Biblical "faith"
Posted on: February 20, 2007 - 7:21pm
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Biblical "faith"
From a debate at FTT:
My post:
Quote:
Faith is a belief without proof.
And here's P-Dunn's response:
Quote:
Not Biblical faith, as the Greek word pistis shows. Biblical faith is trust based on prior performance. What you're doing is taking the English definition of a Greek word and basing your idea around that. It's one of the same crippling mistakes Rook used.
I'm not sure how to respond to that one.
He is definitely getting all that stuff from JP Holding's site
(P-Dunn, if you're going to post a comment here about me "running here for help", keep in mind that you've asked Holding and others at TheologyWeb for help in debating at FTT.)
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1) What does it matter what language the word came from?
2) Biblical faith is not "reasonable belief," which is another way to say trust based on past performance. It doesn't matter how much he wants to quote a hebrew or greek dictionary. Unless he can prove that god exists using logic, then belief in god is based on something other than logic. If it's not logic, it is, by definition, illogic.
This is just deflection. Simply point out that the origin of the word is unimportant. The meaning is what matters. If he can logically prove god, then his statement is true. If he cannot, then it is false. No matter how much he deflects, just hold to that position.
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Theists are always trying to lie to themselves that faith isn't what it is: irrational belief. Embarrassment, I guess.
The problem is that their denial is self refuting. If theistic faith is merely experience, then why even bring up the word 'faith' at all? Why not just say 'experience' or even knowledge?
You don't have faith in things you know, you simply know them. You don't need to have faith that 2+2=4, you have knowledge of it.
Now, the bible uses 'faith' in at least 2 general ways.
1) "faith as trust in the goodness of god" - but this sort of faith can only be expressed by fictional bible patriachs - i.e. characters like Job who supposedly know god personally and yet need to trust that god has their best interests at heart.
In other words, this sort of 'faith' only takes place after one already begs the question of a god, or 'knows' that there is a god, in the fictional case of Job. This sort of 'faith' has no relation to the faith of a real person in a god, because it would require that they first beg the question that there is a god, and then assume that life events are evidence for this god....
So even if a theist starts here, he's forced to agree that he actually begins by begging the question of a god
Which leads us here: The second sense of faith, as a hope, without evidence. Unjustified belief.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Bible: New Testament. Hebrews 11:1.
i.e., it is belief without justification.
Furthermore:
Romans 8:24-25: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” (NKJV)
Here Paul makes it clear that one cannot have non contingent faith is one has facts! If one has a reason to believe, he cannot have theistic faith by definition!
Theistic faith is belief without justification. That's it. And theistic faith must be belief without justification, as there is no way to justify a belief in the supernatural. This is precisely why theologians are diverse as Martin Luther and Soren Kierkegaard agree that a theist MUST begin with a leap of faith.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Pee Dung is a hypocrite. He talks about how I needed Rook's help and he is asking JP Holding for help at TWeb.
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That's like a drowning man asking for a lead weight... If these guys can't even figure out that colloquial usages of faith have no bearing on theological or non contingent faith, then they're not even capable of having the discussion in the first place.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Hmm, you're right, Todangst.
Well, I wasted weeks of my own time on St. Michael, getting him to see that his OWN DEFINITION begged the existence of god... the closest he could come to the truth was to say that 'it assumed god, but it didn't beg the question' and that faith was 'non rational' not irrational....
That's actually pretty close....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Non-rational? Lol.
We wasted time on Bodhitharta too. Where is he, anyway?
Bod's last post was like four days ago.
Thanks for the responses, I'm sure Pee Dung is going to make stuff up and dodge every single point this time.
Yeah, I'm sure he will.
I think he dislikes atheists, see how he talks about us at the message board?
He called me a fundy atheist, which is an oxymoron. Oh well...
His friend, lilangelofterror is a 22 year old woman and she said this on the TWeb forum:
"I look for atheists to debate with".
So she joins to FreeThinkingTeens message board to find some young atheists to convert, I mean debate.
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