What Is Faith?

What is Faith?

The Latin term for this first meaning of faith is faith as assensus. It's like the English word, assent, but instead of a "t" at the end, there's a "sus" at the end. The central meaning of this notion of faith is suggested by the word "assent." This is faith as giving your mental assent to the truth of a claim, faith as believing that something is true. In Christian terms, this is faith as believing the central claims of the Christian tradition, or faith as believing that Jesus is the only Son of God, or faith as believing that the Bible is true, and so forth.

From the Latin term fidelitas. It's like the English word "fidelity," but with an "as" on the end instead of a "y." The central meaning of faith as fidelitas is suggested by that equation with fidelity. This is faith as faithfulness, or fidelity, to God. Not as faithfulness to certain statements about God, but as faithfulness to the relationship with God. It is like a marriage relationship in that respect. Faithfulness to the marriage relationship doesn't mean faithfulness to certain statements about your spouse, but faithfulness to the relationship itself. We are faithful to the relationship with God when we pay attention to it--when we live deliberately and intentionally within that relationship. I sometimes define Christian Spirituality as becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship to God.

From the Latin term fiducia. It's like the English word "fiduciary" but without the "ry" at the end. The English equivalent of faith as fiducia is faith as trust. Faith as radical trust in God, not trust in statements about God, but trust in God. We perhaps see the meaning of this notion of faith most clearly by going immediately to its opposite. For Christians, faith means affirming the utter centrality of Jesus. It also means a commitment to the Bible as the definitive of Christian faith--a commitment to an ongoing, critical dialog with the Bible itself. Christian faith means to believe this deeply but loosely. By loosely, mean we need to try to avoid our tendency to excessive servitude and excessive precision.

The word faith has various uses; its central meaning is similar to "belief", "trust" or "confidence", but unlike these terms, "faith" tends to imply