FREE ESSAY ON WHAT IS FAITH

WHAT IS FAITH

WHAT IS FAITH?
By Emily Smith
What is faith? Faith is something different to everyone. If you asked a hundred different
people, it is possible that you would get many diverse answers. Religious faith and
non-religious faith are two very distinct terms. Faith holds an extremely complex meaning
when discussing it in the context of religion. Faith is a belief. That holds true to
every religious and non-religious person. Every faith involves a decision. It is not
about what we claim to believe, but what we actually do believe, that is true faith.
Throughout this paper, I am going to discuss Christian faith, how it pertains to daily
life and Christianity as a whole. I also intend to delve into George W. Forell's
discussion of Christian faith and analyze and interpret his statements and conclusions. 
Since the beginning of my childhood, I have learned much about faith and its essence in
everyday human life and also in religion. For me, it is simple really. I have always
believed that faith is your belief in God, and as Jesus Christ as the savior of the
world. My strong Methodist beliefs and background have somewhat tainted my academic
viewpoint of the term faith. The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion defines faith as
the act or virtue or spiritual disposition by which people accept the reality, promises,
and love of God. 355
However, all religions are based on some form of faith, a belief in something. You can
not have religion without faith. George W. Forell states that faith is universal, (Forell
1). By this Forell is saying that everyone has some sort of belief, they believe in
something or somebody. Forell is not limiting this belief to God, or gods for that
matter, he simply means that all humans believe in something- money, or education, or the
general goodness of mankind. Forell goes on to also describe Christian faith; Classical
Protestantism asserts that God wants fellowship with man and that if we trust completely
in Jesus Christ and his work we will have communion with God. This complete and utter
trust in Jesus Christ is faith, (Forell 19). I tend to side with George W. Forell and his
explanation of Christian faith. 
Christian faith has an implication of love. It is strictly a personal act. The agape that
exists between the lord and all of his creations is manifested into each religion's
faith. This agape is the respect, connection, and intellectual virtue that exist between
men and women and their belief in God. Faith can also be thought of as a perception. It
is not a conclusion or a proof; it is not an explanation of the world, an argument from
causality, an apologetic of creation, (Chenu 2). Faith is neither black or white, but
somewhere in the gray area in-between. Religious faith has been challenged theoretically
for thousands of years due to this lack of physical proof or evidence to support or even
contradict the Christian doctrines and dogmas. Science continues to be the opposition to
Christian faith and distorts the scripture as myth. Science is a form of knowledge based
on, and governed by evidence. It debates faith as there is no scientific proof of God's
existence today in the world. 
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Faith is not the same as hope. Hope is wishing for something. Faith is having it in
a faith dimension.
Christian faith is clearly more than the assent of the intellect to the truth of certain
propositions. It is a relation of the whole man to God, a commitment which we tend to
attribute to the heart and will, (Bendall 11).
There are distinctly two aspects of faith. On one side of the coin, the act of the
believer terminates not in a dogmatic proposition but in the divine reality itself that
it expresses in a human manner. This realism of faith is the basis of its mystical value.
It is not a concept of reality, but reality itself, (Chenu 18). On the other side of the
coin, because faith is human knowledge it must be structured by the categories of the
human mind. If man truly knows and believes in God, he knows him humanly, ( Chenu 19).