{"id":140,"date":"2008-02-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html"},"modified":"2011-04-23T21:33:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T01:33:27","slug":"faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\nI\u2019ve been wrestling with the understanding of faith from a 1st century perspective for 2 years now, I haven\u2019t gotten to any solid ground, but I promised you all some half baked theories, so I\u2019d like to share where I am now.
\nThe study has taken me trough 3 ancient cultures and 4 languages I don\u2019t speak to come as far as this:
\nThe new testament use of the word is not specific enough to make a solid definition (\u201cevidence of things heard of and assurance of things not seen\u201d does not count as solid)
\nThe Hebrew word translated to faith means \u201csturdy\u201d most of the time, and sometimes \u201cdependable\u201d when referring to promises.
\nThe Greek word means \u201cbelieve\u2019 or \u201caccept to be true\u201d it\u2019s not an exclusively religious word the way it is in English, but sometimes it is applied to which religious group you are a part of (Pharisees, Sadducees, so on..)
\nThe Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Greek uses two different translations for the Greek word, depending on whether it\u2019s used as a known or a verb.
\nWhen it\u2019s a noun the Vulgate uses \u201cfides\u201d which means \u201cdependable\u201d again. It\u2019s where we get out word \u201cfidelity\u201d and it\u2019s rather directly related to our word \u201cfaithful\u201d
\nWhen it\u2019s a verb it\u2019s the word \u201ccredes\u201d which is where we get the name \u201ccreed\u201d for our Christian statements of faith. It just means \u201cbelieve\u201d again or sometimes \u201cthink\u201d and once again, it\u2019s not exclusively religious.
\nIn other words, I\u2019m nowhere. I\u2019ve studies the word, in literary context, in historical context, through intra-biblical and extra-biblical uses and I have \u201cit means something to do with thinking its true that is somehow correlated to stability in some sense I don\u2019t understand\u201d
\nI have noticed that it\u2019s not until we get past the Vulgate, into the popular Latin use that we start to see the word \u201creligio\u201d which is translated into the English (along with credes and fides) as \u201cfaith\u201d meaning \u201cbelief in something in a spiritual sense of for spiritual reasons in the absence of evidence\u201d.
\n\u201creligio\u201d if you haven\u2019t guessed, is where we get the English word \u201creligion\u201d
\nHere\u2019s where I am with it now:
\n\u201cFaith\u201d is not supposed to be a crutch, it\u2019s not supposed to take the place of good reasons to devote your life to something, it was almost certainly not taken as a religious word by the first disciples, and the phrase \u201cjust have faith\u201d would absolutely never be used to comfort someone who had a loved one who was dieing.
\nWe have taken it too far, as a church, and as a religion. I don\u2019t know exactly what it means, but I\u2019m confident it doesn\u2019t mean what we\u2019re using it for and I don\u2019t think we need it.
\n\u2026
\nI think we could create a Christian faith, in the absence of faith. I think we could get by with nothing but the truth, and the reasonable acceptance of it.
\nI think if we take our bibles and we just insert \u201cbelief\u201d, or \u201cconfidence\u201d or \u201ctrust\u201d in the place of \u201cfaith\u201d we will find ourselves with a \u201creligion\u201d that\u2019s a whole lot more down to earth.
\nAnd for the worshipers of a god made flesh I can\u2019t think of anything more appropriate.
\nWe could feel the freedom to investigate our doubts without needing to make excuses.
\nWe could start going toe to toe with the atheist scientific community and not be discounted as zealots
\nMatematics,, and Philosophy cease to be mundane secular efforts and join the ranks of art and music as recognizable opportunities for authentic worship that is glorifying to God.
\nIt would be freaking RockAwesome!
\nThe only problem is that I don\u2019t think I can justify it, biblically. Try as I might there is still a sense of something transcendent in the text regarding faith and I can\u2019t just get rid of it.
\nI wish I could. Because I think a faithless faith would do us good.
\nAnd I\u2019m tempted to say we should do it anyway. Every denomination in history has had some practice or idea that they could never justify entirely biblically. The only difference between this and them is that we would know our mistake going in.
\n\u2026
\nSo that\u2019s the tension.
\nLuther said that the state of orthodoxy was akin to that of a drunken peasant attempting to mount a horse, each time he rises from one side he falls of the other into the mud.
\nWe are on the left side of this horse representing an understanding of faith, but the only mount I can manage would land us straight on the other side of the truth from here.
\nIdeas?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been wrestling with the understanding of faith from a 1st century perspective for 2 years now, I haven\u2019t gotten to any solid ground, but I promised you all some half baked theories, so I\u2019d like to share where I am now. The study has taken me trough 3 ancient cultures and 4 languages I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[153,148,150,152,151,149],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-2","category-theology","tag-deconstruction","tag-faith","tag-meaning-of-faith","tag-reconstruction","tag-redefine","tag-what-is-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve been wrestling with the understanding of faith from a 1st century perspective for 2 years now, I haven\u2019t gotten to any solid ground, but I promised you all some half baked theories, so I\u2019d like to share where I am now. The study has taken me trough 3 ancient cultures and 4 languages I…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-27T05:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-24T01:33:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac7d970b-pi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rgaffney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For - A Fear of Whales","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For - A Fear of Whales","og_description":"I\u2019ve been wrestling with the understanding of faith from a 1st century perspective for 2 years now, I haven\u2019t gotten to any solid ground, but I promised you all some half baked theories, so I\u2019d like to share where I am now. The study has taken me trough 3 ancient cultures and 4 languages I…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html","og_site_name":"A Fear of Whales","article_published_time":"2008-02-27T05:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-04-24T01:33:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac7d970b-pi"}],"author":"rgaffney","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html","name":"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For - A Fear of Whales","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac7d970b-pi","datePublished":"2008-02-27T05:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-04-24T01:33:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/#\/schema\/person\/d1517242690f3eb7970adfa3b8e1a567"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac7d970b-pi","contentUrl":"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac7d970b-pi"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/02\/faith-a-crisis-of-the-evidence-of-things-hoped-for.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Faith: A Crisis of the Evidence of Things Hoped For"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/","name":"A Fear of Whales","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ryan Gaffney","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/#\/schema\/person\/d1517242690f3eb7970adfa3b8e1a567","name":"rgaffney","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/author\/rgaffney"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}