Is faith a gift?

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Counterpoint said:
Faith is the capacity to accept. The “accepting” is the gift.
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The gift of faith comes from God.
We ourselves do not add anything to God’s glory.
God gifts us with his love. We accept His love by faith.
 
Counterpoint said:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. " Ephesians 2:8-9

Is faith a gift?
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faith comes from hearing the living word of God.

faith is a gift when one goes through their trials and tribulations.
 
Counterpoint said:
Seeing is believing. If we don’t believe it is only because we don’t see.
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But we know that seeing does not *equal *believing. Adam and Eve prove this. Our Priest often says that to ‘believe’ is to ‘be in love’.

Seeing something like say a sunset or a scan of a little embryo in a womb, shows us Truth, but unless we accept that vision for what it is, we are not moved to ‘be in love’ with it. It is the same with faith. It is there as a gift to us all, but unless we accept it for what it is, we are not moved to ‘be in love’ with Truth.
 
LongingSoul said:
But we know that seeing does not *equal *believing. Adam and Eve prove this. Our Priest often says that to ‘believe’ is to ‘be in love’.

Seeing something like say a sunset or a scan of a little embryo in a womb, shows us Truth, but unless we accept that vision for what it is, we are not moved to ‘be in love’ with it. It is the same with faith. It is there as a gift to us all, but unless we accept it for what it is, we are not moved to ‘be in love’ with Truth.
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Faith comes from going through trials and trubulations gracefully, that is the love of God.
 
madera said:
Faith comes from going through trials and trubulations gracefully, that is the love of God.
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True, but as we know, many go through trials and tribulations without faith. This is an act of rejection on their part rather than a withdrawal of faith on Gods part.
 
Counterpoint said:
Faith is the capacity to accept. The “accepting” is the gift.
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Faith is not the capacity to accept; there is no problem of infinite regress. Faith is an infused virtue, whereby God endows the soul with “supernatural light” by means of which it believes in Him. Faith does not precede faith. Infants, for example, receive the gift of faith at baptism (though that is not to say that, later in life, they won’t obscure this supernatural light through sin, pride etc.)

Faith is not static; it can be cultivated through prayer, study, virtue etc., or diminished through sin and pride. If we seek the truth, we are well-disposed to receiving faith. Many do not receive the light of faith because they do not seek the truth (e.g. they are unwilling - if God exists - to obey to His commandments).
 
LongingSoul said:
True, but as we know, many go through trials and tribulations without faith. This is an act of rejection on their part rather than a withdrawal of faith on Gods part.
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faith is given after painful trials and tribulations. People can go through.trials and tribulations forever if they dont go all the way
When God intervenes. Going all the way with resentment does not work. One must be thankful for the exoerience.
big difference.
 
Counterpoint said:
Faith is the accepting. That’s the point. So, it sounds to me that you are saying that I can reject the gift of acceptance.
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If you like. Or you could simply say “denial”. As in, one of the stages of grief, of which the first is denial, and the last acceptance.
 
madera said:
faith is given after painful trials and tribulations. People can go through.trials and tribulations forever if they dont go all the way
When God intervenes. Going all the way with resentment does not work. One must be thankful for the exoerience.
big difference.
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I’m not really sure what you are trying to say but the Catechism invoke Hebrews in explaining faith here…

146 Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."8 Because he was “strong in his faith”, Abraham became the “father of all who believe”.

So faith has a process. It is an ‘assurance’ given by God and in turn a ‘conviction’ held by us.
 
Counterpoint said:
Is faith required to accept the gift of faith?
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Grace is required to accept the gift of faith. The things we believe in are, after all, beyond our natural abilities to arrive at, apart from a higher authority. But in Catholic theology all grace is still resistable; we aren’t forced to draw near to God even as He draws near to us.
 
fhansen said:
Grace is required to accept the gift of faith. The things we believe in are, after all, beyond our natural abilities to arrive at, apart from a higher authority. But in Catholic theology all grace is still resistable; we aren’t forced to draw near to God even as He draws near to us.
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Don’t you think that all this complicates what could be a rather simple system? If the Christian God is so worthy of love, than why is so much required to love Him? Why, in His interactions with His sentient creation doesn’t he just come out with it? Why be so mysterious?
Could it be, that much of humanity has created unnecessarily complex gods and placed themselves too high? Perhaps that is why grace is resistible.
 
oldcelt said:
Don’t you think that all this complicates what could be a rather simple system? If the Christian God is so worthy of love, than why is so much required to love Him? Why, in His interactions with His sentient creation doesn’t he just come out with it? Why be so mysterious?
Could it be, that much of humanity has created unnecessarily complex gods and placed themselves too high? Perhaps that is why grace is resistible.
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Or perhaps you are too lazy? Or cynical? To believe Love actually exists? Or that it has boundaries which you cannot cross?

Tell me - is it OK to commit physical violence against someone you love?
 
oldcelt said:
Don’t you think that all this complicates what could be a rather simple system? If the Christian God is so worthy of love, than why is so much required to love Him? Why, in His interactions with His sentient creation doesn’t he just come out with it? Why be so mysterious?
Could it be, that much of humanity has created unnecessarily complex gods and placed themselves too high? Perhaps that is why grace is resistible.
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Grace being resistible simply means that, if we have the opportunity and even the assistance to do the right thing, we still won’t necessarily do it. Do we have the right to sin just because the Master’s gone away? Do we really even want Him to be here?
 
oldcelt said:
Don’t you think that all this complicates what could be a rather simple system? If the Christian God is so worthy of love, than why is so much required to love Him? Why, in His interactions with His sentient creation doesn’t he just come out with it? Why be so mysterious?
Could it be, that much of humanity has created unnecessarily complex gods and placed themselves too high? Perhaps that is why grace is resistible.
Click to expand...
Grace is resistable because God wants us to love Him freely.

God is mysterious because not to be mysterious would be to end the search for Him.

We love a mystery, and so does God. 👍
 
Counterpoint said:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. " Ephesians 2:8-9

Is faith a gift?
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Ephesians is thought by many scholars to be pseudographic. Faith is often used to denote the special case of belief in a religious system of explication. Belief itself is a survival mechanism we use to maintain a provisional picture of our constructed world until it can be adjusted to be a more accurate belief. Faith often gels into a state that is no longer teleological unless there is shock, similarly to other beliefs, say political or emotional. So what might be questioned more usefully is not that there might be faith or not, as that is inevitable, but whether the contents of that faith to some degree or other reflects reality as it is, not as we would like it to be. Given the tens of thousands of even christianist sects, not to mention other faiths and explanations, each one completely convinced they are completely right, we can assume that we do a LOT of imagining in the area of faith. So I guess the real gift would be to see that faith is a lot about imagination and how we use it to make ourselves feel OK.
 
fhansen said:
Grace is required to accept the gift of faith. The things we believe in are, after all, beyond our natural abilities to arrive at, apart from a higher authority. But in Catholic theology all grace is still resistable; we aren’t forced to draw near to God even as He draws near to us.
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Faith itself is the capacity to “accept.” So, your argument that grace is required to accept the gift of faith simply begs the question: Is the faith, necessary to accept the gift of grace to accept the gift of faith, a gift?

Either I am freely given the grace and faith to accept the gift of salvation, or else salvation is not really a free gift at all. It is something I must work for and therefore it is something, that once achieved, I can boast about…“look here…I am a good person because I have achieved grace in the sight of God…but you are an evil person because you have not.”
 
LongingSoul said:
I’m not really sure what you are trying to say but the Catechism invoke Hebrews in explaining faith here…

146 Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."8 Because he was “strong in his faith”, Abraham became the “father of all who believe”.

So faith has a process. It is an ‘assurance’ given by God and in turn a ‘conviction’ held by us.
Click to expand...
yes, faith unseen but hoped for, hungered and thirsted for comes

through the experiences of going through the repentence of our
sins that are unseen.to us until we go through trials and triblations.that is the process.
 
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