On Faith, pt. 2

Faith is not emotions

Before we go any further, we must note two things that faith is not.  First, faith is not a feeling or emotion.  Faith of any value will be much deeper than our emotions.  Emotions change unexpectedly and not necessarily due to a change in our knowledge of the facts.  You may have a feeling that something bad is going to happen to you today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you believe that feeling.  C.S. Lewis says, “Faith...is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods” (Mere Christianity 138-139).  If we based our faith and beliefs on emotions or moods that can shift by the minute, we’d be exceedingly confusing creatures and would make little progress in life.  There are times, and lots of them for certain types of people, when faith seems to be driven by the roller-coaster of emotions, but I think what we are looking at in these times is mostly emotion and hardly faith.  We hold our faith beliefs at a deeper level; they are more consistent and not likely to be changed simply by an emotion.  In fact, emotions are more likely to be changed by faith.  Emotions may affect faith to a degree, but if they were the sole basis for faith, faith wouldn’t be anything worth talking about.
 

Faith is not illogical by nature

One other thing that must be stated is that faith is not by nature illogical or against reason.  Faith is not necessarily logical or illogical.  It may be either one of these terms, but it can be defined by neither.   It is more logical for me to place my faith in the sun rising tomorrow than in it not rising because all the evidence suggests that it will rise.  It is logic that leads me to believe that my wife loves me because I see signs of it in what she does for me.   Reason can lead us to faith and it can lead us away from it.  While reason can carry us only so far in matters of faith, faith rarely works without some degree of reason.  Marxist scholar Terry Eagleton, in his review of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, writes, "Reason, to be sure, doesn't go all the way down for believers, but it doesn't for most sensitive, civilized, non-religious types either.  Even Richard Dawkins lives more by faith than by reason.  We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain" (Timothy Keller, The Reason For God, 120).  

More to come...