In fact, if you knew only Yvain’s definition, you would think that the word “faith” was only used to defend one’s beliefs from attack by others.
It seemed quite accurate to me, but that can be because I am not much familiar with religious thinking. Can you provide an example of relatively recent use of “faith” outside an apologetic argument?
Here’s a page from a book that I got to by following a citation to the Wikipedia article on Faith. I’m looking at the first complete paragraph.
The text is written by a Christian for Christian readers. As near as I can make out, the page is not arguing that the reader is required to have faith, or that the writer’s faith can survive all criticism. So, I wouldn’t call it apologetics. The tone is more like, “So, we all have faith here. That’s not at issue. But, just what kind of animal is this faith thing that we have? Where does it come from? What role does it play in the fate of our souls?”
You are right. They don’t use the word to defend their beliefs, even if I can’t figure out for sure what “faith” is supposed to mean there. It seems still to play the role of a sort of stop-sign, with approximate meaning of “acceptance of Catholic dogma”.
Still, I am not sure whether there is a concept behind “faith” distinct from “belief immune from scrutiny”. I have found a Christian definition where they basically say that faith is a belief which is
not based on factual evidence, but rather hearsay
absolutely certain
motivated by God’s personal qualities
a supernatural act
That seems to vindicate the naïve atheist view of faith as a belief firmly held in spite of evidence.
It seemed quite accurate to me, but that can be because I am not much familiar with religious thinking. Can you provide an example of relatively recent use of “faith” outside an apologetic argument?
Here’s a page from a book that I got to by following a citation to the Wikipedia article on Faith. I’m looking at the first complete paragraph.
The text is written by a Christian for Christian readers. As near as I can make out, the page is not arguing that the reader is required to have faith, or that the writer’s faith can survive all criticism. So, I wouldn’t call it apologetics. The tone is more like, “So, we all have faith here. That’s not at issue. But, just what kind of animal is this faith thing that we have? Where does it come from? What role does it play in the fate of our souls?”
You are right. They don’t use the word to defend their beliefs, even if I can’t figure out for sure what “faith” is supposed to mean there. It seems still to play the role of a sort of stop-sign, with approximate meaning of “acceptance of Catholic dogma”.
Still, I am not sure whether there is a concept behind “faith” distinct from “belief immune from scrutiny”. I have found a Christian definition where they basically say that faith is a belief which is
not based on factual evidence, but rather hearsay
absolutely certain
motivated by God’s personal qualities
a supernatural act
That seems to vindicate the naïve atheist view of faith as a belief firmly held in spite of evidence.