Do you think a person can believe in God, yet not due to faith, or is faith the only way?
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Does Belief in God Require Faith?
- Thread starter The Sum of Awe
- Start date
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
faith and belief are different things.
belief does not necessarily motivate a person to seek God and do his will for example. But faith will motivate a person to actually put their belief into practice.
dyanaprajna2011
Dharmapala
I think it depends on the god-concept. For instance, I don't think it really requires faith for pantheism or deism, but it is a requirement, I think, for gods such as the Abrahamic god.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Well for me the so called god in the sky need a lot of faith, after all he has never been proven to exist.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
They are, and they are not. Faith, in the relevant sense, is a variety of belief- namely, belief in the absence of adequate reason or evidence. So if I have faith that X, then I believe X, necessarily- but if I believe X, I don't necedsarily have faith that X.
RE: the OP- yes. Since the existence of God cannot be shown through any evidence, as there is NO evidence of any changes or events in the world which can only be accounted by the existence of (any) god, and the existence of God is not a logical truth which can be demonstrated via principles of logic, belief in God cannot admit of epistemic justification, and thus may be held on faith alone (and is ultimately not rationally tenable).
Sees
Dragonslayer
One thing I bring up sometimes....we are going by assumption that Joe has not experienced a/the God because Fred hasn't. Depending on experience the faith or belief becomes as silly as faith or belief in a blue sky. You could always say that blue sky is a trick of the mind and sensory perception so it's not real, but....
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
would you say tthat belief means the same as 'persuasion' or 'confidence' or 'trust'??
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
No, not really, and there is clearly another sense of the word "faith", which does mean trust (e.g. "I have faith in my friends judgment"), and that the Christian concept of faith tends to blend the two (faith in and faith that), but the OP is clearly talking about faith in the propositional sense: "I have faith that..." (such-and-such is true)
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
the christian concept of faith is 'trust' 'confidence' and 'persuasion' ...thats what makes it different to belief.
I believe in the President of the united states. But i dont have a trust or confidence in anything he might plan to do or accomplish...im not persuaded that he will succeed therefore i can't claim to have faith in him...but i can believe in him nonetheless.
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NobodyYouKnow
Misanthropist
I voted no.
I know people who believe in God, but are not actively religious.
You don't have to have faith to believe in something, but you need to believe in something to have faith.
I know people who believe in God, but are not actively religious.
You don't have to have faith to believe in something, but you need to believe in something to have faith.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Well that counts me out lol.
Sha'irullah
رسول الآلهة
For someone who is a Deist this is entirely irrelevant. Faith is a form of hoping for an effect or outcome. I do not have faith that god will do anything
I can't figure any other way.
Edited to add: although I suppose social acceptance of the concept is just a matter of habit and conditioning. I don't think that qualifies as actual belief, though.
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As others have remarked, it would depend on the god-concept in question. Immanent god-concepts like mine require virtually no faith at all, unless you would consider "belief" in the existence of various aspects of reality to require faith. Transcendent god-concepts do, however, because they are not things that can be sensually experienced or directly evidenced.
chinu
chinu
Yes there's no need of any faith to believe in God.
If one is saying.. I don't believe in God at all.
Than my question is.. What/which God are you talking about ? for what thing you use the word God, tell me ?
Yes there's no need of any faith to believe in God.
If one is saying.. I don't believe in God at all.
Than my question is.. What/which God are you talking about ? for what thing you use the word God, tell me ?
You do realize that presenting the matter in such a way is misleading and inadequate, right?
chinu
chinu
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
The Christian concept of faith includes both senses- that of trust or confidence (e.g."I have faith in God's mercy"), as well as that of belief in the absence of sufficient reason (e.g. "I have faith that God exists").