I agree with you on most points, and i hate being the "yes, but" guy, but doesn't the word "trust" imply being somewhat unsure of the outcome? It's different from "knowledge" isn't it?

Also, you say that God gives us good reason to believe in him, which I agree with. But your evidence is all biblical. Doesn't it require prior belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Wouldn't that require some sort of trust that transcends the limits of human reason?

I agree with you on "blind faith", and I've never liked the term. I also believe firmly that God isn't nonsensical. Human reason may fail, but belief in God isn't irrational or absurd. Again, I'm not trying to be a contrarian, and I think we agree on the major points. Good post. :-)

i hate being the "yes, but" guy,

I have a special place in my heart for "yes, but" guys, cuz I'm one too. ;)

but doesn't the word "trust" imply being somewhat unsure of the outcome? It's different from "knowledge" isn't it?

I don't think so. I think "trust" is being sure of the outcome, but for different reasons than your senses. It's based on believing in a person. I think it is still "knowledge". Though I would agree that it is a different kind of "knowledge" than that which is known through your senses. I guess some would call it "belief". I think you could still call it knowledge.

In modern parlace, I will admit that "I believe" is a weaker statement than "I know".

I'm proposing that someone who says "I know" based on faith, will be told by others that it is belief. And that's fine, but for the individual with faith/trust, it is knowing.

If as a kid, my dad says he'll catch me, I "know" that he will, and that's why I jump.

Also, you say that God gives us good reason to believe in him, which I agree with. But your evidence is all biblical.

Well, this column was originally written for our local paper and they give me 450 words. I do expand on them for thinklings but I forgot to expand on that point.

Creation is the biggest extra-biblical evidence he's given us. Conscience and reason coming in second and third, respectively.

Doesn't it require prior belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Wouldn't that require some sort of trust that transcends the limits of human reason?

I don't think so. At least not to be a theist. But to come an understanding of the Bible as God's word, would take a belief, in the sense that it is a conclusion that one draws. The outsider would call it "belief". The one who believes would call it "knowledge". As in "I know that the Bible is God's word." They would use the word "believe" and "know" interchangeably.

As for trust that transcends human reason...I struggle with that one. I haven't yet come up with language to describe adequately to describe what I believe about that...but I'll try anyway.

I think that reason can come to believe that Jesus is the son of God. But to "trust" in him is something else.

I do think there are people who make "the leap of faith" and just choose to believe because they want to. I would like to think that's not me. I would like to think that I would have the intellectual courage to believe wherever the facts lead.

This morning I was wrestling with a passage from Michael Card's book "The Parable of Joy" which is a devotional translation and exposition of the Gospel of John. It's AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW-summmm! As I was reading it, I was wishing I could get you to read it. (You should read it.)

Listen to this:

"The LIGHT in the darkness shone, and the darkness did not understand It." This is John's nativity. It should be read before Matthew and Luke because it prepares us to hear them more clearly. It contains them both. The Light that is Jesus shines into, around, and above the darkness of the stable, the darkness of the world, and the deep darkness of our own hearts. But the Light is not understood, not by the wise men or the simple shepherds or by you and me. We cannot comprehend how Light and Life can be alive in a Person. No one can. Like the wise men and the shepherds, we are left to adore and to wonder how this can be, to pray for the Life to come to life in us, to ask God to let this person who is the Light shine in our hearts forever.

I don't think so. At least not to be a theist.

I agree. SImple belief in God can, for some, be arrived at through Reason. St. Thomas argued that belief in God wasn't even an article of faith. I won't go that far, but there is gery good reason to believe in God. But believing in God is not the same thing as believing the Bible is his word.

I think that reason can come to believe that Jesus is the son of God. But to "trust" in him is something else.

Heh, we've argued about this before. But you make a good distinction here. Believing in God or Jesus is not the same as trusting him. Good point.

Is it possible to believe..even to know something is true, without understanding how?

I think it is. Or at least I hope it is, because that's where I've come. There's a lot I can't explain. I can't really explain the problem of Evil, and having followed a lot of different roads in trying to answer it, almost all of them lead me to say, "I don't know."

My faith isn't blind, but there is a point where I do step into the unknown. I don't understand every mystery. I don't understand the mystery of the Incarnation or the Resurrection.

Ultimately, faith is about obedience, not certainty.

Andrew, you challenge me... in a good way. :)

We're so close to each other on this... I'm still struggling with what to think and how to articulate on this subject.

I think I agreed with everything you said in the comment above. 100%. It was only the last that I'm not sure about.

Ultimately, faith is about obedience, not certainty.
The law of non-contradiction dictates that I can't both agree and disagree with this statement at the same time...yet that's sort of where I am.

Why can't faith be certainty? In fact, isn't that what Hebrews says faith is? "Being sure of those things unseen"

I think I'm tracking with you on the obedience part though...that's good. Maybe faith is believing,and trusting AND obeying demonstrate what the believer believes he knows?

aaaagh. This one's tough. I think the truth on this is maybe found in the categories. Are there categories of knowing?

Amen to the original post. Faith is usually used in Scripture to mean *trust*. And (someone mentioned inerrancy) all someone would have to believe is that the authors of the Gospels were basically sane, truthful, and rational persons. If they were, then trusting Jesus and believing in God follows directly.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF

I think faith comes before certainty.

Why can't faith be certainty? In fact, isn't that what Hebrews says faith is? "Being sure of those things unseen"

I think we're on the exact same page.

What I meant was that certainty isn't what faith is all about. One can both have certainty and have faith. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. But I think that the essence of faith is obedience.

I used to struggle with Hebrews 11:1, because I was never sure of God in the way I'm sure of gravity. I doubted all the time, and I still do. The conclusion I came to was that faith is a different kind of knowledge, a higher kind even. It isn't the absence of doubt. But it does mean pressing on in the face of it.

faith is about obedience, not certainty

No, obedience is about faith; at least, if you want to separate them, it's about trust. Trust is necessarily prior to true obedience; the essence of obedience is faith, not the other way around. The other way around, imho, is legalism.

And I would say, in re: comments #1-2, that personal knowledge, though different from factual knowledge, is every bit as real and valid.

My wife's cousin Curt Anderson, who's a professional magician (he's Vegas-caliber in terms of what he can do, but doesn't have the name recognition and consequent budget . . . yet), was talking about this during his show this past weekend while he was doing the decapitation trick (it was a church show, so he was free to talk about his faith). He got the thing when he was a teenager, and asked his mother to help him practice. She flatly refused. Yes, she trusted him, and yes, she knew he'd never hurt anyone, and yes, she knew he needed to practice, and yes, she wanted him to get better . . . and no, she still wasn't going to stick her head in that thing. She trusted Curt, but not that far.

"No, obedience is about faith"

AM, I'm not sure why what you're saying is any different that what Andrew said.

No, obedience is about faith; at least, if you want to separate them, it's about trust. Trust is necessarily prior to true obedience; the essence of obedience is faith, not the other way around. The other way around, imho, is legalism.

I can see this just getting into a complicated, hair-splitting debate over semantics (which is my fault), so I won't spend a whole lot of time defending this point. I don't think we're really saying anything different.

My point was simply that obedience is the manifestation of faith. Abraham is faithful because he goes where God tells him to without knowing what lies ahead. He is faithful because he puts his son on the altar and draws the knife. You're right, trust is entailed in that, and is a prior requirement. I don't think I disputed that (if I did, I didn't mean to). My point was that faith without obedience is meaningless.

I don't think it's legalism at all. Legalism says, "obey or God will punish you" or "obey so God can reward you." Faith says, "obey because God is God."

And I would say, in re: comments #1-2, that personal knowledge, though different from factual knowledge, is every bit as real and valid.

I agree, and that's ultimately what my faith is based on. I question my knowledge, and sometimes doubt my experiences, but I haven't based my faith on nothing.

Jesus is saying, "You've seen me. You know me. You can trust me to get you to a place you've never been." Faith is actually doing it, really trusting him.

OK, here's where I show my true colors, I guess. What if life is crappy? What if it's been crappy for so long that you can't remember what it felt like for life to be anything else? What if you don't get a clear picture of Jesus from the gospels, and you don't know how to spearate the wheat from the chaff in all the pictures everybody else gives you? What is faith, and where does it come from, then? Sorry. Had to ask.

Bob, I don't know that if I have a good answer for you. But I'll make two attempts.
1- This is why we Christians must be incarnational. So that people like you describe "see" Jesus in us.
2-Jesus doesn't say here that life won't be tough. But he promises that he is the way to his father's house. So I would think that the message "it won't always be this way" would mean something to such a person.

I don't know how to help a person who doesn't get a "clear picture of Jesus" from the gospels. I don't want to be a hard-liner or anything, but how can someone not get a clear picture of Jesus from the Gospels, if one reads them?

Phil,

Good post.

(Jas 2:18) But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith from my works.

(Jas 2:20) Foolish man! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?

(Jas 2:26) For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Ultimately, faith is about obedience, not certainty.

Andrew, I agree that obedience is the (necessary) manifestation of faith, and if that's what you're after saying, then yeah, we're at the same point; I was hearing you as echoing someone else, saying something subtly but significantly different. Always a pain when conversations bleed into each other . . . sorry about that.

No problem, AM. I like you. :-)

Phillip,

I've got no interest in defending Miracle on 34th Street (as far as holiday classics go, I've always preferred It's a Wonderful Life), but I am going to take the other side and say that the jolly old elf had a point…with a small amendment. I would tweak it and say: "Faith is continuing to believe things [that you have had good reason to believe] even when your immediate sense tells you not to."

It's not so much that we are asked to believe and trust in something (or Someone) on flimsy evidence, but that we are asked to believe and trust even when our good evidence is suddenly assaulted by the circumstance we find ourselves in or by the visceral "data" our senses present to us. When the storm hit, the apostles on the Sea of Galilee had a compelling reason to fear – it was raging all around them. And they had compelling reasons to trust, having already seen the natural order bow to the God-Man sleeping in the boat. For them, exercising faith would have meant holding onto what they knew (with certainty) even as their predicament conspired against that knowledge.

I would say that faith is certainty, but certainty based on trust, not on understanding. For what it's worth.

Andrew, you're too kind. :)