Post your articles online and promote your website for free! Boost your sites ranking by linking it from the ArticleZap database! Free Article directory and instant translation publishing!
Faith, Greek PISTIS, Latin FIDES, a religious term for an inner attitude, conviction, or trust relating man to a supreme God or ultimate salvation. In religious traditions stressing di- vine grace, it is the devotee’s inner certainty or attitude of love granted by God himself. In Christian theology, faith is the divinely inspired human response to God’s historical revelation through Jesus Christ and, consequently, is of crucial significance.
No definition allows for identification of “faith” with “religion,” although the prevalence of Christianity in the West has led many to regard the two as synonyms. Some inner attitude has its part in all religious traditions, but it is not always of central significance. For example, words in ancient Egypt or ancient (Vedic) India that can be roughly rendered by the general term “religion” do not allow for “faith” as a translation but rather connote cultic duties and acts. In Hindu and Buddhist Yoga traditions, inner attitudes recommended are primarily attitudes of trust in the guru (spiritual preceptor) and not, or not primarily, in God. Hindu and Buddhist concepts of devotion (Sanskrit bhatki) and love or compassion (Sanskrit karuna) are more comparable to the Christian notions of love (Greek agape, Latin caritas) than to faith.
In Biblical Hebrew, “faith” is principally juridical; it is the faithfulness or truthfulness with which parties adhere to a treaty or promise and with which God and Israel are to adhere to the covenant between them. In Islam and Christianity, both rooted in this tradition, the notion of faith reflects that view. In Islam, faith (Arabic iman) is what sets the believer apart from others; at the same time, it is ascertained that “None can have faith except by the will of Allah” (Qur ‘an 10:101). The Christian First Letter to the Corinthians similarly asserts that faith is a gift of God (I Cor.
12:8 9), while the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1) defines faith (pistis) as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Zoroastrianism, as well as Israel, may have had some importance in the development of the notion of faith in Western religion; it seems clear, at least, that the prophet Zoroaster (c. 628—551 Bc) was the first founder of a religion to speak of a new and conscious religious choice on the part of man for “truth” (Asha).
In the history of Christianity, the intellectual component of faith is stressed by Thomas Aquinas. One of the major issues of the Protestant movement was the theological problem of justification (q.v.) by faith alone. Luther stressed the element of trust, while Calvin emphasized faith as a gift freely bestowed by God. The influential German Romantic theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher entitled his principal work Der christliche Glaube (1821—22; The Christian Faith) and pays special attention to the subjective nature of faith, departing from earlier theologians with a more objective intent. Not till the 20th century did theologians (such as Karl Barth) make a conscious effort to turn away from Schleiermacher’s subjective interpretation.
Notions of religious trust in India, China, and Japan are as a rule different from the notion of faith in Christianity. The “trust” (Pali saddh, Sanskrit iraddha) described in the Buddhist Eightfold Path is comparable to the confidence with which a sick person entrusts himself to a physician. Likewise, the Chinese hsin (confidence, trust, sincerity) is more down to earth, although it is one of the five principal virtues. Devotional forms of Mahayana Buddhism and Vaiavism, however, show religious expressions akin to faith of Christian and Jewish traditions.
