Using this simplest of definitions for faith as it has been written and explained by the author of the book of Hebrews I have underlined the three key words of this passage. Oftentimes faith and hope are used by believers synonymously and interchangeably. Hope in my opinion is the best word to define what faith is because Christians have a hope that one day they will be granted eternal life and be able to live in the presence of their god. The scriptures describe this afterlife as a time of bliss and eternal joy where there wont be any pain and sorrow or the many struggles and strife that one endures in this present life.
One of the things I find most irritating is when theists assume that I don't understand the concept of faith. They often forget that I myself was once a theist and quite frankly, when you really think about it it's not so otherworldly that it could not be understood with a little bit of reading comprehension. Faith as used in a Christian context is hope in the promises of God as outlined in the Bible and the confidence and assurance that he will fulfill his promises to those that are faithful. See, now that wasn't so hard. Hope requires that you believe that God exists and that he will fulfill each and every last one of his promises.
6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
Faith is believing in the unseen without evidence but rather entirely on a divine promise.
13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:13;16
With this in mind let's move on to two examples from the gospels where Jesus in one instance chastised someone for not believing in the promise of his rising from the dead and in another where he sent someone as proof of God's power.
After the resurrection of Jesus one of his disciples Thomas was told by the others that they had seen him at a time when Thomas himself was not present. Thomas's response is famous for it demonstrates the mentality of a rational person and a skeptic.
So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." John 20:25
Later on we read that the apostle Thomas was granted his request, but at the same time he was chastised for his unbelief!
29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29
The portion of that verse that I have underlined is the actual working definition of faith and according to Christianity is absolutely necessary in order for one to obtain salvation through Christ. You must believe without having seen or requiring evidence! On this one occasion Thomas was granted the opportunity to validate his lack of faith with the evidence he asked and required of Christ.
In Mark chapter 5:1-20 we are told the tale of a man possessed by a legion of demons. He is said to live in the tombs and to be so strong as to be unable to be subdued by any man or other form of restraints such as chains. Once Jesus delivers this man from his demonic possession he then request of the Lord to go with him. But Jesus refuses to let him go and instead gives him the following instructions:
19Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
20So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis
how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. Mark 5:19-20
Instead Jesus told the man to go and be a living witness to the power of God. He specifically sends him to his own people because they obviously knew of this mans history and his former condition. As in the story of Thomas in this case faith was not gained from not seeing but rather the seeing actually engendered faith. Contrary to believing without seeing faith came in both instances because of what was seen! This is just another one of those biblical contradictions that are not so obvious unless you know the scriptures. Jesus contradicts the biblical definition of faith through his actions in both the former and latter case.
So my question to theists today is if he could do this back then, then why can't he do this today? If he truly wanted us all to be saved I would hope that he would do everything in his power to help us who don't believe to believe. This was the request of a man whose son was possessed by a demon in Mark chapter 9.
23“ ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:23-24
So apparently it's not too much to ask the Lord to help or give me a reason to believe. I too have made a similar request to that of the apostle Thomas when I left the faith in 94' and the Lord has yet to answer my last prayer request. I guess I just wasn't meant to be saved! The decision to worship god in this life is a life changing decision that in my opinion requires careful thought and evidence. To date no Christian rationalizations in the defense of faith without seeing has satisfied me. This is the main reason why I live under the belief that God does not exist just as I do with similar beliefs such as bigfoot, fairies, elves, unicorns, etc. Theist, the burden of proof is entirely on you to demonstrate to us doubters and unbelievers that your God exists. Otherwise, the rational choice is to assume that he doesn't.
Note: All biblical texts are taken from the New International Version of the scriptures.
What I can never understand is why are some people in the Bible allowed to get the so called direct evidence and others are just meant to believe. If this is the case then surely atheists are just like Thomas in requesting evidence? Also, as you are aware its not only Thomas but others in the Bible that also got this first hand evidence.
ReplyDeleteThat's my main contention! If God could do it for them he could do it for me. If salvation was so important wouldn't you try to make it so that no one had an excuse? I would.
DeleteHave you ever been wrong? See if im wrong im out of a little time from prayer but if your wrong......
ReplyDeleteLook up the words myth, superstition, and folklore then compare them to your beliefs. There are many reasons why I think that I am not so wrong about this. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are just the latest of a long line of ancient superstitions. Besides, when it comes to God's plan of salvation as a whole it seem utterly ridiculous that he is trying to save us from a problem he created. He is saving us from himself! Lol
DeleteYou did not answer my question I asked you have you ever been wrong? and you say "God's plan of salvation as a whole it seem utterly ridiculous that he is trying to save us from a problem he created. He is saving us from himself" Well us Christians believe in a thing called freewill. God gives you the choice to follow sin or look to his son Jesus. That my friend is what we called freewill. If atheist Don't believe in God why do 95% of them always look to talk about God. Why like to talk about something you don"t think is real. define a real Christian in my belief a "real" christian does not judge,Dose not force Christianity on a non believer although we do say if you don't accept Jesus as your savior you will burn in hell. Thats in the Bible. When it comes down to it skip all debate It all comes down to believe or don't. see if your right and im right about God ill just lay in the ground when i die and im out of a few prayers. Now what if im right you will burn in hell and i will live in the kingdom of Heaven. Most of the arguments I get into with atheist end in me picking apart there argument because yall make the mistake of talking about something you don't think is real and 99% of arguments with atheist the atheist makes the mistake acknowledging hell exist and or saying God is a non existent "person".
ReplyDeleteI did answer you question quite clearly. Your question was have I ever been wrong? Of course, I've been wrong about many things we are not perfect and cannot possibly know everything about all things.
DeleteThe apparent argument you are presenting is what is known as Pascal's wager. It is weak and has several flaws which I will gladly point out to you here. First you must prove that God exists and not just any god but the Judaeo Christian god Yaweh. To date that has been an impossible task. Man has been creating gods for himself from the beginning and continues to do so today. Next you must prove that outside of the scriptures Jesus existed as a man and was who he said he was the son of God or god incarnate. Another impossible task. You fail to recognize that as an atheist we don't believe that your Bible is the word of any god but rather the creation of man himself. Remember that yesterday's religions,god, and beliefs are all part of today's myths and are correctly classified as superstitions.
In my opinion Christianity is no exception. It too is the creation of man and should be classified as an ancient myth and superstion because that is exactly what it is. On the same note atheists don't believe in any of the many mythological creatures that exist in the Bible. We don't believe in angels, demons, heaven, or hell therefore we don't fear it.
Your entire belief system is based entirely on faith without evidence on an ancient myth and superstition of various cultures such as the Cannan, Babilonian, Hebrew, etc.If you argue from the Bible that God exists then your argument commits the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. Since there is no god then sin is an imaginary concept and condition that outside of a religious context makes no sense and doesn't exist either.
I talk about your non-existent god because it has a great infuence in my country's pollitics and can affect my life as well. For instance it opposes gay marriages, wants to impose prayer in our public schools, insists in creationism as an alternative to evolution, the big bang, and abiogenesis as fact and that we should teach that garbage in our schools.
Charles zuchick, whether you know it or not the argument you have presented is known as Pascal's Wager. It is a weak argument and also one that is logically inconsistent. So instead of trying to refute it I will add a link for you where it has been thoroughly refuted already.
ReplyDeletehttp://infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/wager.html
Your method for arriving at a biblical definition of faith is very, very faulty. First, there's no discussion of the words underlying the text (which is important). Second, you assume a univocality of meaning for "faith," while examining two uses. You don't--even can't--establish a lexical use/meaning of a word. The Greek noun "pistis" and its declensions ("pisteos" in 11:6, for example) is variously translated, but in general claims a semantic range around the word "belief" or "trust." This word has a verb form, which is reflected in verse 6, called "pisteuo," which is usually translated "believe." These two words are symmetrical in many cases (that is, one is the form of the other). Unfortunately, in English this is not quite the case. While the noun form of "believe" is "belief," "faith" is not the noun form of "believe," and "faith" has no verb form in English (e.g., "to faith" or something).
ReplyDeleteAll that said, it remains absolutely bewildering that you should read "hope" and "faith" as synonyms, since, if this is supposed to be a definition, makes "hope" a circular part of it (e.g., "faith is confidence in what we have faith for"). The word for hope is not a pure synonym for faith. It is rather an expectancy. Further, the word for "substance" or the translation "confidence," the word used is "hypostasis," which is a combination of a preposition meaning "under" and "standing" or "standing still." It holds a semantic range that includes "foundation," "substance," "substructure," "confidence," among others. From that, you conclude, amongst other things, that faith involves believing "without evidence." But that conclusion doesn't even follow from a naive reading of this passage, much less an actually sound exegetical one. Now, you might be illicitly presupposing that something only counts as "evidence" if it has been observed, but that will lead to some absurdities (or will lead to the proposition that evidence is not essential for justified beliefs, which is interesting). Apparently, this is what you're saying, since you go on to say that unless you can see something with your senses, you won't believe it is the mentality of a rational person. This is both a substandard and naive epistemology (and either wholly unjustifiable, at best, or self-referentially incoherent, at worst, depending on whether you take this sense requirement to be merely epistemological, or ontological). Yet at other points, you seem to think there is at least a semantic difference between this sense requirement and evidence simpliciter when you say, "You must believe without having seen or requiring evidence!" That last disjunct doesn't seem to be used as a synonym for the first. If it is, of course, the same problems attend (which I will be glad to point out), and if it is not, it's unjustifiably derived from the text.
You then use the univocality fallacy to infer that saving faith also entails not ever seeing, or at least seeing not resulting in the saving faith. But beyond this fallacious inference, it is assumed that salvation was imputed to Thomas on the basis of this encounter, which is dubious (since he had already agreed to follow the Messiah and was no Judas [cf. John 17]). So your fallacious appeal is doubly fallacious, in that it requires Thomas having been unregenerate as well as the word "faith" being univocal.
Regarding Thomas there was never a moment where I said that he was unsaved or unrepentant. In fact, all I'm saying in this case is that he did not believe as the text clearly states that the other disciples had seen Jesus post mortem. None of this has to do with whether he was saved or not and that's not the point that I was making in the article.
DeleteIf your god existed and was as is believed omnipotent, omniscient,and omnipresent then it shouldn't be a problem for him to provide evidence of his existence. I require a Thomas moment or seeing him descending from heaven riding flying horses with his army to defend Israel from its enemies. If that last part sounded stupid it's because it is. You truly believe that a man claiming to be the son of God and died nearly two thousand years ago is actually going to come back? If you answer yes my reply is that such a belief is laughable and childish.
As to these last two paragraphs, you are supposing a number of things: 1. That the relevant counterfactuals are true of you in this world such that if you were to receive more evidence, you would come to saving faith. Why think that's true? I think, on the basis of (2) forthcoming, (1) is highly dubious (and is at least close to inscrutable anyway), and if you would not freely come to faith, given certain evidential conditions, then it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or a Buddhist or an unregenerate Christian--you're not any closer to regenerate status. As such, God wouldn't owe you that necessary condition, since the sufficient conditions wouldn't be fulfilled. And then (2): God hasn't answered your prayer, supposedly, yet. And yet you apparently gave up 20 years ago. Whose fault is that? Why expect that if God wanted you to be saved, and there are relevant counterfactuals, that those counterfactuals would be true of you immediately? What if you weren't able to interpret such evidences? What if the only evidences that would convince you of saving faith were such that it would not be entered into freely? So long as these are possibilities, there's really not much that can be said. All we know for sure is you prayed a prayer and gave up 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI gave up on God when I realized that the entire belief system was based on ancient myths and superstitions of the past.
DeleteYour responses are question-begging. I have a just-so story: you gave up Christianity because you wanted to indulge yourself, morally, and it's more convenient to try to explain away Christianity than it is to face up to whatever moral shortcomings you have.
ReplyDeleteWow all that blather about your understanding of the ancient Hebrew myths you have chosen to believe in and all you can come up with is how morally bankrupt I might be? Or how Christianity is too rigid to follow and I want to live as I please? Your responses are pathetic and claim to know a lot about me when you actually don't know me at all,
DeleteLet's look at your gods idea of morality against mine. Let's see I have never killed anyone, raped, robbed, physically abused anyone, gave people the death penalty for disrespecting their parents. Your god if he existed would be by definition a morally bankrupt monster. The descriptions the Bible gives of him is not flattering at all. In fact, he comes off like a psychopath.
Wouldn't an omniscient being know exactly what to show Chatpilot in order to renew his faith?
DeleteThe person you are arguing with above is inconsistent with his beliefs. How does one believe in and omnipotent and omniscient god yet state that he is incapable of providing the right level of evidence for a non believer? It's like saying sure I'am omnipowerful but I can't pick up that car or that bus.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the stupid asinine replies I get to that make me feel like I am trying to have a rational discussion with a baboon! They throw out the pathetic "if God provided evidence then that would defeat the purpose of faith." They go on about how he has revealed himself through his word and how we should open our hearts and minds and accept that. Or how we have the so called "free will" to choose to be evil or submit to God since they equate non-belief with being evil and immoral by default.
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