Faith

What is faith?

Well, according to the godless heathen of our age, it is a belief without justification. It is blind and unreasoning. It is an uncritical acceptance of a certain concept or idea. It is a mark of zealotry.

But is this the definition of faith, as understood by followers of Christ and outlined in the Bible?

The answer is a resounding "No!"

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.--Hebrews 11:1

The rest of this chapter of Hebrews is devoted to a description of believers and their acts of faith, from the days of Genesis to the present, as of the time of its writing. At no point do these descriptions entail a blind trust or a stumbling in the dark. I highly recommend this scriptural selection to anyone unfamiliar with it, or anyone who hasn't read it in a long while.

If faith requires mere superstitious dependence, why would God use the words "substance" and "evidence" in defining it? Clearly it is more than that. Unbelievers find it a difficult concept because they do not know or recognize God's work in their lives. But to those of us who believe and accept Him as our own, we do know the power of our resurrected Lord. We've experienced his aid in distressing situations. We've seen the evidence of his interventions. And our stories of answered prayers come by the truckload. I know people who have sought and received His bounties to such a degree that shrugging them off as coincidence strains credibility.

We find validations of our faith in the earthly life of Christ, in our very existence, in the drawing of every breath. We find reasons to believe hidden in the statistical probabilities against our planet and all its multi-faceted lifeforms simply popping into being, through no divine intervention or decree. We see His influence and guidance in inexplicable and unmerited acts of goodness from our fellow human beings. We ponder the night sky, knowing that we live out our lives on a small orb in a vast solar system, itself a tiny speck in a galactic whirlpool. Even the Milky Way galaxy is a seeming insignificant grain of sand on the infinite backdrop of the universe riddled with other such galaxies. Yet all this hangs on nothingness, in a near-perfect synchronicity that cannot--will not--be explained by the scoffing of chance. Surely "The Heavens declare the glory of God."

More examples of a justifiable faith exist, but I think you get the gist of my point. Is all this proof-positive of God's existence? Is all doubt banished by what I've said?

Sadly, no. There are those who believe already, and there are those who will not believe, no matter how much or what type of evidence is provided.

But as I have shown, my faith is more than a grasping at the aether, more than a baseless conviction, more than a shout of certainty in an empty room.

How can we expect unbelievers to understand our faith, when they do not comprehend the meaning of the word?