Hi GlassSoul, and welcome to EvC.
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I don't think I completely understand your post, even well enough to suggest improvements. Maybe I can at least break it down enough to get some questions going.
If, as Hebrews 11:1 suggests, faith allows one's hopes take on a virtual substance, can a person of faith examine an apologetic for that faith with equipoise?
1) I gather that "equipoise" simply means neutrality, an absence of bias. It might be clearer if you used a more common word.
2) I have a problem with the idea that "faith allows one's hopes to take on a virtual substance." I've never read that passage in Hebrews that way. I take it to mean simply that there is an invisible reality that faith permits us to recognize. As one commentator puts it, faith is a sense like seeing or hearing, "a 'sense' that gives us evidence of the invisible, spiritual world." If you mean something different from this, please explain further.
3) I don't understand how faith's being "the substance of things hoped-for..." relates to "examin[ing] an apologetic for that faith with equipoise [or without bias.]"
Is it possible to present an apologetic for a matter of faith that will seem excellent when approached with equipoise? If an apologetic does indeed stand up to harsh skeptical scrutiny, has it by very definition passed outside of the pale of faith and entered the scientific realm? Does one require faith, as it has been suggested to me, in order to approach an apologetic "aright?"
4) This is confusing because I understand apologetics to be arguments addressed to unbelievers, not to believers.
5) Is it possible you are asking something simpler, such as whether a person who has faith can be truly neutral about that faith? If so, it might help if you spell out more of your thoughts about this.
I hope this will help you make your post clearer.
Please reply to this post when you're ready.
Edited by AdminFaith, : No reason given.
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