Why is faith a virtue?

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seeker33

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Why is faith considered a virtue? I don’t quite understand why God wants us to believe in him? If there was a father who didn’t react to his his children most of the time, and his answers were so rare that they would be considered “miracles”, would he be a good father? Or would we report him and make sure children’s lives improve?
I’m not trying to argue, I do sincerely want to believe… but it’s very difficult and I don’t quite understand why “faith” is so important, why is believing in the right dogmas more important than love and good intentions?
And how can we believe in God who doesn’t even show himself to us? How can an abandoned child believe his father loves him when she never sees him? And why does this kind of blind faith make God happy?
I don’t think this has anything to do with free will. A loving and present parent doesn’t take a child’s free will away. He doesn’t “force” the child to love him back What being present ans talking to a child does is giving a reason and creating a relationship. So I think talking about free will to love God or refuse him doesn’t make any sense in this question. If you see your father loves you you will want to love him naturally. If he shows no interest in you, it is much more difficult to form a relationship.
Why does God make it so difficult to actually feel and see his love and then punishes us for “refusing” him?

Edit: my question is what concrete, practical, real clues do we have in our daily lives that make blind faith reasonable? And if such clues and /or evidence don’t exist, how can God punish us for not loving him? (yeah, I know “God doesn’t punish anyone”)
 
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seeker33 said:
Why is faith considered a virtue?

… why is believing in the right dogmas more important than love and good intentions?
And how can we believe in God who doesn’t even show himself to us?..

I don’t think this has anything to do with free will. …

Why does God make it so difficult to actually feel and see his love and then punishes us for “refusing” him?
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By grace the Trinity gives a person to ability to choose good throughout life, which then is our free will choice. The grace “levels the playing field”. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity are infused with grace.

Modern Catholic Dictionay defines the virtue of faith as:
The infused theological virtue whereby a person is enabled to “believe that what God has revealed is true – not because its intrinsic truth is seen with the rational light of reason – but because of the authority of God who reveals it, of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived” (First Vatican Council, Denzinger 3008).
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Relationship is prayer.

Catechism
35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

2558 “Great is the mystery of the faith!” The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles’ Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.
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Punishment is self-exile:

If one does not love good which is what God is, then there will be no affinity for good after death. In order to have the Beatific Vision after death requires a state of habitual good, which is called the state of habitual grace or sanctifying grace.

Catechism
412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon’s envy had taken away."307 And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’; and the Exsultet sings, ‘O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’"308
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I think Vico gave a great detailed response. My short answer is that faith is also a choice. We are active in faith – we have reasonable faith. In order to be obedient, we must be able to believe. In fact, in John 3 when it uses the word “believe,” the contrasting word they used was “disobey.”
 
Thank you for your replies but I was interested in a “human answer”, not definitions. How can people be judged for not loving and obeying someone they don’t know?
Would you judge a child for not loving father that is always absent? Why is it important to God that we have faith without ever knowing him? If a father has a child and then leaves, only sending one letter, is it fair to demand love from the child?
Thank you in advance for your own thoughts and explanations.
 
seeker33 said:
I’m not trying to argue, I do sincerely want to believe… but it’s very difficult and I don’t quite understand why “faith” is so important, why is believing in the right dogmas more important than love and good intentions?
And how can we believe in God who doesn’t even show himself to us? How can an abandoned child believe his father loves him when she never sees him? And why does this kind of blind faith make God happy?
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Faith is important because it allows us to feel and be assured of God’s love at all times.

Without faith, the relationship feels exactly as you describe it. One tends to feel abandoned and punished unfairly.

True faith is not blind. As with all relationships, the relationship with God takes work to maintain. You have to visit, and talk, and share. You have good times and bad. True faith is like that of a parent and child: no matter how much you quarrel love abides.
 
I believe that God judges us on whether we seek to know him and have a relationship with him. As Catholics we believe that God created us with an innate desire to know Him. It can be harder for those raised outside of a faith to know how to begin to seek God, but huge numbers of people do.

Faith, paradoxically is a gift from God to us. We receive it in part in baptism but it is really born in us when we are truly open to God. Sometimes God chooses to give it to us all at once in a torrent, sometimes it is something we unpack slowly over a lifetime.
 
I spent many years occasionally and sporadically praying for faith and to know God. One day I came to know him and I accepted him into my life. God knew that I would before he came running to me. Maybe he waited until I was ready for him. Maybe he was standing next to me before and I couldn’t see him.
 
Faith matters because being a Christian is about relationship with Christ. You can’t build a relationship with someone you don’t have faith in. Good intentions are important but will eventually leave you unfulfilled or not be enough to get you through the challenges of life and church. The aim of relationship now in this life is growing to a point where we are ready for relationship with God in heaven.
 
The United States Catechism for Adults states “in the act of Faith we respond to God’s loving revelation.”
The invisible God, who became incarnate, addresses men as friends. We are “no slaves,” as scriptures tells us, for a slave does not know what his master is about. We have been given the command to love one another as Christ loved us.
Both the gift of God, and our response to Him are called faith. It is by faith that we give our minds and hearts to God. The very definition of prayer, or communication, involves the lifting up of heart and mind to God.
The image that comes to mind is of a parent that may appear absent to a child as he or she grows, yet the child knows the parent is always in the other room–will always return.
God is closer than that. By virtue of the Sacraments, God dwells within me. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit, as is each Baptized Christian. We all belong to the Body of Christ, the Church.
Summarizing what the US CCC tells us:
1)Faith is a personal and community relationship. In the Apostle’s Creed, we freely say, “I believe in God.”
2)Faith seeks understanding. Faith and reason work together to discover truth.
3)Faith is necessary for salvation.
4)Faith is a gift of grace.
5)Faith is a free, human act.
6)Faith believes with conviction in a message.

Faith begins as the gift from God which enables us to know and love Him. To live in faith requires action on our part. This is where St. James says show me your faith without works, and I will show you the faith that underpins my works. We love because God first loved us. We respond to God’s love in faith, hope in things unseen, knowing that “I can do all things” through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me.
 
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All your answers contain nice words. But my question is: how do I, practically, in reality, in my daily life know that God is present and I can have a relationship with him? When I pray HOW EXACTLY do I know he’s there with me and it’s not just my imagination? Or that it’s not some other god or abstract “universe”?
 
Faith gives us reason and greater means to achieving “love and good intentions”. Because faith means that there really is a God who-is-love, that love and goodness and order and justice and meaning and purpose are foundational to this universe, rather than just good old-fashioned emotions, opinions, etc.
 
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I have had the same questions my friend. I have often wondered if a relationship with God is so important why does the all powerful creator act exactly as he would if he didn’t exist. Good question.
 
That’s exactly what I mean, thank you. I would really like to hear an answer. Because I truly want to believe, I just can’t.
 
If a person makes an honest effort to look for something, they’ll generally find what they’re looking for. 🙂

If you make an honest effort to look for God, you’ll find him. And when you find him, you’ll be able to recognize signs of his presence all around you as clearly as if he sent you postcards in the mail every week.

If someone doesn’t want to find God… not even postcards in the mail from him every week would be enough to convince them. 🙂

There’s a famous nun with a healing ministry. This is her anecdote:
While in Japan giving a retreat, an Irish priest said to me (Sr. Briege), “Briege, it would be awful easy to believe if I could see a miracle.”

I told him, “Father, the Lord uses you every morning to perform a miracle.”

He said, “I know about the mass, but you know what I mean. If only I could see somebody healed if they were blind or had bad legs, it would be very easy to believe.”

I said, “Oh, do you think it would, Father? I’ve seen a lot of people healed, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I still have to keep praying and many times I find myself thinking, ‘Oh that person’s so sick,’ and wondering if healing is possible.”

He said to me, “Oh, I think I’d be different. I think if I could see a miracle, I would really believe.”

[…three days later…]

Among the Jesuits [at the retreat] there was an elderly French priest who had a very severe gangrene in his leg. The doctor had told him he should have the leg amputated. He asked the doctor to let him make the retreat and then he would go for the amputation.

Fr. Frank asked us to gather around and pray for healing.

The next morning, we were getting ready to go to breakfast. The French priest came up to me gesticulating and making all kinds of signs to me, pointing to heaven and to his heart and just carrying on. I couldn’t speak French or Japanese; I just kept looking at him. I thought with a little inward smile, ‘This poor man’s getting a heart attack or going mad.’ So I just walked away.
I went in to breakfast and this same priest came running into the room with the legs of his trousers rolled up. He was showing everyone that his leg was perfectly healed.

Three seats down from me was my Irish friend. I looked over at him and said, “Father, there’s your miracle you were talking about the other day.”

The Irish priest looked at him, and then he looked at me, and he said, “My God, it’s awful hard to believe! Did he have gangrene at all?”

Then I said to him, “See, Father, it doesn’t make it easier to believe.”
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Start out slow. Find a scripture that seems revealing to you. On Faith I like Hebrew 11:1-2. Really reflect on the words. Reflect on the full meaning. You could even go so far as to analyze the sentence structure. The point is to really mull it over. Then identify something to pray about. Maybe it’s something relating to faith. Then just have a conversation with God. Talk to him about what you read. Talk to him about how you understand it. Take a leap of faith and ask him to help you truly understand. It might feel strange, but that is ok. If you want to believe as you say then what do you have to lose?

This relationship must be nurtured. It will grow.
 
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seeker33 said:
That’s exactly what I mean, thank you. I would really like to hear an answer. Because I truly want to believe, I just can’t.
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So here’s the concept. Man doesn’t necessarily want to know God-and in Adam man preferred himself to God, in fact, which is the essence of pride. And pride/ self-righteousness (as opposed to a God-based righteousness when man is truly subjugated to God, in communion with Him), is responsible for every kind of moral evil (sin) that takes place in our world, because in order to do wrong man must think or convince himself that he’s right, if only in the heat of the moment. ISIS, to name an extreme case, believes whole-heartily in what they do, doing God’s will, in fact. All evil is done in the name of good. And this pride infects all of us in little and big ways. Man’s will reigns here on earth for all practical purposes, and for better or worse; the Master, IOW, is gone away. Adam drove Him away; the gift of free will allowed him to do that, to reject God’s authority, to reject God as his God. This is, among other things, an act against faith; if Adam didn’t believe God’s word then God is no longer the God of him; Adam becomes his own God. And that’s how we’re now born, able to experiment with whether or not we even want God, doing what’s right in our own eyes as often as not, cut off from the intimate knowledge of God that Adam experienced, and that we’re lost without. “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

We don’t know where we came from, if anywhere, why we’re here, if for anything, and where we’re going, if anywhere: lost, spiritually dead, separated from the Creator and lover of our souls. So we’re being asked if we like this situation, while being told of its alternative through revelation: that God exists, God is goodness and mercy and forgiveness itself, God is love and proved it by willingly suffering and dying an excruciatingly humiliating and painful death at the hands of His own creation if that’s what it takes to convince us of that love, again, not overriding our wills but drawing them to a love so “wide and long and high and deep” as St Paul puts it in Eph 3 that we may forfeit the offerings of the world, the “empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors” as St Peter put it, and turn back to God, now embracing the light He brought into the world, embracing the knowledge of God that Christ came to reveal, because as we come to truly know Him we inevitably come to love Him, and this is the essence of our justice-and of our salvation. This begins with faith, as a response to grace.
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

Because He also rose from the dead, to give us that knowledge as well, the knowledge of eternal life, an eternity of continuous sheer bliss with a love and presence so ineffably huge that one never tires of exploring and being enthralled by it. God’s entire purpose for man has always been our unbridled happiness, something we all naturally want but can’t quite find here on earth, apart from Him.
 
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Since we don’t see God in this life yet since He is our Father, Creator, ultimate fulfillment of all our desires and happiness, end goal of all our actions and our life itself here on earth, for we hope to be with God forever in heaven and see him face to face through the beatific vision, then we must believe that He exists. To be with God forever in heaven is why he created us and we get to heaven by practicing the virtues of faith, hope, and charity among others and following the example of Jesus’ life and teaching.

Recall that in Genesis 1 it is written that God created man, male and female he created them, in his own image and likeness. This image and likeness in us principally pertains to our immortal and spiritual soul with the spiritual powers of intellect and will. Yes, God has an intellect and will too but it infinitely exceeds our created intellect and will. Now, faith is a supernatural theological virtue, a gift of grace that God bestows upon us in baptism along with sanctifying grace, hope and charity, and other infused virtues. The virtue of faith resides in the intellect for knowledge of God, truth, wisdom is the ‘job’ as it were of the intellect. On the other hand, charity and love are in the will and acts of charity flow from the will. But, as St Augustine said, we cannot love what we don’t know. Accordingly, acts of the will follows acts of the intellect. Before we can love anything, God or otherwise, we must know what to love. And to know what to love pertains to knowledge which is the work of the intellect.

Jesus said that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The catholic faith which is founded upon Jesus and divine revelation, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and taught by the Church pertains to truth and correct knowledge about God, the world, ourselves. God is both Truth and Love, it is his very nature and we are made in his image and likeness by the gifts of intellect, where faith and hope reside, and will, where charity resides.

You state ‘I don’t quite understand why “faith” is so important, why is believing in the right dogmas more important than love and good intentions?’ I wouldn’t say that faith is more important than charity or hope, these are the three theological virtues. They go together as you can see from what I’ve written here according to our very human nature. In this life St Paul said ‘these three remain, faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these is charity’ (1 Cor. 13:13). This is so in this life because we don’t know and see God directly as we hope too in the beatific vision:

‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known’ (1 Cor. 13:12)

But, from faith and through charity we can love God immediately. But, there is a right ordering of charity and love and we know this from faith which concerns correct knowledge of God, truth and wisdom, which is in the intellect. So, believing in the right dogmas which concerns truth, for God is Truth, is necessary for the right ordering of charity, for God is also Love. But, as I said, charity follows truth, for we cannot love what we do not know
 
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To address a reason that God “hides”: It’s been said that ‘integrity is to do the right thing even when no one’s looking’. As long as God is an “option”, so to speak, as long as He’s out of sight, then we can be truly tested, our justice refined and increased, or decreased depending on our choices. And this world is absolutely rife with moral choices.
 
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