Faith!?!?

[cataracts]

Everyone talks about faith, but what is it? What is a faith that is valid and a faith that is not valid? There is a definite answer to these questions, but do we know what the answer truly is.

A lot of people have a definition of faith that does not fit the definition. Some people think of faith as a part of their imagination or, at best, their feelings. Reason has nothing to do with it. Because of this they think of all religions as indifferent in themselves.
Some people have religious feelings that can be produced under circumstances that may be peculiar to themselves. These feelings are without value. For these religious feelings to be considered true they must be considered sincere and that they show a respectful submission to the Divinity. It doesn't make any difference whether the religious belief is true or false. It doesn't make any difference whether the belief is contrary or not contrary to reason. Everything is judged exclusively from the point of view of the heart.
This is truly an absurd understanding of faith. I believe God would be insulted by such a belief. If not insulted, maybe disgusted. Yet a lot of people believe this. To them the Christian Faith is a blind sentiment. It is a faith that is respectable for the common man, but unworthy of a cultivated mind which is guided by the light of reason.

Then there are those who believe that faith is the work of the "understanding" alone. Feeling and the will have no part in it.
Their conclusion is that faith is not free. That it does not depend on us. If faith does not depend on us, then there is no sin in not having it. If some receive the Christian Faith while others reject it, it is because they see or think they see what is hidden from others.

It is necessary to know exactly what the Christian Faith is in order that we may comprehend what the obstacles are that hinder it's growth within the soul and so we may know what things are most likely to weaken or even extinguish it in a soul where it already exists.

Cataracts

[peterd]

Faith is some people should accept in their heart and souls. They have to make that choice. The choice they make, is the choice they will have live it.

[FightingFalcon]

Surely insincere faith is better than blind faith...

[peterd]

You bet.

[tits]

It is much different at middle age than it was for me in adolescence. Now, I find the simplicity in Hebrew's writers statement hard to beat. It is that simplicity that makes many of the Neo-Libs angry. It is that simplicity that gives an adequate definition to their faith in Humanism and the State. It is simple:

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.


Now, why is it so difficult for them to accept that I believe in an unseen God who Son is: There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Eph 4:4-6

[cataracts]

cataracts said:

Everyone talks about faith, but what is it? What is a faith that is valid and a faith that is not valid? There is a definite answer to these questions, but do we know what the answer truly is.

A lot of people have a definition of faith that does not fit the definition. Some people think of faith as a part of their imagination or, at best, their feelings. Reason has nothing to do with it. Because of this they think of all religions as indifferent in themselves.
Some people have religious feelings that can be produced under circumstances that may be peculiar to themselves. These feelings are without value. For these religious feelings to be considered true they must be considered sincere and that they show a respectful submission to the Divinity. It doesn't make any difference whether the religious belief is true or false. It doesn't make any difference whether the belief is contrary or not contrary to reason. Everything is judged exclusively from the point of view of the heart.
This is truly an absurd understanding of faith. I believe God would be insulted by such a belief. If not insulted, maybe disgusted. Yet a lot of people believe this. To them the Christian Faith is a blind sentiment. It is a faith that is respectable for the common man, but unworthy of a cultivated mind which is guided by the light of reason.

Then there are those who believe that faith is the work of the "understanding" alone. Feeling and the will have no part in it.
Their conclusion is that faith is not free. That it does not depend on us. If faith does not depend on us, then there is no sin in not having it. If some receive the Christian Faith while others reject it, it is because they see or think they see what is hidden from others.

It is necessary to know exactly what the Christian Faith is in order that we may comprehend what the obstacles are that hinder it's growth within the soul and so we may know what things are most likely to weaken or even extinguish it in a soul where it already exists.

Cataracts

Faith doesn't exist on it's own. It doesn't just come into being one sunny day. There are preliminary criteria. Something comes before faith. What is it?

1) To believe and adhere to "any" truth on the authority of God who reveals that truth. Human faith accepts a thing on the testimony of man. Divine and Christian Faith accepts things on the testimony of God.

2) I accept and believe all the articles of the Catholic Creed because I am convinced that all the Creed have been revealed by God.

3) The Catholic does not adhere to our Creed as the "object" of Faith on the word of the Pope or the Church. The Church is but a means of going to God. The Church communicates the teaching of God to us. The Church is not the truth. The Church is the guardian and its organ. The Church bears witness to the truth. The Church and Divine Revelation are absolutely inseperable.

4) God's providence has established an authority charged to maintain this religion, to preserve it, and to propigate it.
It is absurd to suppose that God would reveal and establish the religion which men "must" follow in order to attain their end, and then leave this religion to itself, abandon it to chance, without any care for it's fate, suffering it to become corrupt and fade away by contact with time. A God who did this would not be a personal God, infinitely wise and perfect.

5) The Divine Word, which the Church repeats and explains to men, cannot deceive.

6) God is Truth. The Truth does not lie. When it is established that a docrine comes from God, it would be absurd to demand other proofs Our doctrines are incontestable.
The proofs of our doctrines is called in theology "motives of credibility".

7) All of these points are the preliminaries of faith. Any thorough examination of the doctirnes is not feared.

8) All these motives of credibility do "not" produce faith in the soul. What it does do is prepare the way for faith but it doesn't create it.


These preliminaries show that faith is not based on thin air. It is not a feeling that someone has when they wake up in the morning. It's not something that your neighbor can give to you over a cup of coffee. There are unquestionable background information that a person must have.

St. Thomas Aquinas gives the following definition of faith.
"To believe is an act of the understanding adhering to Divine Truth by command of the will, which is moved by the grace of God."

Cataracts

[tits]

These preliminaries show that faith is not based on thin air. It is not a feeling that someone has when they wake up in the morning. It's not something that your neighbor can give to you over a cup of coffee. There are unquestionable background information that a person must have.

St. Thomas Aquinas gives the following definition of faith.
"To believe is an act of the understanding adhering to Divine Truth by command of the will, which is moved by the grace of God."

I agree with St. Thomas. As a budding middle-aged psychologist, I am amused and angered by the secular world's concept of faith. Though the word has been extensively used in the description of and diagnosis of many personality traits and social beliefs, I can find no definition in any of my psych texts or web sites. Rather, all definitions rotate around religious significance. However the term is used to describe social concepts that drive mobs and masses. An example is how the belief that Bush let Chaney conduct this war because we wanted the oil defeated the Republicans this past election. However, no evidence of this statement of faith has ever been proved, the faith within the world is that of this is a war of oil. The sad truth is that global economics will make this prophesy true within our lifetime.

The term "faith" applies to all beliefs in things that cannot be physically or scientifically verified. For the child Santa exists, (for me too), yet we all know that he does not physically exist. Rather he is statement of the character for the season of loving, caring, giving, and family.

For me, the scriptures prove, the people I work with prove, the falling snow, the red-bird in the blue-spruce, the laughter of a child, the warm embrace of my wife, the very world in which God created for us proclaims JESUS IS LORD. Yet, I cannot scientifically or physically offer any evidence to the non-believer that will state the faith I have.

I agree with St. Thomas and with St. Peter in 1 Peter and with the writer of Hebrews.

Cat, for all the history of the Church, the foundation of the faith is unchanged for the Catholic and Protestant. So many of the foundational statements of our faith were developed by devote Catholic brothers. I believe in Jesus and not in the Church for the Church, his bride, is govern by men. When we put our faith in humans we will always be disappointed. So many "on-the-fencers" are just waiting for pedophilia Fathers, adulterous preachers, murderous preacher's wives, and religious sects such as Jim Jones and Branch Davidians, and Mormons to prove that we of faith are foolish. They quickly point to former Hitler Judend Pope and his truthful observation of Islam as evidence that our faith is false.

What they don't understand is that faith is not physically defined by man. It is not in a man, woman, or organization. Our faith is in Jesus the Son of God.

[FightingFalcon]

Cat, for all the history of the Church, the foundation of the faith is unchanged for the Catholic and Protestant. So many of the foundational statements of our faith were developed by devote Catholic brothers. I believe in Jesus and not in the Church for the Church, his bride, is govern by men. When we put our faith in humans we will always be disappointed. So many "on-the-fencers" are just waiting for pedophilia Fathers, adulterous preachers, murderous preacher's wives, and religious sects such as Jim Jones and Branch Davidians, and Mormons to prove that we of faith are foolish. They quickly point to former Hitler Judend Pope and his truthful observation of Islam as evidence that our faith is false.

I'm with Tittus on this one. I don't see why the teachings of Jesus need an organization that has strayed so far away from His teachings that it shouldn't even be called "Christianity" anymore.

My observations and experiences in life have led me to the conclusion that there is indeed a God who created us. Beyond that, I refuse to believe anything written by man.

Recently I read the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine and I can't remember a time when I've agreed with someone so much.

www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/AOR1.html

It's really long but after the first chapter I was hooked.

The highlights of the first chapter:

I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?

[tits]

I can't recall who, but one of those THC leftist kept quote Pain as proof that the founding fathers were agnostic. How stupid!

It is great that you can still post so often Cadet, Did I read where you are now active duty?

[cataracts]

tits said:

I can't recall who, but one of those THC leftist kept quote Pain as proof that the founding fathers were agnostic. How stupid!

It is great that you can still post so often Cadet, Did I read where you are now active duty?

I enjoyed reading both you, Tittus, and you Fighting Falcon, however, you both are quite a bit off the mark.

Fighting Falcon, you claim to not believe anything written by man. Paine was indeed a man. Why should you believe anything written by him. You're not being very consistant.

Tittus, Faith can certainly be "spelled out". It has been spelled out for 2000 years. Is anyone listening? Yes, Faith is in Jesus Christ. However what He said has been passed down year after year by our Church. It is exactly the Church's job to teach and safeguard the doctrines and the dogmas and the revelations of Jesus Christ. Without the Catholic Church doing it's job in a very precise manner with the help of the Holy Spirit, we wouldn't have anything.

Cataracts

[FightingFalcon]

Tittus - 4.5 months and counting! I'm getting extremely anxious to commission and get on active duty but I've got one semester left. As for the Founding Fathers being Agnostic - that is completely false. While some of them weren't necessarily Christian, they were all Deists in one form or another.

Cataracts - the difference is that Paine isn't my God. I don't accept what he says as the absolute truth. I agree with him and because what he says coincides with my personal beliefs, I quoted his works. I don't accept what Paine said as the absolute and perfect Word of God. It's simply a piece of literature that I agree with.

As Paine said (and as I also believe), I do not belong to any Church. My mind is my Church and I let it do my thinking for me.

[tits]

myself clear.

Having faith in a risen Savior and trying to explain that to a non-believe, especially one who believes that they "know" what Christianity is "all about" is about like tying to tell someone how to tie their shoes over the phone when they don't have shoes. It can be done, but experience is the best teacher. The scriptures are replete with examples of people living their lives by denying that God is God only to be struck dumb by God's "wake-up" hammer. For a few, their lives, like St. Paul, became something totally different.

My point is that for those of us with faith, it is simple. For those without or who are skeptical of our rational, it is difficult.

Our youngest son was raise just like the older ones. He suffered the most emotionally when I became ill and never got better. He suffered the most when we adopted our two nephews after their parents died. He confessed several years ago that he cannot believe in a God that does not listen to him. "I prayed and prayed that God would make you well, but you almost died." He is now 24 and his life is beginning to make sense. Someday, God will "flick his switch" and he we have his "ah-ha" moment when faith will become real. Until then, it is something that he cannot understand and therefore refuses to believe in. He is like his parents, a scientist (a realist), if he cannot prove it scientifically or have experienced it physically, then....

This is how the world views our faith, the Jewish faith, and the Muslim faith. They refuse to participate in something that offers physically evidence of violence and death. Yet, those of us of faith are repulsed and angered by the whole scene. We know that God will do His will and inflict His vengeance in His time.

The short-of-it is that we cannot prove our faith by words alone, but faith with our works (James). The world sees the works of those few who use their faith to inflict harm and generalize all of us into that category. They refuse to look at the good of the Mother Theresas and the Lutheran, Catholic, Church missions, or the family support groups.

Years ago I was sent to class on the presentation of sensitive information to the public. I was an environmental toxicologist for the US army and worked with a team to assess the potential impact of hazardous, radiological, toxic, and explosive waste to the public and environment that has been left behind by the DOD over the centuries. One key principle of the course was built on a "philosophical truth" about human nature. "A falsehood repeated three times by a person of authority becomes a perceived fact." The insturctor believed that the truth will need to be repeated six times for every false statement just to create doubt enough to allow for the truth to be considered.

You are correct in your statement of the foundations for our faith. My point is how do we convey that faith given the social beliefs in our society? It is beyond their understanding. It is a "God Thing"!

Have a great Hanukkah and boxing days. We will chat more before the Holiday! Go see the film the Nativity!

[cataracts]

tits said:

myself clear.

Having faith in a risen Savior and trying to explain that to a non-believe, especially one who believes that they "know" what Christianity is "all about" is about like tying to tell someone how to tie their shoes over the phone when they don't have shoes. It can be done, but experience is the best teacher. The scriptures are replete with examples of people living their lives by denying that God is God only to be struck dumb by God's "wake-up" hammer. For a few, their lives, like St. Paul, became something totally different.

My point is that for those of us with faith, it is simple. For those without or who are skeptical of our rational, it is difficult.

Our youngest son was raise just like the older ones. He suffered the most emotionally when I became ill and never got better. He suffered the most when we adopted our two nephews after their parents died. He confessed several years ago that he cannot believe in a God that does not listen to him. "I prayed and prayed that God would make you well, but you almost died." He is now 24 and his life is beginning to make sense. Someday, God will "flick his switch" and he we have his "ah-ha" moment when faith will become real. Until then, it is something that he cannot understand and therefore refuses to believe in. He is like his parents, a scientist (a realist), if he cannot prove it scientifically or have experienced it physically, then....

This is how the world views our faith, the Jewish faith, and the Muslim faith. They refuse to participate in something that offers physically evidence of violence and death. Yet, those of us of faith are repulsed and angered by the whole scene. We know that God will do His will and inflict His vengeance in His time.

The short-of-it is that we cannot prove our faith by words alone, but faith with our works (James). The world sees the works of those few who use their faith to inflict harm and generalize all of us into that category. They refuse to look at the good of the Mother Theresas and the Lutheran, Catholic, Church missions, or the family support groups.

Years ago I was sent to class on the presentation of sensitive information to the public. I was an environmental toxicologist for the US army and worked with a team to assess the potential impact of hazardous, radiological, toxic, and explosive waste to the public and environment that has been left behind by the DOD over the centuries. One key principle of the course was built on a "philosophical truth" about human nature. "A falsehood repeated three times by a person of authority becomes a perceived fact." The insturctor believed that the truth will need to be repeated six times for every false statement just to create doubt enough to allow for the truth to be considered.

You are correct in your statement of the foundations for our faith. My point is how do we convey that faith given the social beliefs in our society? It is beyond their understanding. It is a "God Thing"!

Have a great Hanukkah and boxing days. We will chat more before the Holiday! Go see the film the Nativity!

Fascinating response Tittus. If I may I would like to get a bit deeper in how faith works.
FightingFalcon, It's alright to agree with what Payne says, but you have to agree that understanding Payne is not the same thing as understanding the Faith that will provide you with a place in Heaven. Payne really won't get you anywhere.

Faith is the results of the combined action of God and man. There are three questions that come to mind:
1) What actions must man do?
2) What does man receive from God?
3) How far must man be aided by God to believe with a "true" faith?

To believe is an act of understanding. The object of Faith is Divine Truth. This is not the truth that Payne lays out, but a Heavenly Truth. Truth in itself is the object of understanding----and not of the will. It can be said, with precision, that faith is the direct and immediate act of the understanding, not of the will.

However, it is only by the intervention of the will which moves, directs, and commands the understanding. Therefore truth is the object of understanding but it is the will which motivates the understanding.

The will is free, therefore it can choose an object for the understanding. The will can seek truth or not seek truth.
St. Augustine and St. Thomas both said "Faith dwells in the will of those who believe".

What part does God play? St. Thomas says that "to believe depends on the will of those who believe, but the will of man must be prepared by God through grace, and therefore be raised to the supernatural order.
'Rule of Faith'--If anyone says by the power of nature we can do any good in order to the salvation of eternal life---that we can think or choose as we ought, or consent to the preaching of salvation (Bible) without the light and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all the sweetness which makes us consent to believe the truth---such a one is seduced by the spirit of heresy and hears not the voice of God.
"For by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God.

The end of man is supernatural, his acts must also be supernatural and these acts must be animated by a principle that is superior to nature. Grace by which God enlightens our understanding with a supernatural light, attracts, fortifys and elevates our will, sows in us the seed of that higher life which is to become the Christian life.

Faith is the beginning of supernatural life. It is by faith that man enters the supernatural order.
Faith is extremely important. Without it we cannot enter Heaven.

Cataracts

[cataracts]

I'm sorry that I didn't get more comments on my post. I'm in the process of learning also. I want my education to be firmly grounded in the teachings of the Catholic Church.

All of our unbelievers, to whatever school they belong, and however great may be their differences, agree in the denial of the supernatural (not Tittus). They also deny the miraculous.
All of them, bar none, make a boast of recognizing only reason and nature. This is where the titles of Naturalism and Rationalism come about. It is also the one thing that unites all of them.

St. Thomas has taught us that infidelity, like faith, is an act of the understanding, but also an act commanded by the will. Infidelity, as well as faith, is in the understanding. However the will is it's first mover. Infidelity, like faith, is a free act. The best way of putting this is to say that faith is a virtue while infidelity is a vice.

Of course, every man that doesn't believe is not necessarily guilty. A man may be unbelieving but not an infidel. Their absence of faith is not imputable.

There is also among the group of unbelievers that go by the name of skeptic. They no longer believe in any certainty, and who losing hope in finding truth, close their eyes and bury themselves in a comfortable slumber, which, by the way, completes the ruin of their understanding.

I say, all unbelievers should lay aside their pretexts, let them get to the bottom of things, and with their hand on their conscience dare to ask themselves seriously and sincerely why do they "not" believe.

Cataracts

[Far Rider]

I excercise faith everytime I get on an airplane. Statistically, the plane will get to where it's going with no problem, but there's always a chance that it won't. I take it on faith that the plane that crashes won't be the one that I'm on.

If you sit down on a chair, you are taking it on faith that it will hold you up, but there's always a chance that it won't. You can't always tell by looking at it that it is damaged beyond it's capacity to hold your weight.

People take leaps of faith every day, but for some reason when it comes to religion it becomes problematic for them.