Questions about how faith works

[cubeus19]

Hey everyone I have a odd question about faith, specifically about faith in God in regards to salvation, prayers, and just general belief in God.

I ask this I guess mainly and I may sound like I have ocd, but I just can't nail down the full meaning of faith. And I'm afraid that if I don't I may find out after I die and end up in hell that I really didn't have faith but I thought while on earth I did.

Now in the past I have heard many encouraging pastors say that believing in God (at least in regards to salvation) is easy. They say all people exercise faith all the time.
Like when we sit in a chair we expect the chair to hold us up and be stable. Or we have faith that our computer will work when we turn it on.

And they may be right about that, but with me for instance and I'm being brutally honest, we tend to just expect these things to work out of habit or out of repetition. I really don't strain my mind like i"m trying to bend a spoon in hopes that all these things work when I use them.

So should this same approach be done with God with things like salvation or should it be more of a phenomenon like trying to bend a spoon with your mind? Is true faith some kind of complicated formula that hardly any person can do unless they are talented or have some kind of special training?

Because if it is than I have tons more leaning to do before I can fully get things right with God, I better hope that I don't die before I can accomplish such a feat.

I really hope that faith isn't like that, because during most of my time as a believer I have just had a simple but yet confident faith in God just like how I had faith in my earthly father to be there when I needed him to be. I really hope that proper Christian faith is like that and not something far out or far off that most of us don't or can'

[narnia4]

I think this is related to a question (or let's say a group of questions) that can be very simple and also something that is very deep and profound and has puzzled some of the most brilliant men in history.

But the gospel message is very simple, there's no invisible ink on the contract or small footnote that makes it more complicated. John 3:16, Acts 16:31. Believe in Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. That's all there is to it. And "faith like a child" fits what you mention in your last paragraph as well.

Now there's also a process involved, we never seem to have the faith we should... but we should be growing in faith as we go through life. Take your father example, sometimes we doubt our family. But we can, while doubting, still ultimately believe our earthly fathers and come back to our faith in him.

Worrying about your salvation is pretty common, I know when I was younger I repeated "the prayer" in varying ways many times "just to make sure". It can be frustrating to feel like you're lacking, but it can also be taken as a good sign. But you were on the right track to begin with I'd say, believe and you will be saved.

[jlay]

C,

FWIW, I have never found those examples (chair and sitting) very satisfying either.

The Greek word here is pisteuo.

I think it is a great question because it ask, "what is saving faith?" And, "what does one need to know to have saving faith?"
Obviously one does not have to be a theology phd to get saved. But to have faith, there must be an object of faith, a means of faith and a reason for faith. I think faith is best described as a passive response. It is not a work, and the Bible consistently contrast faith against works to leave no doubt. (no pun intended) (Romans 4:5) Sadly many still see faith as an active working response. In fact strong Calvinism is so rooted in faith being an active work, and man having no part in his saving, that it insist that saving faith is imparted upon regeneration. Thus saving faith is not a cooperative response of the sinner, but an actual commodity implanted by God. The Bible never represents faith this way, but in many, many cases shows that faith is the volitional response of the individual.

I would say the complicated part is in not believing. You can't really make yourself believe something. You become convinced that something is true. To contrast I'll give an example. My grandfather had cancer. He didn't want to go to the doctor because he was in denial. He was denying the truth, and had to work at it to do it. Recently I had a conversation with a man who said he didn't want to go to church and didn't want to talk about it, because he didn't like how talking about that 'stuff' made him feel. So, he may have some level of belief, and even a level of belief that he is a sinner, but He isn't confidently trusting in Christ as His savior. We need to be careful not to reduce faith down to an intellectual assent regarding facts, and just as careful not to build faith up to an 'act' or work of man. That perhaps is the confusing part.
So, if there is a logical order we could break it down. (And keep in mind, there isn't. I don't think one can systematically spell out salvation. And my attempt to do so, doesn't box in the working of God and the HS in the individual's life. God and His salvation is not constrained to formulas or syllogisms.)

1) Convinced that there is a God. This is actually a given for most because only a fool says in his heart there is no God. Atheism, although a seemingly growing trend is actually a miniscule percentage of the earth's population. would be kind of hard to trust that God sent His son, if you didn't believe there was a God in 1st place.
2) Convinced that there is something personally wrong between oneself and God. This is in regards to the sin condition. Paul also speaks to this in Romans, that even general revelation through the conscience can convict one as a sinner. Although there is likely more specific revelation to the individual regarding their sin condition.
3) Convinced that Christ is the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins. 1 John 2:2, Romans 3:25. This is specific revelation. Jesus is revealed as the Son of God. A term that infers the Divine nature and role of Christ as savior, regarding his life, message, death and resurrection.
4) Convinced that #2 is resolved by #3, and thus the response of faithing/trusting/believing on Christ.

[PaulSacramento]

People tend to have different definitions of faith, some dependent on whether they "like" faith or not.
For the skeptic, faith = blind faith, but for the believer, faith = belief because "something" tells us to believe.
We have faith in Love for example, we have faith in the love of someone that loves us and expect them to have faith in our love for them.
There is no proof of love, though there can be evidence of it but in the end we believe that someone loves us ( and we love them) because we choose to, because "there is something there".

[jlay]

Paul, that is a good point. On the other side some see faith as a thing itself. In fact the poster moonstruck seems to be inferring this in another thread. This thinking permeates new age thinking and sadly has gotten a foothold through the word of faith movement in Christianity. A dangerous aberrant movement, IMO. Basically telling people to have faith in faith. As if faith itself is the object.

[PaulSacramento]

I remember on skeptic telling me how faith is a horrible thing, one of the worse crimes inflected on man by religion.
Why? because in HIS opinion faith = not questioning anything and putting the job of fixing things on "god".
Where he got that notion of faith is beyond me, but there you go.

[Reactionary]

I remember on skeptic telling me how faith is a horrible thing, one of the worse crimes inflected on man by religion.
Why? because in HIS opinion faith = not questioning anything and putting the job of fixing things on "god".
Where he got that notion of faith is beyond me, but there you go.

He read it in an atheist book and accepted it without questioning.

[RickD]

I remember on skeptic telling me how faith is a horrible thing, one of the worse crimes inflected on man by religion.
Why? because in HIS opinion faith = not questioning anything and putting the job of fixing things on "god".
Where he got that notion of faith is beyond me, but there you go.

He read it in an atheist book and accepted it without questioning.

Atheism says it, I believe it, that settles it!

[jestes]

I ask this I guess mainly and I may sound like I have ocd, but I just can't nail down the full meaning of faith. And I'm afraid that if I don't I may find out after I die and end up in hell that I really didn't have faith but I thought while on earth I did.
'

Someone asked Christ a very similar thing. They asked, "How much faith does it take to be saved?" He told them, "Faith as small a mustard seed." To put that into perspective, a mustard seed is smaller than the letter 'o' on your screen. How much smaller than you is that?

Also, putting a definition on faith is very difficult, but for me, faith is simply a chosen belief. At some point, we all choose to believe in Christ. We can argue evidence all day long, but neither side has enough evidence to irrefutably win the argument. Faith in Christ at some point, begins with a choice.

You gave the chair example. That's all well and good, but there are no stakes to 'trusting' in that chair. If your trust is misplaced, it really won't be that big of a deal. Plus, we have all used chairs for so long none of us can ever really remember a time when we made the choice to try something as unfamiliar as a chair. Take a parachute though. Lets say that you had never seen a video, picture, or a parachute in person. All you know is that people have told you that if you jump out of a plane, this thing you have strapped to your back will save you. You have a choice to make. You can weigh the reliability of every story you have heard, you can research the laws of physics to see if such a device 'could' even exist, but ultimately you have to decide: "Do I believe it will work, or do I believe it wont?"

If you place your trust in that parachute and find on the way down that your trust was misplaced, you have a very big problem... If however the parachute works just like the stories you have heard, your initial faith will be greatly increased. With each successive exercise of your faith, you'll find it grows stronger and stronger. Experiences tend to do that. Small doubts along the way will happen. That doesn't mean the parachute won't open, or that your faith is or wasn't real. All that matters is do you still step out there and trust in the promise given to you, or do you let your doubts destroy you?

[Gman]

Atheism says it, I believe it, that settles it!

The problem with atheism is that no one even knows what atheism says... It's just a pile of confusion based on nothingness. Who even cares...