What value is there in faith?

[liquidpele]

Well, you really are not well meditated enough to ever see a miracle. I feel for you, but you have a long way to go.

the same could be said for Mother Teresa then, as she expressed in her letters.

 

[liquidpele]

Faith is necessary because it is a primary act of love.

The question is how does a human being objectively demonstrate love for God? God, wholly self sufficient and in need of nothing from the human being, can not, objectively speaking, be loved by the human being, since love requires self sacrifice for the benefit of the beloved. Man cannot give God anything God needs. A cynic, such as Satan, might suggest, therefore, that (1) God created man as a plaything for God’s amusement, or that (2) God created man as a puppet, sustained by God but having no free will. In either case, that cynic might suggest, God is not all loving since he has made an unworthy creature for selfish reasons.

The fruit of the tree in the Garden was God’s objective proof of a bond of love between man and himself. As long as man refrained from eating the fruit, the tree stood as objective evidence of man’s communion with God. Once, however, man ate the fruit, it was no longer possible to demonstrate love by restraint. Even if the tree were reestablished and man swore to refrain from its fruit ever after, the one violation allowed the possibility that man will only refrain from the fruit in the future because he knows the taste and meaning of the fruit from the past, the consequences, not because he is abstaining for love of God.

Faith replaces the fruit of the tree, as an objective demonstration of man’s love for God, that not having seen, he has believed.

Now that was at least a decent explanation. Thank you.

However, how do miracles play into this then? Would they not remove the need for faith by acting as proof? What about Jesus coming down here, is that not removing faith and replacing it with real world example of a loving God if only for the current generation of people in the area?

 

[HickmanJosh]

Is faith really stronger, or just more stubborn to change? It’s not like the Catholic church has not changed it’s views over time. Also, if proof can be dis proven, is that not a good thing… are you not finding truth with such an act?

The church has changed its vies but only three times. (Nice an council, 1's and 2'nd Vatican councils)

Faith is a beautiful thing. It can be very stubborn but eloquently passionate. Faith in causes is what gives them such success.  It can be so strong people die for there faith, they rather die than renounce there faith and that is beautiful. Faith can be very receptive to change, its just a stereotype of religion that it hates science and is hard and old.

id like to note there is plenty of proof of Gods existence. Its just that not very many people are willing to take the leap of faith and see what lies beyond the obvious. Or even accept the obvious in some cases

HickmanJosh

 

[Dranu]

The fruit of the tree in the Garden was God’s objective proof of a bond of love between man and himself. As long as man refrained from eating the fruit, the tree stood as objective evidence of man’s communion with God. Once, however, man ate the fruit, it was no longer possible to demonstrate love by restraint. Even if the tree were reestablished and man swore to refrain from its fruit ever after, the one violation allowed the possibility that man will only refrain from the fruit in the future because he knows the taste and meaning of the fruit from the past, the consequences, not because he is abstaining for love of God.

Faith replaces the fruit of the tree, as an objective demonstration of man’s love for God, that not having seen, he has believed.

Now that is something I don’t think I have ever heard before, yet it seems wise and somehow familiar (the two often go hand in hand). Thank you for that piece Biggie.

 

[Biggie]

Now that was at least a decent explanation. Thank you.

However, how do miracles play into this then? Would they not remove the need for faith by acting as proof? What about Jesus coming down here, is that not removing faith and replacing it with real world example of a loving God if only for the current generation of people in the area?

Was it God’s intention in the Incarnation to provide proof? I think the Incarnation was about much more than that, but I do think God intends to provide the human being with a rational basis for belief. Likewise, I think an honest reading of the gospels would indicate Our Lord did not intend in any way to pass a test in the performance of miracles, or to prove something. I am thinking here not only of his admonition to recipients of miracles to keep it quiet, nor just of his frequent indication that individual faith preceded the miracle, but of his own words … “A faithless generation seeks a sign, but none will be given it but the sign of Jonah.” And again, using the words of his contemporaries about himself, “We played you the flute and you did not dance. We sang you a dirge and you did not mourn.” Jesus does not dance to our tune.

But generally, to say that something is believable is not that same as saying it does not require belief.

 

[liquidpele]

The church has changed its vies but only three times. (Nice an council, 1’s and 2’nd Vatican councils)

Faith is a beautiful thing. It can be very stubborn but eloquently passionate. Faith in causes is what gives them such success.  It can be so strong people die for there faith, they rather die than renounce there faith and that is beautiful. Faith can be very receptive to change, its just a stereotype of religion that it hates science and is hard and old.

id like to note there is plenty of proof of Gods existence. Its just that not very many people are willing to take the leap of faith and see what lies beyond the obvious. Or even accept the obvious in some cases

HickmanJosh

Faith can be a beautiful thing… but it depends on what you have faith in. People are being killed as witches in Africa right now… do you think the people there don’t have faith that witches are real? Faith in things like Santaria are certainly not healthy or helpful.

You do make a good point in the power of faith, and that it can help bring success to a cause. However, it occurs to me that it is only needed if the outcome of the cause is not known… people have faith that it will turn out how they want. So my question then is why does God need faith for the religious cause? Are knowledge and understanding from the creator directly not more meaningful and powerful than faith that a person has picked up from society?

 

[liquidpele]

Was it God’s intention in the Incarnation to provide proof? I think the Incarnation was about much more than that, but I do think God intends to provide the human being with a rational basis for belief. Likewise, I think an honest reading of the gospels would indicate Our Lord did not intend in any way to pass a test in the performance of miracles, or to prove something. I am thinking here not only of his admonition to recipients of miracles to keep it quiet, nor just of his frequent indication that individual faith preceded the miracle, but of his own words … “A faithless generation seeks a sign, but none will be given it but the sign of Jonah.” And again, using the words of his contemporaries about himself, “We played you the flute and you did not dance. We sang you a dirge and you did not mourn.” Jesus does not dance to our tune.

But generally, to say that something is believable is not that same as saying it does not require belief.

Again, a very good explanation. While I personally don’t agree, I can appreciate the interesting interpretation. Is it a generally accepted Catholic one, or a conclusion you personally came to (regarding your first post I mean)?

 

[Biggie]

Again, a very good explanation. While I personally don’t agree, I can appreciate the interesting interpretation. Is it a generally accepted Catholic one, or a conclusion you personally came to (regarding your first post I mean)?

“Love has reasons that reason itself does not comprehend.” (Blaise Pascal)

If one accepts that the relationship between God and man is designed by God to be one of mutual love … and if one dwells on the understanding that love requires a free election to give oneself to the benefit of the beloved … and then one reads Genesis as a child might read it, calling to mind that the parties to it are the prime being and creatures, I think he would come to the same conclusion about its meaning.

Love is both the gift and the obstacle to understanding, as Pascal pointed out. If it is not reducible by reason, then it is a power in us on a par with reason, and the temptation is to hold love, and the products of love, irrational. As soon as one asks how can love be put to use, it is no longer love but self interest. I personally think this is why we struggle so terribly with an understanding of God.

 

[HickmanJosh]

Faith can be a beautiful thing… but it depends on what you have faith in. People are being killed as witches in Africa right now… do you think the people there don’t have faith that witches are real? Faith in things like Santaria are certainly not healthy or helpful.

You do make a good point in the power of faith, and that it can help bring success to a cause. However, it occurs to me that it is only needed if the outcome of the cause is not known… people have faith that it will turn out how they want. So my question then is why does God need faith for the religious cause? Are knowledge and understanding from the creator directly not more meaningful and powerful than faith that a person has picked up from society?

Yes we all have to be very careful what we have faith in. Using reason and knowledge is how this is done.

If we have faith in God then we don’t have to worry about being killed or losing all our stuff in a storm because we know that through our faith Good things will happen. And we don’t exactly get our faith from society but from ourselves; we have to Believe in something, nobody else can cause us to believe in something we don’t want to believe in.

Now having faith doesn’t exactly mean shutting of your brain or anything but it is next to impossible to disprove the existence of God so therefore it is next to impossible for our faith to be lost if we don’t want to lose it. Thats why its strong, because no amount of science we can come up with can take our faith away. Miracles can be disproven, discredited and ignored but faith in God can’t be taken away and that’s what gives it its strength that is why it is good to have faith.

And true faith can’t simply be acquired by thought, good faith in God is only acquired through prayer. Simply seeing something isent going to give you true faith because if the sun turned blue tomorrow and you thought it was an act of God then you would have a week faith because on the evening news a bunch of scientists could get together and say it was just a part of some solar cycle we haven’t seen yet. Bam faith gone. True faith says: “the sun turned blue, why? how?”

True faith is not based on miracles, although sometimes God likes to remind us of his existence.

HickmanJosh

 

[Dameedna]

Faith can be a beautiful thing… but it depends on what you have faith in. People are being killed as witches in Africa right now… do you think the people there don’t have faith that witches are real? Faith in things like Santaria are certainly not healthy or helpful.

I don’t find faith to be particularly healthy either. The problem with it, no matter how wonderfully it is described(as it has been on this thread), is that faith, will alway’s be dependant on what another human has told you.

All of these theories about God, have been expressed by human beings, so at the end of the day, it is faith in humans we really have.

You can see this, in how religious rise to the challenges that non-believers(and people of other faiths) give them. Protestants(particularly evangelical and pentecostal), have faith in a Book. Challenge the bible, and you take away what they REALLY have faith in. A book. Not a God…but a Book. And they take this book very, very literally. It is these people, that are most challenged by science, because it completely refutes a literall interpretation of vast tracts of the bible.

Those christian denominations that attempt to be in communion with each other, tend to have a cross between faith in a book, and a church. For a significant number of catholics the church is what they base their faith on primarily. If(and when) people realize the church is challengable, their faith can be shaken.

It is humans we are really having faith in, when we believe the stories and philosophies they relate to us.

As an agnostic, this will be one of the big differences between what you see and what some other’s of a religious bent will see.

For me, no explanation of a God that does not reveal himself to me as an individual can suffice, because everything else comes from man. And NO excuses that “I just haven’t prayed” hard enough work either, because it really is just an excuse.

If there is a God, then I doubt God gives two hoots wether or not we believe that he exists. If this was so important, it would be a lot more obvious.

But people have spent a LONG, LONG time throughout human history attempting to find explanations for this dilema. Just remember, every explanation is a human one(including mine obviously).

Cheers

 

[fhansen]

When explaining why God does not reveal himself to us in a physical way, many say that God must be taken on faith, even so far as to say that God requires faith and that proving himself to us would make faith unnecessary. I’m curious why people think that faith is such a high ideal and why it is actually necessary beyond attempting to account for the reality of things?

Why would a world where God revealed himself not be a better solution, especially considering he supposedly did this before with Jesus and Moses? Why is taking things on faith a necessity or even a good thing? Why would a God who is supposed to love us require that we take his very existence on faith and the insistence of other mortals?

**Someone once said that integrity is doing the right thing even when no one’s looking. When God is so distant that we have the luxury of questioning His very existence or at least knowing that we won’t be facing Him soon, if ever, we’re freer to do and think as we will-at least we can think so. Would we behave the same if God we’re walking here on earth with us continuously? If the owner hadn’t left on a long trip, how would’ve the tenants behaved in the parable of the vineyard (Mt 21: 33-42)? In this world we get to play God, a role won for mankind by Adam and Eve when they rebelled against His authority. If God is seeking to cultivate people of genuine integrity, ultimately of true holiness, then maybe we must be allowed the freedom to see how we’ll act when He’s “not looking”.

And if it’s true as Jesus and St Augustine said, that we actually experience God and His kingdom within, then maybe God isn’t really “gone” at all. Perhaps He can’t be gone since through Him “we live and move and have our being”. Maybe we’re just hiding from Him for the time being while we’re allowed to do so: the split being within ourselves, our God-created nature from that part of us that still rejects Him.

**

 

[Biggie]

Someone once said that integrity is doing the right thing even when no one’s looking. When God is so distant that we have the luxury of questioning His very existence or at least knowing that we won’t be facing Him soon, if ever, we’re freer to do and think as we will-at least we can think so. Would we behave the same if God we’re walking here on earth with us continuously? If the owner hadn’t left on a long trip, how would’ve the tenants behaved in the parable of the vineyard (Mt 21: 33-42)? In this world we get to play God, a role won for mankind by Adam and Eve when they rebelled against His authority. If God is seeking to cultivate people of genuine integrity, ultimately of true holiness, then maybe we must be allowed the freedom to see how we’ll act when He’s “not looking”.

And if it’s true as Jesus and St Augustine said, that we actually experience God and His kingdom within, then maybe God isn’t really “gone” at all. Perhaps He can’t be gone since through Him “we live and move and have our being”. Maybe we’re just hiding from Him for the time being while we’re allowed to do so: the split being within ourselves, our God-created nature from that part of us that still rejects Him.

I like your answer and would add …

Physical presence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are people in this world from whom I cannot imagine separation, and yet we are not present to each other for long periods of time. Physical presence actually separates us one from another, a gap not well bridged by empathy and compassion.

Love requires free will, and freedom implies the absence of scrutiny. While we may be aware God is watching, we are certainly free to believe he is not.

For myself, I believe we do not see God because he is too close to be seen, standing right there close next to me.

 

[Mel_Stones]

The OP asks don’t miracles serve as proof and so remove the necessity of faith.
Only for the one who experienced the miracle. All others must have faith in that person’s word.

God can’t just walk around on earth with us anymore because it is a fallen world. Yes, He could just wipe us all out and start over. Yes, He could break his own rules. But He doesn’t, instead He asks for faith.

It is impossible to not have faith. A person can have faith in God, themselves, others, money, the list goes on and on. But it is impossible to not have faith in something. Do you believe George Washington existed - why you never met him? And even if you don’t then you have faith only in yourself and your experiences but that’s still faith.

Perhaps Jesus will come to you and convince you. Is that what it would take, or is an angel enough? With all sincerity and prayer, I hope God does find a way to convince you.

 

[Betterave]

Confusion: ‘faith’ does not mean dogmatic belief in this context.

That’s not the kind of faith held in reverence by Catholic christians who understand their faith. Faith in this context is, principally: a theological virtue through which God is revealed to us; it is a direct gift of grace, i.e., a gift from God, his self-revelation to us. That’s the notion of faith that is held in reverence (for obvious reasons).

 

[Betterave]

“reason is a friend, not an enemy, to faith and to sanctity, for it is a road to truth, and sanctity means loving God, who is truth” (p.21, Handbook of Christian Apologetics)

According to Catholic teaching, God does not ask for faith alone (there is no such thing). He asks us to use our reason to come to know Him and appeals to faith are only admissible inasmuch as they are reasonable.

 

[johngh]

It’s a sad state of affairs when people stop believing Faith is important. How can this world survive if we cannot even have Faith?

 

[Dranu]

According to Catholic teaching, God does not ask for faith alone (there is no such thing).

Indeed, He asks for heart, mind, and soul (Matt 22:37). Reason is a tricky thing without faith, and faith is a tricky thing without reason. Faith without reason seems to be stagnant (perhaps at times dishonest with the other inner lights if not entirely that), but reason without faith seems to be aimless and unbound.

 

[jkiernan56]

When explaining why God does not reveal himself to us in a physical way, many say that God must be taken on faith, even so far as to say that God requires faith and that proving himself to us would make faith unnecessary. I’m curious why people think that faith is such a high ideal and why it is actually necessary beyond attempting to account for the reality of things?

Why would a world where God revealed himself not be a better solution, especially considering he supposedly did this before with Jesus and Moses? Why is taking things on faith a necessity or even a good thing? Why would a God who is supposed to love us require that we take his very existence on faith and the insistence of other mortals?

This is a very good question. Why does God put us in a position where “faith” is so important and necessary> Why not take away our faith by showing us all we need to see and know so that we no longer have to believe anymore? To summarize - “What’s the big deal about faith”?

Faith definitely is a “big deal” in the Scriptures (Old and New Testament) … It is one of the central themes of Scripture … so to answer this question it is necessary to go to the Scripture and what it tells us about Faith and why it is important TO GOD. Faith is not only important to God , but is important for us as well.

The Documents of Vatican II have told us that we can know that God exists with certainty “by the light of natural reason”. So to acknowledge that God exists is not necessarily an act of faith for some … since to know with certiftude is no longer faith … but an acknowledgment of reality … like acknowledging that gravity exists … I don’t have to have faith in gravity because I know it is a fact … and facts do not require belief. The same can be said of knowing that “God exists”. That certainty can be known “by the light of natural reason” according to the Documents of Vatican II. In conclusion, faith is much much much more than acknowledging that God exists. Faith pleases God. That is what I would say in a nutshell. Faith is Trust in God. Faith is a relationship of love with God … to honor and respect God for who He is … and His Goodness to us in all His gifts …

I want to think more about this question about why faith is such a big deal and why God has permitted the human condition in its current state of affairs… in a condition that requires faith to keep our compass pointing north … to guide our steps and actions … so faith is not just about accepting that “God exists” … but loving Him, honoring Him, obeying Him out of true “fear of the Lord” - a person who wants nothing more than to love God and do what is pleasing to God … that requires Faith … and Faith is what leads us to love God … the most important thing is to love God if one stops to really think about that - because to love God is our greatest Good.

 

[matahari]

Why would a world where God revealed himself not be a better solution, especially considering he supposedly did this before with Jesus and Moses? Why is taking things on faith a necessity or even a good thing? Why would a God who is supposed to love us require that we take his very existence on faith and the insistence of other mortals?

---

There are numerous verses in the Bible about the importance of faith.
EG. " Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed"
“Without faith it is impossible to please God”
Faith opens the door to relationship with God
And God wants this fellowship with humans and with the whole human race

 

[liquidpele]

---

There are numerous verses in the Bible about the importance of faith.
EG. " Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed"
“Without faith it is impossible to please God”
Faith opens the door to relationship with God
And God wants this fellowship with humans and with the whole human race

Sure, but this is the philosophy section, not the sacred scripture section.