Do we need faith?

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In my answer I think of this song,

“Because the bible tells me so”. We sang this a bunch growing up in mass.
 
Same reason we need faith to believe that there’s actually air (although we can’t see it), or that Japan (or insert ANY place you haven’t personally visited) exists. Because there IS air there, and Japan DOES exist.

God IS there. We need faith because we haven’t seen Him with our physical eyes. However, just because we haven’t seen Him doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist.
 
I need faith in a Creator, faith in a better place beyond earth, and faith in a Savior to get me there I pray.
 
God never said everyone must have faith, but he did promise those with an active faith a reward. God can save whoever He wants.
 
“Do we need faith?”
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😉

The answer to that question from some of our mystics, such as Saint Aegidius of Assisi (the chief disciple of Saint Francis), might surprise you. Here is one of his discussions with his disciple Brother Andreas:
"…Once he [Aegidius] said, ‘I know a man who saw God so clearly that he lost all faith’. Another time Brother Andreas said to him, ‘You say that in a vision God took away your faith; tell me, if it please you, whether you have hope.’ He answered, ‘He who has no faith, how should he have hope?’…Brother Aegidius said that he had been born four times. ‘The first time,’ he said, ‘I was born of my physical mother, the second time in the sacrament of baptism, the third time when I entered this holy order, the fourth time when God granted me the grace of his appearence’. Then Brother Andreas said to him, “If I should go into distant lands and someone asked me whether I knew you and how you fared, I could answer thus: ‘It is thirty-two years since Brother Aegidius was born, and before he was born he had faith, but after his birth he lost his faith.’ Brother Aegidius answered, ‘As you have said, so it is. True, before then I did not have faith as perfectly as I should have had it; nevertheless God took it from me…’ Brother Andreas said, 'If you do not have faith, what would you do if were a priest and had to celebrate High Mass? How could you say, ‘I believe in One God…’? Then Brother Aegidius answered with a very joyous countenance and sang in a loud voice, ‘I know One God, the Almighty Father’…”
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***- Saint Aegidius of Assisi (d.1262), (from 1208, Aegidius was the closest follower of St Francis) ***
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Food for thought. When the mystics reach such a high state of union with God and are born again through grace in God, they feel so close to Him that they lose their faith in him - faith itself would be a barrier between the soul and the undifferentiated unity it now possesses with the Godhead through love, which pierces the “Cloud of Unknowing” between creature and Creator.

BTW Aegidius is also known as “Giles” of Assisi
 
tata888 said:
Why do you think we need faith in something yet seen like God?
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Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
 
The sad thing is all of us have little faith and even lack of it. The happy thing is even with little faith we can move mountains. We need faith and we shouldn’t complain; it’s a matter of what we are going to do with the little that we have. And if we don’t have, well, we can ask for it. :)👍
 
I think God and the idea of a greater good in the world is very important.
 
Reuben_J said:
The sad thing is all of us have little faith and even lack of it. The happy thing is even with little faith we can move mountains. We need faith and we shouldn’t complain; it’s a matter of what we are going to do with the little that we have. And if we don’t have, well, we can ask for it. :)👍
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👍

“I believe! Help my unbelief.”

Amen

Jon
 
tata888 said:
Why do you think we need faith in something yet seen like God?
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We have faith because we were created by God for God. There is a space in our soul that only God can occupy. We are empty without him and therefore search as a hungry person would search for food, even if we are intellectually unaware of doing so. We often have mis-placed faith.

I have faith in Jesus because I believe that he was who he claimed to be. I believe the witnesses to his life are credible. So my particular faith in Jesus Christ begins with that interior longing for God that all men have and then is combined with reason to conclude that Jesus Christ is the one I should follow. The correctness of my choice is verified interiorly by the presence of God within me; I am no longer empty.
 
tata888 said:
Why do you think we need faith in something yet seen like God?
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Interview with an Exorcist by Fr. Fortea P.85

“…there were people in Jesus’ time who did not believe in Him even after witnessing His miracles. We have to understand that, regardless of what we see, grace is required for faith. If a person freely decides to resist grace’s interior and invisible invitation, he could see the heavens open and hear God speaking to him from on high through the clouds and still believe he was having a hallucination. It is not what we experience that ignites the interior of our immortal souls with the flame of faith; it is the grace of God.”

St. Paul’s thoughts about those without faith:

“The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. … And so while the Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, and to the pegans madness…” I Cor. 1;18-24

“An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he sees it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit.” I Cor 2;14-15

Faith is absolutely necessary to understand God and his ways which are foolish to those who trust only in pure logic. “They have eyes and cannot see.”

Just some thoughts.
 
I don’t know much, but what I do know is that I need faith in my life. I cannot not believe in God and not have faith. There fore to believe in God gives me faith.

jesus g
 
Depends on your definition of faith. As I see it, we see God through faith. Faith is God Himself telling us that He Is. To reduce faith to mere belief is to reduce God to something imaginary.
 
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