On Faith

Part 1 in a series on faith.  Some lessons learned from a 3-4 year period of great darkness and deadness in my life when I didn't want to live by faith but wanted certainty in everything.  I am convinced that we go nowhere and do nothing without faith.

Faith is simple

On one level, faith appears to be a simple thing.  According the writer of Hebrews, it is confidence in the reality of something we do not see, or something that we are looking forward to.  Similarly, Mirriam-Webster’s definition includes the words “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.“ This seems plain enough.  Isn’t such faith a part of our everyday existence?  We have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.  We can be fairly confident in this faith, because we’ve seen it happen thousands of times, and have been told that it’s happened thousands of more times (which we believe by faith), but it’s faith nonetheless because it hasn’t happened yet.  We also show faith when our friend agrees to meet us at a certain time and place and we show up at the agreed upon time and expect him to be there. The level of confidence that we place in our friend may be slightly less than in the sun rising because we have not witnessed the consistency of our friend’s promises as much as the sun, and besides that, we can think of several reasons that would cause him to break his promise.  In both of these situations, we place our trust in something that is not certain.  This is faith at its simplest, most fundamental level.

Faith is risky

When it comes to faith in a god or as a basis for determining our worldview, faith doesn’t always show itself to be so simple.  One reason for this is that faith is risky.  By its very nature, it carries with it an element of risk.  While the risks may not be all that apparent in small, everyday matters, they are more obvious in matters of beliefs about life.  All faith involves placing our trust in something that is not certain.  Whether we are trusting in the ability of the government to rule rightly or in the historicity of the Bible’s claims, we place our hope in something we cannot prove.  We can be confident in the object of our faith but not certain.  We always risk being wrong.  We always risk being made the fool.  When we are talking about our friend meeting us, the risks are nothing more than the time it takes to get there and feeling slightly foolish when he doesn’t show up.  However, when it comes to a worldview, the risks are much greater.  Here we are choosing to base our whole existence on faith. If we are wrong, we are living by a lie and it has eternal implications.  We also leave ourselves open to ridicule and critique by those who don’t share our faith.