Wed, Dec 28, 22.

Faith Simplified

  1. To have faith is to believe.
  2. One’s faith is differentiated from another primarily by what or who is believed in
  3. At the root of all faith is knowledge—whether it is true or not, completely or partially,
  4. A person’s or people’s faith can have different degrees of strength or weakness.
    1. A strong faith is one that cannot be easily dissolved or weakened.
    2. How strong or weak a faith is determined or tested by arguments against it. These arguments may simply be events or actual arguments against what one believes.
  5. The strength of one’s faith is dependent on
    1. One’s knowledge,
    2. How rooted and sound one’s knowledge is regarding what one believes. This is really affected by familiarity which is affected by
      1. One relating with that knowledge over and over again. This can be accomplished through words—hearing or reading or learning it over and over again, or by
      2. Experience—the more one experiences a thing, the more one believes in it to the point of taking for it granted.
    3. One’s nature/character
      1. Some people are inclined to questioning everything and always have doubts and suspicions, while some people are not. This may be generally or particular to certain things true. For example, some people have the unreasonable fear of drowning, and so, even when at a distance from a body of water that poses no immediate or real threat to them, they are overwhelmed with fear.
      2. There is no amount of knowledge that will change the way a dog sees certain things. In fact we can be sure that there are things, though true, that a dog will never understand because it does not have the nature or capacity to.
  6. What makes faith so important is that it is the summary, the mixture of what one really knows or considers to be true and one’s character/nature. Therefore, if the faith of a man is known, his future actions in different circumstances can be accurately predicted. Faith is of the heart, it has to do with knowledge and with natural inclinations/character, and since the heart is the fountain of the issues of life, then one’s faith really determines one’s life. Faith affects everything we knowingly do.

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Hebrews 11 (02)