known objections, whereas the latter might
dismiss such objections as irrelevant.[29]
Plantinga has developed reformed epistemology in Warranted Christian Belief
as a form of externalism that holds that the justification conferring factors for a
belief may include external factors.[30]
Some theistic
philosophers have defended theism by granting evidentialism
but supporting theism through deductive arguments whose premises are considered
justifiable. Some of these arguments are probabilistic, either in the sense of
having weight but being inconclusive, or in the sense of having a mathematical
probability assigned to them.[25]
Notable in this regard are the cumulative arguments presented by British
philosopher Basil Mitchell and analytic philosopher Richard
Swinburne, whose arguments are based on Bayesian probability.[31][32]
In a notable exposition of his arguments, Swinburne appeals to an inference for
the best explanation.[33][34]
Criticism
Bertrand
Russell noted, "Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We
do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We
only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."[35]
Evolutionary biologist Richard
Dawkins criticizes all faith by generalizing from specific faith in propositions
that conflict directly with scientific evidence.[36]
He describes faith as mere belief without evidence; a process of active
non-thinking. He states that it is a practice that only degrades our
understanding of the natural world by allowing anyone to make a claim about
nature that is based solely on their personal thoughts, and possibly distorted
perceptions, that does not require testing against nature, has no ability to
make reliable and consistent predictions, and is not subject to peer review.[37]
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