Faith [fāθ, noun/adj.] Trust: Complete confidence in someone or something. For Christians, trust in God.
2. Religion: The system of beliefs about God which a person holds to or practices.
The Christian definition of faith comes from Hebrews, in which the writer described it as “the concrete basis for hope, the solid evidence of actions we’ve not seen.” We believe things because we trust the people who told us those things. We believe God because we trust him. Our faith is based on trustworthy, solid things.
But the Christian definition is not the one most people are familiar with. More folks are familiar with imaginary faith, the faith which believes in fairies and elves and unicorns, and doesn’t believe in climate change. And according to certain Christian apologists, there are a few other categories of faith in the world, which I list below… and since I don’t believe they actually are separate categories, I debunk ’em while I’m at it.
Imaginary faith.
Skeptics have their own definition of faith. Whenever you hear a skeptic bash religion and religious faith, they’re not using our definition. They’re using their own. It’s a faith far less solid, far less trustworthy.
Skeptics cast faith as wishful thinking: To them, faith means you believe something, with no trustworthy, solid things to base it on. You believe it baselessly. Really, it’s imaginary: We want it to be true, and hope it’s true, and have psyched ourselves into believing it’s so. We believe it with all our hearts. And who knows?—we might even be right, having stumbled into the truth through dumb luck. But we might not be. There’s no evidence, and therefore just no way of knowing.
Now if skeptics want to mock imaginary faith, I’m right there with them. It’s stupid to believe baseless things just because we want to believe them. There’s plenty enough of that going on in politics.
But when skeptics mix up true faith with imaginary faith, there we disagree. Christian faith is based on hard data. It’s based on the facts of Jesus’s existence, Jesus’s teachings, Jesus’s resurrection, Jesus’s miracles, the Holy Spirit’s present-day activity, and the Holy Spirit’s present-day miracles. It’s confirmed by scripture, experience, and the common sense of those who have experienced God in action. Skeptics may lack these experiences, ’cause they avoid God as if he’s a disease, and Christians as if we’re contagious. They doubt our data. But to say we’ve based our faith on no data means they’re talking to the wrong Christians.
If our faith isn’t based on data—if it’s just the wishful thinking of individual Christians, and not confirmed, proven revelation from God—don’t call it faith. Call it best guesses, or even educated guesses. But it’s not faith.
Blind faith.
When we talk about blind faith, again we’re talking about two different definitions of the same term. The Christian definition of blind faith is that we trust God so thoroughly, so fully, we don’t need any other evidence. Fr’instance, God once told Abraham to go offer his son Isaac as a human sacrifice. Abraham trusted God so much, he unwillingly gave it a shot—and God put a stop to it, and commended Abraham for his faith.
Another form of blind faith is irrational faith—again, we trust God so fully, we ignore any evidence to the contrary, or we engage in behavior which makes no sense. Abraham (again; he’s always a good example of faith) was instructed to leave northern Mesopotamia and live in Palestine, which God promised to give to his descendants—even though at the time Abraham had no descendants, and he and his wife were in their seventies; descendants didn’t seem likely. He did it anyway—and had eight sons, and lived long enough to see his grandchildren.
Our faith must always be based on something or someone. When it’s not logical, as sometimes it’s not, it had darned well better be based on God.
We didn’t get the world’s spirit, but the Spirit from God. This way we’d understand the things God gave us, which we’re speaking of—not in the sayings taught in human wisdom, but Spirit-taught. Spiritual things, spiritually interpreted. Human psychology doesn’t accept the things of God’s Spirit: They find it silly, and don’t get it, because it’s understood spiritually—and the spiritual examines everything, while nothing examines it.
—Paul,
God’s logic isn’t always gonna make sense. Not even to Spirit-filled Christians. But our trust in God goes beyond that. It’s not irrational faith; it’s that we trust him further than we trust our own common sense.
The skeptic’s definition of blind faith is precisely the same as their definition of faith: We have no basis for our beliefs, but believe them anyway, and even idiotically act upon them. They figure Abraham didn’t try to sacrifice Isaac because he heard from God; Abraham acted because he was a self-deluded, superstitious, sister-marrying, ancient form of hillbilly—if he even existed at all. All faith, they figure, is blind faith, irrational faith, and stupid.
Warranted faith.
Well, not all faith: Skeptics will allow that when we put faith in trustworthy people, in trustworthy ideas, in the scientific process, this is an okay sort of faith. This is warranted faith, where there’s a basis, or warrant, for our faith: Our beliefs and actions are grounded in rational evidence and inquiry.
In other words, faith. But skeptics are regularly quick to claim they practice warranted faith, and we don’t. Although they’re kinda uncomfortable with using the word “faith” at all, ’cause it’s such a loaded, religious word. They’d rather call it trust, or confidence, or convictions, or one of the other usual synonyms for faith. Not so much the F-word.
Whereas we Christians understand all faith is the warranted kind. If it’s the imaginary kind, it’s bunk.
“Biblical faith”?
Certain Christian apologists claim there’s a special category of warranted faith. Most of them tend to call it biblical faith, because it’s talked about in the bible: It’s the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith. According to them, it’s a special ability the Holy Spirit gives us to believe God so much, so completely, it overwhelms our will, shoves our self-centeredness and doubt—heck, shoves our brains—out of our systems, and we don’t need any other evidence. It’s like warranted faith, but on Holy Spirit steroids.
Here’s the problem: I’ve seen this sort of “biblical faith” (or, in charismatic circles, “supernatural faith”) in practice. It looks exactly like imaginary faith. In nearly every instance, they claim God showed or told them something, and it was such a profound revelation, you can’t tell them any different. They know what they know what they know. They know it so well, they never bother to confirm it with other Christians like they’re supposed to. And you needn’t bother double-check with God; it’s decided. They’re just that certain.
And, more often than not, entirely wrong.
You see, their so-called “biblical faith” isn’t based on the bible any. It’s trying to take the Holy Spirit’s supernatural gift of faith, and use it to either justify imaginary faith, or justify Christians whom they admire who’ve practiced imaginary faith. Or justify their own occasional practices of imaginary faith.
But God’s gift of faith doesn’t work like that. It’s not the ability to have so much faith, we don’t need evidence anymore. (Without evidence, it’s not even faith.) What Paul meant by God’s gift of faith, is that we’ve been given all sorts of things we can put faith in: All sorts of evidence, all sorts of trustworthy Christians, all sorts of supernatural experiences, all sorts of fruit. Faith is a fruit of the Spirit as well: The more we follow God, the more our faith grows, ’cause the more we’ve seen and heard and done, and the more we have reason for faith.
There is no category of faith where the human will gets switched off. This is why God orders us to have faith. This is why God commands us to submit. This is why God wants us to work out our doubts. He wants thinking followers, not mindless robots. This special category does not exist. There is no super-supernatural, super-biblical faith. All faith, when it involves God, is supernatural—for it’s put in our supernatural God.