What Does “Faith” Mean?

“Can I Just Define ‘Faith’ However I Please?” Michael Patton asked this question at the blog of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries. We’ve discussed the definition of faith here before; there were even comments saying that Christian should be held to the dictionary definition of faith (whatever that may be, whichever dictionary one might choose to use).

Patton’s explanation puts the answer at the heart of long-standing Christian thought. Here’s part of it:

Starting with Luther and developed further by Melancthon and others, the understanding of faith was expressed in three separate yet vitally connected aspects: notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

1. Notitia: This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word content. Faith, according to the Reformers must have content. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave,” for example, is a necessary information base that Christians must have.

2. Assensus: This is the assent or confidence that we have that the notitia is correct. Here we assent to the information affirming it to be true…. This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon critical thought. While notitia claims “Christ rose from the grave,” assensus takes the next step and says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”

But these two alone are not enough according to the Reformers. As one person has said, these two only qualify you to be a demon for the demons both have the right information (Jesus rose from the grave) and are convicted of its truthfulness. One aspect still remains.

3. Fiducia: This is the “resting” in the information based upon a conviction of its truthfulness. Fiducia is best expressed by the English word “trust.” We have the information, we are persuaded of its truthfulness, now we have to trust in it….

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Tom Gilson

Vice President for Strategic Services, Ratio Christi Lead Blogger at Thinking Christian Editor, True Reason BreakPoint Columnist

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3 Responses

  1. The biggest problem I have with the whole “faith is belief without evidence” meme is that it reverses the whole communication process, linguistically speaking. When one uses a word, he or she is (hopefully) trying to convey an inner meaning (perhaps you could call it a mental state) to someone outside their mind through the use of mutually understood terms. If I tell you that there is a tree outside my window (which there isn’t, incidentally), I expect that you will understand that I am talking about a specific kind of plant. With words that have multiple usages, we generally take context into consideration to understand which usage is the most charitable, e.g. inferring from the statement “I got a really good deal on a cheap Cadillac this weekend” that cheap means ‘inexpensive’ rather than ‘of poor quality.’

    What the insistence on calling faith “belief without evidence” does is to rip the word out of its context and force one onto it. The person who demands that “the dictionary defines faith as such” is forgetting that 1) dictionaries do not define usage but rather try to describe it, 2) (as suggested) they vary to certain degrees on definitions, and 3) they often give multiple definitions for words based on differing usages, so there is not always one specific dictionary definition that one could use irrefutably even if language was constructed from the top down.

    If you ask me, it almost seems like those who insist that faith means this are trying to subvert its use by the religious – in essence, attempting to make it impossible for it to be used as religious people regularly do (somewhat synonymous with ‘trust’ but generally with deeper connotations). I think this sort of linguistic warfare is a ridiculous way to go about dealing with views you don’t like.

    Edit: I do like the multi-layered approach to faith; I believe J.P. Moreland mentions those three aspects in Love God With All Your Mind, if I’m not mistaken. The distinction is especially important with so much disinformation flying about; I’ve even given a sermon on the subject (although to do so is largely to preach to the choir).

    [P.S. This is my first time commenting on this new blog, and I must say that I really like the way it’s set up. Brilliant work, Tom.]

  2. By this breakdown, belief does not require faith, but faith requires belief!

    People who rail against faith as unjustified belief are talking about epistemology. Yet faith as defined here is about satisfying God. It’s got little to do with epistemology.

  3. Tom says:

    The original post to which I linked has a lot to do with epistemology, under assensus among other places. Out of courtesy to that blog, I did not quote the whole thing.