Something I’ve been reflecting on recently.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1
Faith is not a thing that can be placed. It is not a commodity that we possess, like so many chips at a casino, to place on a specific number in hopes that the roulette wheel lands on our guess…
Faith is a perception of reality. An “assurance” and a “conviction”.
Faith and belief are the same concept, as used in the new testament.
Faith does have an object. You believe in something. More accurately, having faith is accepting as reality, a concept, truth, statement of fact, etc.
When you faith something, (believe something), you aren’t choosing to acknowledge one reality over the next arbitrarily. Your reality shifts to include the thing you have faith in.
It is an “enlightenment” of sorts, though not in the buddhist sense, but in the “fumbling around in a dark room until someone flips the light-switch on” sense.
We are not told to “place our faith”, we are told to “have faith in God!” or another way to put it “believe God!”. It is also my conviction that this is not something an individual can do on their own. This sort of belief is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Do a word study on Faith with this lens. See what you come up with.
This is a thought in process and I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about it. It is unrefined and needs help, which is why I posted it. Help.
(this post originally appeared at MattAndNancy.org, I am slowly moving my theologically oriented posts from there to here.)
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