Why is faith considered to be such a great virtue?

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Faith is belief in something despite a lack of evidence, or evidence against it. I don’t see anything particularly good about this, yet many people think that it is a great virtue? Why is this?
 
I think that in many cases people uncritically repeat what they’re taught from an early age. They’re told that it’s good to have faith, and the idea that it’s good to have faith functions as an unspoken assumption in many other things they hear, and so they never really question it.

It’s a kind of sloppy train of associations that runs something like this: “God is good, and God is known through faith, so faith is good. Faith is a gift, it comes from God, and God is good, so faith is good. If we had sufficient evidence, we wouldn’t need faith, and faith is good, so God can’t give us sufficient evidence or we wouldn’t have that good thing.” Etc., etc, etc.

The thing that snaps some people out of this kind of mindset – occasionally – is getting them to see that before we start talking about reality at all, we need to care about what’s true and we have to desire to believe as many true things and as many false things as possible. Then we have to figure out how we come to accept claims as true (“accepting claims as true” = “believe” for me). What sort of evidence is necessary to convince us of certain claims or classes of claims? Are we consistent in our standards when evaluating similar kinds of claims?

I’m convinced that serious and honest thought along these lines inevitably leads to a rejection of theistic claims.
 
Faith is not the belief in something without evidence, and it’s especially not the belief in something despite evidence to the contrary. Faith is the courage to act on evidence which is not perfect. From a philosophical perspective, all evidence is suspect, even evidence we gather from our senses, so it requires some faith to act at all. For example, there is some measure of faith required to cross the street even when we have good evidence that no cars are coming. There might be a car coming that we cannot see, or our eyesight might be less effective than we realize. It’s dangerous, but yet we cross anyway lest we be paralyzed with fear and inaction.

Faith in Jesus is not about believing in something with no evidence. There is wonderful evidence of many kinds! But, it is incomplete just like all evidence, and so faith is required to make the move from gathering the evidence to acting on it (surrendering your life to Him).
 
Poseidon said:
Faith is belief in something despite a lack of evidence, or evidence against it. I don’t see anything particularly good about this, yet many people think that it is a great virtue? Why is this?
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To begin to understand, you must use the definition that believers use:

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” If someone sees or perceives no evidence, that does not mean that it does not exist. If you have never used a Geiger counter, you take it on faith that radiation exists.

Faith is a virtue as it shows a willingness to trust in a promise. You trust in a promise of the unseen or unrealized each time you buy something with a warranty. The better the warranty, the more faith you have that the product is good. And, even if something goes amiss, you then have faith that the maker will put it right. Anyone who manufactures or sells a product or service desires that you have faith in them.
 
Poseidon said:
Faith is belief in something despite a lack of evidence, or evidence against it. I don’t see anything particularly good about this, yet many people think that it is a great virtue? Why is this?
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You ever thought something was true, but just don’t know why? How do you know you can count on someone to be there for you in times of trouble? Are you telling me you’ve never had faith that something would turn out well, even though you had no scientific evidence or anything to back it up?

How is faith not a great virtue? It’s the ultimate expression of trust.
 
presidentjlh said:
You ever thought something was true, but just don’t know why? How do you know you can count on someone to be there for you in times of trouble? Are you telling me you’ve never had faith that something would turn out well, even though you had no scientific evidence or anything to back it up?

How is faith not a great virtue? It’s the ultimate expression of trust.
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You seem to be talking more about hope here than faith.
 
Faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain.

Faith will heal you. But in order to understand Faith, you must first understand doubt.

Get yourself either a 2 foot tall or 4 foot tall statue of Jesus, as life-like as possible, and do visualizations on it. What I mean by this, is stare at the statue long enough to get a good mental image of it behind closed eyelids. Then periodically close your eyes and try to see Jesus. It will take some time, but eventually you can get to a point where you can hold the image as long as 5 minutes. If you practice this deeply, Jesus will visit you in your dreams, he may even heal you then.

Here’s where doubt happens, as soon as you acknowledge that you are seeing Jesus behind your closed eyelids, the thought of “this is Impossible” or as little as a “Huh”? the image of Jesus will vanish and you will return to complete blackness, as you are seeing behind the closed eyelids. This doubt is very difficult to conquer, but this doubt causes all of our problems. What is Faith? It is total Trust in Jesus, so if you question the image of Jesus, doubt will take over and all your faith will be lost. Just like Peter when doubt entered his mind when he was walking on the water with Jesus.

After practicing this for a while, take it to the next stage of impossible, do these visualizations in a very dark room, without the statue as an aid, with your eyelids open.
In the beginning you will see just glance impressions forming, with more practice it will become more detailed. Took me a month before I actually saw Jesus. But that’s not what gets your attention, it’s the light that gushes from him that illuminates the room. Blows your mind, and the doubt says OMG “NO WAY”, and then Jesus disappears again, until you can hold him with your faith.

Funny thing is, we do this every night when we go to sleep, in our dreams, we form this light that manifests, that seems so real, but we do it while we are knocked out/unconscious/sleeping it happens naturally but under the control of a wild, untamed, and doubtful mind. What we are doing here, is a form of conscious dreaming, but it’s more than that.

When you can hold Jesus without questioning or doubting him, ask him to heal you, and his healing light will penetrate you, and you will feel the healing taking place.

It feels like when you stick your hand in lukewarm water, as the sensation runs up your hand, but with a vibrating power filling your whole being, that’s the best that I can describe it.

The strength that you develop by resisting this doubt is the strength of your Faith increasing. And it is this Faith that will heal/cure you. But you can’t pray to do this, you have to do it.

All Faith and no Works accomplishes nothing.
First comes the Work, then comes the Faith.
 
Poseidon said:
Faith is belief in something despite a lack of evidence, or evidence against it. I don’t see anything particularly good about this, yet many people think that it is a great virtue? Why is this?
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We don’t find it particularly good either in refusing to believe against the evidence, which is why it perplexes us why everyone isn’t Catholic yet :hmmm:

ps. That’s not the definition of faith. Here’s your homework assignment, newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm
 
Poseidon said:
You seem to be talking more about hope here than faith.
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I would say that in the common, everyday usages of faith and hope that they are somewhat related but different.

Faith is when you have a lot more evidence: you have a good friend who is known to be reliable. He is going to give you a ride to a very important appointment. The morning comes, and you feel pretty calm, because you have faith in your friend. If this friend is a couple of minutes late, you do not worry.

Hope is when the person giving you a ride is someone you don’t know as well, or who is not known to be reliable, someone who is forgetful or who oversleeps a lot. With this friend, you might be a little worried before he’s even late!

I would also add that some *Catholic *references to hope seem to mean something which is more like trust, so what you have said is not that far off, *except *that when this happens, the hope is more solid and closer to faith or trust then the other way around.
 
Poof said:
Have you heard of Father Barron? 😃

What Faith Is and What Faith Isn’t: youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI
Faith and Reason: youtube.com/watch?v=GcH_5Iecu5s&list=UUcMjLgeWNwqL2LBGS-iPb1A&index=1&feature=plcp
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IMO, atheists have a far more profound faith than nearly all religious believers. To be surrounded by evidence of a supreme being, to experience an existence that is evidence of, at least, a designer, yet to be convinced that no such Entity exists, takes nearly absolute faith in one’s worldview. Is it a profound unfaith?
 
po18guy said:
IMO, atheists have a far more profound faith than nearly all religious believers. To be surrounded by evidence of a supreme being, to experience an existence that is evidence of, at least, a designer, yet to be convinced that no such Entity exists, takes nearly absolute faith in one’s worldview. Is it a profound unfaith?
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I’d have to disagree with you there. You may see plenty of evidence of design, but I don’t.
 
I suppose it’s like having confidence that the universe has a point when so much of what we experience might suggest otherwise? That we should give up and throw in the towel? If you do not see the heroism of that then you do not have the soul of a poet, that’s for certain.
 
Faith is not only belief but the dedication and commitment of one’s entire being to truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and - above all - love. It is a great virtue because it entails other virtues such as hope, trust, courage, patience, fortitude, compassion, kindness, humility and unselfishness.

Lack of faith is the rejection of the **objective reality **of virtues which are supposed to be human conventions which do not correspond to an ultimately purposeless existence in a purposeless universe.
 
Solipsism is the only worldview that uses logic and evidence as its basis. All other worldviews rely on faith to some degree or other. The value of faith is that it allows one to form a functional understanding of the world, upon which cause and effect, right and wrong, true and false, can be defined. Faith provides the context by which one interacts with the world. There is that which one knows, and there is that which one believes through faith, and oftentimes it is difficult to know the difference. But there is more to faith than simply providing context.

Faith gives people the assurance that there is a purpose, a meaning, to life. All the suffering is not in vain, and all the hardships are not without hope. Faith gives one the courage to persevere when reason would dictate that the struggle is pointless. Faith is virtuous, because it gives hope, it gives courage, and it gives meaning. One of the things that children learn as they near adulthood, is that life isn’t fair. The innocent suffer, and reward is not commensurate with merit. Perhaps one of the causes of teenage rebellion is this sudden realization, that life isn’t fair, and the world is all too often indifferent and cruel. In such a context, faith, and especially faith in God, is a compelling and reassuring concept. The belief that beyond all the suffering, there is a purpose, and there is justice, makes life bearable. Such assurance is only obtainable by faith.

Being a solipsist I try to understand why people believe the things they do. I try to identify in myself, that which I observe in others. I understand that faith has its virtues, but I also admit that faith has its flaws. Faith, pushed to its human extremes, yields radicalism, which manifests itself in the very injustice and cruelty that religious compassion and forgiveness would seem to abhor. People are by their very nature both cruel and compassionate. It seems sometimes that people use faith in God, not as a guide for their actions, but rather as a justification for them. Such is not faith, such is human intolerance, masquerading as faith.

The difficult bit, is knowing when one is using faith as motivation, and not merely as justification.
 
Partinobodycula said:
Solipsism is the only worldview that uses logic and evidence as its basis. All other worldviews rely on faith to some degree or other. The value of faith is that it allows one to form a functional understanding of the world, upon which cause and effect, right and wrong, true and false, can be defined. Faith provides the context by which one interacts with the world. There is that which one knows, and there is that which one believes through faith, and oftentimes it is difficult to know the difference. But there is more to faith than simply providing context.

Faith gives people the assurance that there is a purpose, a meaning, to life. All the suffering is not in vain, and all the hardships are not without hope. Faith gives one the courage to persevere when reason would dictate that the struggle is pointless. Faith is virtuous, because it gives hope, it gives courage, and it gives meaning. One of the things that children learn as they near adulthood, is that life isn’t fair. The innocent suffer, and reward is not commensurate with merit. Perhaps one of the causes of teenage rebellion is this sudden realization, that life isn’t fair, and the world is all too often indifferent and cruel. In such a context, faith, and especially faith in God, is a compelling and reassuring concept. The belief that beyond all the suffering, there is a purpose, and there is justice, makes life bearable. Such assurance is only obtainable by faith.

Being a solipsist I try to understand why people believe the things they do. I try to identify in myself, that which I observe in others. I understand that faith has its virtues, but I also admit that faith has its flaws. Faith, pushed to its human extremes, yields radicalism, which manifests itself in the very injustice and cruelty that religious compassion and forgiveness would seem to abhor. People are by their very nature both cruel and compassionate. It seems sometimes that people use faith in God, not as a guide for their actions, but rather as a justification for them. Such is not faith, such is human intolerance, masquerading as faith.

The difficult bit, is knowing when one is using faith as motivation, and not merely as justification.
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Please forgive me for pointing out a true solipsist doesn’t believe there are others or people but only oneself. There is no one else to tolerate, forgive or treat unjustly or cruelly!

You have all the right values but in the wrong setting. 🙂

You have only yourself to tolerate, forgive, neglect, torture or kill…
 
tonyrey said:
Please forgive me for pointing out a true solipsist doesn’t believe there are others or people but only oneself. There is no one else to tolerate, forgive or treat unjustly or cruelly!

You have all the right values but in the wrong setting. 🙂

You have only yourself to tolerate, forgive, neglect, torture or kill…
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tonyrey, if the God who created you, can love you, forgive you, and die for you, though you are no more than a reflection, why can’t I?
 
I don’t really like to think of faith as the same as belief. To me, faith is an orientation- to have faith in God means to be oriented towards an eternal, transcendental X, which includes a sense of love, justic and the possibility of happiness.

Faith is also an action. To act as if we believe that we can alleviate the suffering in the world.

So, to act *as if *you believe, I would say is faith.

Belief (in the conventional sense) of intellectual acceptance of a proposition has no particular merit, as far as I can see. “Faith without works is dead.”

Many saints have struggled with doubt. In fact, maybe this could even increase sanctity- to live in perfect love and fidelity to God, while doubting He exists…
 
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