Going from faith to fact

[aball1035]

Everyone seems to have their own views about what faith is (especially Protestants it seems like), and I was wondering what the Catholic view is. Below is what I think, so bare with me.

Faith is based on the most reasonable conclusion if you don’t have empirical evidence. For example, I believe China exists based on faith, because I have never been there. Likewise, I have many Catholic beliefs based on faith, because I cannot prove them, but accept Church teaching. Now when I can actually prove it-like see it or hear whatever I believe to be faith, that will be fact.

Is that the more or less “correct” view? Or traditional view?

 

[Nate13]

I kind of see it that way too. For sure that view of faith at least encompasses part of the whole of what faith is.

I think of it as there are very few things if any, we are 100% sure about. Faith makes up for whatever amount of surety is lacking. For example lets say I’m only 60% sure that God exists based on empirical evidence. Faith is the other 40%, when I make the decision to live my life as if God exists. This would also be true if I was only 20% sure that God existed. I might weigh the risks and rewards of not believing in God and decided 20% is good enough for me to jump on board. The other 80% is faith in that case. It would be nonsensical for me to knowingly and willingly live me life 60% of the time as if God existed and 40% as if he didn’t. You knowingly choose either yes or no, and faith makes up the difference.

 

[AnglicanForMary]

Well, I suppose we could start with the veritable and venerable "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1 -KJV) or “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (RSV, or even “Trusting is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see” (Complete Jewish Bible,* Messianic Jews* 11:1) and go from there. Now, my Biblical Greek is rusty to nonexistant, but I think, as the CJB shows, that the root word for “faith” is “pisteis” (sp) or trust. So, faith, is the trusting relationship with God in Jesus Christ witnessed to and supported by the experience of the gathered assembly of believers, the Church, and which is nourished by Grace, especially that Grace that is dispensed within the sevenfold Sacraments.

“Devotion is neither private nor public prayer, but a life given to God. He is the devout man, therefore, who considers and serves God in everything and who makes all of his life an act of devotion by doing everything in the Name of God and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.” -William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

“The beauty of Jesus is inexhaustible. … He is beautiful everywhere, in the disfigurement of the Passion as well as in the splendors of the Resurrection, amid the horrors of the scourging as well as amid the indescribable attractions of Bethlehem. But above all things our Blessed Lord is beautiful in His Mother.” Fr. Faber

*my intended signature, but either one of them has more characters than the Forum rules are willing to allow, so I had to add them in manually.

 

[Bernward]

‘Going from Facts to Faith’ seems to summarise the whole journey of life itself, as though we start out learning facts about life around us, and what has gone on before we arrived, but because of our human condition we focus on what our own senses tell us, and human nature takes us towards the tangible side of our existence.

At some point we may reach our tangible goal(s) only to find the rainbow has moved, and the pot of gold now lies somewhere else, leaving a sense of frustration, futility and disenchantment. For some, the pot of gold is physically achieved, and the rest of life can be spent hanging on to it, to the exclusion of all else - too valuable to trade in - the end.

At other points deeper questions may be set before us in a variety of guises according to our ability to recognise them, but the overwhelming sense of purity, elation and lasting satisfaction that can accompany them can lead to unquestionable evidence for the recipient of the existence, not only of God, but of a spiritual dimension within us through which God communicates - our soul. This is a different form of existence, quite apart from the human condition. There really isn’t a 60/40% ratio of fact for the recipient, other than the extent to which they feel the need to hang on to their physical ‘comfort blankets’.

Hence those who dismiss the concept of God citing lack of primary evidence can be seen as physically strong, but still spiritually immature in their journey, creating a blindness for which physical evidence is needed, hence the coming of Jesus, crucifixion, death & resurrection. Despite this selfless exemplar, and the myriad witnesses and scripts, the majority of sceptics remain unconvinced (80/20% - Pareto)- not because Jesus isn’t a true account, but because the ‘pot of gold’ for each sceptic lies elsewhere - and they are not truly looking in the right direction.

To those in between, with a 60/40% ratio we can say - ‘Let go and let God’

 

[Bookcat]

From the Easter Message of 2009 of Pope Benedict XVI

"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and throughout the world,

From the depths of my heart, I wish all of you a blessed Easter. To quote Saint Augustine, “Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra – the resurrection of the Lord is our hope” (Sermon 261:1). With these words, the great Bishop explained to the faithful that Jesus rose again so that we, though destined to die, should not despair, worrying that with death life is completely finished; Christ is risen to give us hope (cf. ibid.).

Indeed, one of the questions that most preoccupies men and women is this: what is there after death? To this mystery today’s solemnity allows us to respond that death does not have the last word, because Life will be victorious at the end. This certainty of ours is based not on simple human reasoning, but on a historical fact of faith: Jesus Christ, crucified and buried, is risen with his glorified body. Jesus is risen so that we too, believing in him, may have eternal life. This proclamation is at the heart of the Gospel message…

The resurrection, then, is not a theory, but a historical reality revealed by the man Jesus Christ by means of his “Passover”, his “passage”, that has opened a “new way” between heaven and earth (cf. Heb 10:20). It is neither a myth nor a dream, it is not a vision or a utopia, it is not a fairy tale, but it is a singular and unrepeatable event: Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, who at dusk on Friday was taken down from the Cross and buried, has victoriously left the tomb. In fact, at dawn on the first day after the Sabbath, Peter and John found the tomb empty. Mary Magdalene and the other women encountered the risen Jesus. On the way to Emmaus the two disciples recognized him at the breaking of the bread. The Risen One appeared to the Apostles that evening in the Upper Room and then to many other disciples in Galilee.

The proclamation of the Lord’s Resurrection lightens up the dark regions of the world in which we live. I am referring particularly to materialism and nihilism, to a vision of the world that is unable to move beyond what is scientifically verifiable, and retreats cheerlessly into a sense of emptiness which is thought to be the definitive destiny of human life. It is a fact that if Christ had not risen, the “emptiness” would be set to prevail. If we take away Christ and his resurrection, there is no escape for man, and every one of his hopes remains an illusion. Yet today is the day when the proclamation of the Lord’s resurrection vigorously bursts forth, and it is the answer to the recurring question of the sceptics, that we also find in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’?” (Ec 1:10). We answer, yes: on Easter morning, everything was renewed. “Death and life have come face to face in a tremendous duel: the Lord of life was dead, but now he lives triumphant” (Easter Sequence). This is what is new! A newness that changes the lives of those who accept it, as in the case of the saints. This, for example, is what happened to Saint Paul."