Faith by Definition

I have faith the sun will rise tomorrow.
But I am not 100% sure.

Faith is being absolutely certain something is true, and acting accordingly. Thus faith and action are two sides of the same coin.Faith is calling the things that are not as though they were until the things that are promised to be are made manifest.Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.Faith is more than accepting a fact as true. It is putting one's complete trust in something that has not yet been known through physical senses.Faith is not courage, but courage comes from faith.Faith is a gift from God.Faith is rare.Faith is the power of God to create a new man in His image and glory.Faith is rest.Faith is the opposite of worry....thats about all I can think of...

The Bible says:1) Faith is the substance....(Strongs) NT:5287

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hupostasis (hoop-os'-tas-is); from a compound of NT:5259 and NT:2476; a setting under (support), i.e. (figuratively) concretely, essence, or abstractly, assurance (objectively or subjectively):

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KJV - confidence, confident, person, substance.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.) In other words, Faith is an objective or subjective confidence. It is indeed objective in that our faith is not in faith but in a person....the Living Christ.2) Faith is the substance...NT:4102

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pistis (pis'-tis); from NT:3982; persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:The internal impartation of the Holy Spirit...Himself....is the confidence and the character of our hope.Also interesting to note that these early authors---without any microscopes or knowledge of science whatsoever...were still quick to declare that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible which is an apt description of the atomic level of unseen power!

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

What do you think is the spiritual vehicle by which this substance is transported between God and man? What is the channel? Interesting but not surprising. Just try it on one of the science threads though. You go first and I'll stand nearby with a can of Ma Murphy's Lion Repellent Elixir This message has been edited by iano, 12-Feb-2006 12:07 AM

It's a comparision I often use to try and analogize the unanalogizable. "I am surer of God than that the Sun will...."You don't have to answer this question but is that how you experience it?

Ok, I'm a little tired. How do I experience what?

That you are more sure of Gods existance than that the sun will rise tomorrow?

I wasn't getting at that when I said I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I am not 100% sure.My point was that everything we see around us and can measure points us to the huge possibility that the sun will in fact rise tomorrow morning.That is how I found God, in that same manor.Everything I see around me, all the good and the bad points me to God.

faith is acting upon your belief whether the evidence is against or for it.

I can understand that the evidence around would point to the existance of God. But that is simply evidence (compelling though it may be) One might travel the path of evidence and conclude there must be a God or one might travel the path and arrive at a destination. Finding that which left the evidence. If the latter, then the evidence is no longer central for one has found that which left it.In that case one can be surer, now, of Gods existance than one is sure, now, that the sun will rise tomorrow. The latter is always a case of travelling the road of evidence, never arriving at the destination.IOW one can know for sure that God exists, but one cannot know for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow.

You have such a way with logic Iano.It utterly escapes me how totally ignoring the evidence can make one even surer about anything, yet the way you put it seems to just smooth over the cracks and make it almost reasonable to think that way.I love reading your posts even if we do seem to be irrevocably on opposite sides of almost every fence.

I see no flaw in it to be honest and it is not that it is anything to do with me. D'ya ever watch those 'whodunnit' style stories: Columbo and the like. At the end, they trawl back over the programme and tie all the little part-evidences together. At the time they seemed (and were designed to be so) to point in numerous different directions but when its all laid out, its as obvious as can be. It fits. Well, arriving at God is the exact same as arriving at the end of Columbo - the evidence you thought pointed to, well kind of hither and thither, fits perfectly in this one puzzle. It takes him to show you however, but when he does you find yourself going "of course"... "aha"...."yeah thats it". It has nothing to do with intelligence or degrees or experience. When its shown you can't help but see it. What I found (initially) to be the most compelling and exciting aspects of finding God (or better...him finding me) was that all the disparate bits of evidence came to unity. Iraq/Aids/multiple Religions/sexualisation of children, etc., are all separate areas for which there is little by way of unifying cause or explanation. The politicists and stragtegists (and EvC) attempt to deal with Iraq. The WHO (and EvC)deals with Aids. Philosophers and theologians (and EvC) deal with Religion. Commerce and social engineering (and EvC) deal with child sexualisation. All different fronts against which 'mankind' contends as separate issues.God explains to me why they and so many other things are all just facets of the same thing. A simple thing. The Fall. We fell into a cesspit s'all. It's rather simple in retrospect...rather impossible before your shown. When I was irrevocably on the opposite side of the fence I was a lot less gracious and tolerant than you. If there is anything of worth to be gleaned from my posts then I am delighted. As much as they wander through the indefinable mists of EvC, they all have but one purpose: to point others to him. My delight holds nothing more for me than the sincere, nay sincerest, hope that one day I will open up one of your posts to find that you have been found too. You are beautiful PY... but that is only a patch on what you could be.You attempt to find meaning and purpose and beauty as an individual - on your own terms. We all do. His plan is that we find it from the comfort and safety..and under the influence of Him. It requires the most difficult sacrifice we can ever make. The giving up of self in order to find what it is to be truly self. He knows what a sacrfice it takes for us - he did the same thing himself. Not for friends, not for those that merited it. He did it so that his enemies could become his friends.

What evidence?Which group of evidence?

Whatever evidence that Iano was talking about in his post. It was a rather general point.
I don't know what specific evidence for which specific thing that he was talking about.

I have just reached a point in my life, thanks in part to this forum, that I can look back and see God's hand in everything. It's all about his will. I have found the only free will we have is to choose whether it's from him or not. I can't help but see God in everything, even the bad ugly stuff.