Faith

Etymology

Étymologiquement, " foi" comes from Latin fides and is attached to an Indo-European root bheidh " to have confiance" .

It is interesting to note that the Latin word fides does not have any religious connotation; he comes from the profane vocabulary, and evokes the simple confidence which one can have as somebody. It is the Bible which uses it, in its Latin translations, to translate the Hebrew word emunah which indicates the attitude of the man in front of God. Latin would use rather the word religio , in the direction of a scrupulous observation of the rites (thus Cicéron), and the Greek threskeia , in the same direction. With the Bible, then the Christianity, the relation with God is thus considered like of an interpersonal nature.

On the importance of the faith

; To have or not to have the faith

In the Language running, the faith refers to God. It is known as of that which rejects the idea of God that it does not have the faith.

But the direction of the faith can also move towards a confidence in reality, in intelligibility partial of the world, the matter or the sensory Perception.

The act of faith implies to be located overall with respect to reality:

In a fundamental existential standpoint vis-a-vis the Life.
Within a conceptual System building or justifying to act it human, a vision of the world, or the limits of a To know.
By the adoption of a total Paradigm.

The definition of this word and methodology used to reach that point raise of philosophical options or religious fundamental.

; An implicitly sliced option

By defining the faith as the fundamental trustful attitude vis-a-vis the Existence, its opposite appears then, from where the following alternative:

1) the Revolt, the feeling of the absurdity, the refusal of the existence and the universe such as it is tested, the Suicide.

2) amazement, acceptance, the Confidence, the hope of direction in the real or expectancy.

The first option can be summarized by a " non" the second by a " oui". Yes with the revêt existence then in fact character of faith to various degrees. The concept of God even if it were implicit with this here-described faith, does not seem explicitly necessary to this option vis-a-vis the life.

; An option which can comprise skews

Consciously or unconsciously, that which with the faith in a Religion or, in a more general way, in a system of thought, can carry out oblique. He was thus for a long time Christians, who regarded the Juif S as " perfides" , i.e. faith lack (see Oremus and pro perfidis judaeis).

; Faith and the Eschatologie

The faith can be intuitive and immediate, but can also be the object of a intellectual course.

Intellectually, the search for comprehension of the origins of the Universe (Cosmology), of the life, the man (Anthropogenèse), of the Conscience (Neurosciences and cognitive Sciences) or of its own existence can be ways (ways) to know its faith (or its nonfaith).

The Cosmologie became an autonomous scientific discipline. The social representations and symbolic systems induced by a news Représentation of the world can also induce a religious Cosmologie, field tension of a new form of Main cause.

Many researchers and prizes winner of the Nobel Prize thus publish their considerations on their faith, which they are deists or atheistic, and are listened and sometimes criticized by the intellectual medium.

But with this research of the origins another more accessible meeting precedes: that of the destination, its limits, the end or of death. In this respect, the behavior vis-a-vis the limits of its own life can be the object of this same existential meditation (and not only intellectual):

- Limiting physics : the Suffering, the Mourning, the Disease, a Accident, the Old age.

- Limiting morals : the Loneliness, separation, the Unemployment, weaknesses, deprivation partial or total of a faculty which another close human being has (experiment of the lack by the Jalousie: gift, richness, to be able, intelligence)

These experiments are characterized by certain philosophers and Théologie NS of " Dead ontological " or more simply, of limit of the existence. They can also be seen like theological demonstration of the Mal, thus intended like limit of the to be.

Confrontation with these limits to be it permanently calls into question our faith without calling into question the report first: that of our existence. In this direction, the life can be the occasion of a deepening.

The faith ( pistis ) at Plato and Aristote

In the Greek philosophical tradition, the word pistis (equivalent of Latin fides and French faith ) does not have any religious connotation. Plato does of them one of the modes of knowledge of reality; Aristote sees there the adhesion which a persuasive and talented speaker obtains from his audience.

Plato: the faith-pistis , mode of knowledge of reality

For Plato (the Republic, delivers VI), the faith makes it possible to know certain realities of the world.

The Platonic world is divided into two parts: the visible world, and the understandable world which is not other than the world of the Idées. The first calls the second: it is on the basis of the observation of reality that one can have access to the Ideas of the higher world. Each one of these two fields itself is divided into two. The recognizable world is thus divided into four parts: images, objects, lower ideas and higher ideas; to each one of these parts a mode of specific knowledge belongs: with the images, imagination; with the objects, the faith ( pistis ); with the lower ideas, discursive knowledge ( dianoia ); with the higher ideas, the intelligence ( us ).

Plato summarizes that in a linear diagram, to which one will give thereafter the nickname of myth of the line .

Aristote : the faith-pistis , force of conviction and base of common beliefs

Aristote brings the word pistis closer to the verb peithomai , which means to persuade, to convince an interlocutor. Its starting point is thus a reflection on the speech and the language.

Any speech, for Aristote, rests on a base of convictions that the speaker and his audience divide. The pistis aristotelician is thus at the same time force of conviction, together of common beliefs which form the base of the reflection, and confidence granted to the speaker:

" If our knowledge, our belief, comes from premises first, these are those that we know best and in which we more believe, because it is by it that we know the consequences. " ( Second Analytical , 72a 30)

For Aristote indeed, we can reason only because we share common convictions. These convictions are preliminary to any scientific step. Thus, the sun appears smaller to us than the ground: however, we know that it is larger ( Of animated III, 3,428 b4); such a faith is not founded on any experiment but is essential to all that we can say in connection with cosmos.

the Christian Theology of the faith, heiress of Plato and Aristote.

Neither Plato, nor Aristote imagines that the faith has any religious dimension, because for them the monk is of another field: that of fear and the respect due to the divinities. However, the first Christian theologists (the Fathers of the Church), anxious to establish a dialog with philosophy, will have care to show that the two large thinkers of Antiquity knew the faith and made use in their work of it. This concern Apologétique will have for the Christianisme a decisive consequence: the faith, which raises, in the Bible, of a confidence as a God, from now on will be included/understood like a step of the intelligence. The accent will be then put on the intellectual and rational dimension of the act of faith.

Pantheism or Deism

A fundamental option is offered to the human thought when it notes its existence and that of the universe:

1) Pantheism (in the broad sense):

The universe is even explained by him. It is eternal, Infini and contains in him the causes of the events to come.

1A) One or more parts of this universe is the cause. It is what is called the idolatry, the Animisme…, it quasi totality of the primitive religions (known as natural religion).

1B) the whole of the universe is the cause (pantheism of Leibniz) and this for example by the structure of the matter (Matérialisme).

It should be noted that the whole of Greek philosophy as well as the religions and Eastern Philosophies are attached to pantheism in the broad sense, except the Atomisme pre socratic which professes an explanation of the existence by the Hasard, which is a way of avoiding answering the related question with the report of the existence. (see low)

2) Deism:

The universe is not eternal nor is not even explained by him. The world, the life and the Man are to be allotted to something out of the universe of eternal, very powerful and being explained (by definition) by itself: God (philosophical). It is the faith of the three religions known as " révélées".

Note on the explanation of the existence by the chance:

When one answers the report of the existence (his and that of the universe) by: " we exist, but we could as well not exister" , one does not answer the question since indeed " us existons" and it is the starting point of the question. Henri Bergson remarkably summarized the philosophical consensus which prevails by the fact that it is impossible to think the Néant (cf creative Evolution). In other words, we are brought back to the alternative between pantheism in the broad sense or Déisme.

Faith and the Science

To the 17th century, Galileo led way with modern science. Its lawsuit and its judgment (1633) were at the origin of a separation between faith and science, and even of a divorce between the faith, which seemed a superstition, and the Raison (science), only true way of research of the Vérité, by the natural lights (Descartes). The business Galileo was the starting point of the Révolution copernician, which involved a change of Représentation world being held over several centuries.

The science heard like correlation between the experimental Empiricism and theoretical creative research, does not have méthodologiquement the possibility of calling into question the existence of its object. While measuring and by seeking scientific rules and a coherence with the data of the Perception, the science cannot wonder about how or why this reality is understandable.

In fact several postulates are preliminary to any science (cf matter today, collective work § of H. Reeves):

1) Pourquoi there is something rather than anything? (this question is more relevant than that of the temporal beginning). It is the question known as ontological. (But when one reflects in-depth on why of this interrogation, one realizes that the human spirit is thus made that it would seem to him more " logique" that there was nothing rather than something.)

2) Why this universe is it comprehensible (vulgarly: why is a music rather than noise). Albert Einstein said: " what is incomprehensible, it is that the world is compréhensible" (cit. Stephen Hawking, short history of time, introduction). Behind this remark 3 are located Axiome S:

2A) the universe seems indeed well governed by scientific rules, which take the form of forces (for example: Gravity, electromagnetism…). It is the starting point of all the philosophical reflection on the order, the chaos…

2B) the man with the possibility of apprehending these laws individually (personal scientific research). It is the possibility of passing from the " cogito" with a rational apprehension of the world.

2C) the man with the possibility of building this science collectively (possibility of science like collective construction). It is the fact of the existence of " Autrui". Isaac Newton (taking again the quotation originally stated by Bertrand of Charter at the XII century) said: " we are dwarves (scientific contemporaries) on the shoulders of giants (scientific former) ". Note: this last point with the rational-emerged face of the iceberg of the problem of the Other in philosophy, which is posed like starting point of any reflection on the company, the Droit, justice…

It was shown philosophically in what the logical Empirisme, in particular professed by the school of Vienna was an arbitrary position (Claude Tresmontant: how the difficulty of the existence of God arises today). Logical empiricism postulates like rational the only assertions being able to be checked in experiments. The rational intelligence constantly exceeds in fact the framework of logical empiricism, and this within the intellectual process of scientific research (Eccles, evolution of the Cerveau and creation of the conscience, chap 10).

Starting points of the Metaphysical , or the limits of science like seeks direction of the existence or faith is in short the following:

1) Physical: the origin and the destiny of the Universe by the infinitely great (Cosmology) and the infinitely small (research on the particles).

2) Biogenesis: the origin of life (of which the experiment of Miller is one of the most famous reflections).

3) Anthropology: the origin of the conscience (in particular, work of Eccles).

4) Demography, ecology and Sociology: limits of science to solve the problems involved in the Sustainable development on a Planet populated of more than 6 billion inhabitants.

The discoveries of science with thus opened the way with new tracks of coexistence between faith and reason.

The Pape Jean-Paul II published on September 14th 1998 a Encyclique on the relationship between the faith and the Raison: Fides and ratio . This Encyclique stresses the importance of the Philosophie S presenting an opening Métaphysique to provide a function of Médiation in the intelligence of the Révélation.

The judaïque faith

The faith of the people Juif was a historical innovation:

It is the first to affirm that the universe (all and left) is not divine, i.e. it does not have in him the divine properties (Aséité, eternity, any power, infinity…). In other words, it is the first " philosophie" or vision of the world not pantheist. (cf account of the creation of the Genesis).

- She affirms that this divinity is One, that she addresses herself to the man, that this last is with its image and that the man has to take part in the divine life. (cf Idem)

- She claims to be periodically directly informed of God within the framework of what is called prophecy Hebrew: 2000 years during which Prophète S speak (or say speech) in the name of God with the people Hebrew. (Old Testament, books prophetic)

- It locates and deepens morals known as natural within the framework of this creative project and redeemer. (cf Exodus: Ten Commands and other Jewish regulations).

- This faith becomes the element founder of the Jewish people, this last being agent of the revelation, elected by God. Populate groin in the order of the redemption.

In addition, the faith of the Jewish people and his books are considered by the whole of the Christians as the historical and theological base of the Christian faith: old alliance (or Old Testament). The Moslems retain on their side only the certain features most characteristic of the Jewish faith (monotheism, Abraham like father of the believers…) while dissociating this one on many considerable points (messianism, people moving of the exodus…).

The Christian faith

Contents of the faith: the Creed

The faith of the Christian (catholic, orthodoxe and of part of the Protestant ) is contained in a synthetic and dogmatic way in the various versions of the creed (" I crois" in Latin). The creed (two principal versions symbol of Nicée-Constantinople and symbol of the apostles ) is a text of several tens of sentences which expresses successively the faith:

- As a creative God of the universe (God of the philosophers and God of Einstein).

- In Jesus Christ and principal events of its life, its death and its resurrection. (faith with the historical but so Messianic Christ).

- In the Holy Spirit (divergences of definitions between catholics and orthodoxe), the Church (heard like spiritual among Protestants and incarnated by the hierarchical Church among catholics and orthodoxe), the Communion of the saints (idem), with the eternal life… (Good news or current relevance of the message of Christ)

But " I believe in Dieu" is not reduced to " God existe" or " I believe in the existence of Dieu". Indeed, " I believe in Dieu" imply successively:

- I believe in the existence of God.

- I believe and I agree to the plan of God in my Latin life (the sentence is built by creed in + acc. who supposes an actuation, therefore a reciprocal interaction). The faith of the Christian is a personal meeting with Jesus Christ and an experimentation of her word and Church like edifying, saving and source of peace.

Community faith

The Christian faith is then above all Community (cf J.Ratzinger principles of catholic theology § 1 Structure and contents in the Christian faith). It is not an asset but the object of a further education whose catechesis is the central element (cf general Directoire of the catechesis ). It is born from preaching (Paul saint) and dies if it is not transmitted.

- It can be taught as of childhood (family Christian education) and matures then since the reception of the Baptême then throughout the life.

- It can be born adult and be then educated within the framework of the catechumenate. The deepening of the Christian faith is then validated in the poll of the catechumenate called " redditio symboli" what wants to be to say in French " proclamation of the symbol of the apostles (or creed) ".

Live in peace with : “ the Faith in Jesus the Messiah ”; born from the “Virgin Mary” in Bethlehem; lived in Nazareth; crucifié with Jerusalem; become “Christ”, after her resurrection enters deaths, (three days after its crucifixion); appeared with its disciples, to bring the directive of the Baptism: “In the name of the Father and of the Wire and the Holy Spirit”; before knowing glory in the Trinity”.

Bases

It is very difficult to define the Christian faith so much the currents of Christianity are varied. In addition to the Creed, the catholic tradition defines it by the Tradition (Christianity) which includes the practical Écritures and traditions, while Protestantism is satisfied with the Writings ( Sola will scriptura ).

The bases of the Christian faith were established towards, by the Pères of the Church. One can quote, for the principal ones: Irenee of Lyon (the Canon of the Bible including the Old Testament and the four canonical Gospels, as well as the epistles), and Origène (interpretation of the texts according to the Four directions of the Writings, and prayer Lectio divina).

The first canonical texts that the Christians concerning the need for the faith as a Jesus-Christ ressuscity have, are the epistles of Saint Paul in particular those with the Galates and the Romains. It is possible to date, indeed, their writing between year 49 and 58 of our era, is less than thirty years after the passion of Christ. Among the texts of Paul, it is necessary for us to also quote the First Épître with the Corinthians (I Co 13) which places the Faith among the three theological Virtues, that is to say those which, éthymologiquement, us " parlent" of God and thus lead us towards Him.

The Pape Jean-Paul II published on September 14th 1998 a Encyclique on the relationship between the faith and the Raison: Fides and Ratio. It stresses the importance of the Philosophie S presenting an opening Métaphysique to provide a function of Médiation in the intelligence of the Révélation, according to the theology of Saint Thomas d' Aquin.

Faith in the Bible

" The faith is a firm insurance of the things which one hopes for, a demonstration of those that one does not see pas". Hebrews 11.1

One will treat here faith in the Old Testament (to make in short, books retained in the Jewish Canon) and in the New Testament (books specific to the Christians).

The word " foi" , in the Bible, is one of the words used to describe the attitude of the man in front of God. He is translated by Latin fides and the Greek pistis who have the direction first " confiance" , and are thus not words of the religious vocabulary, nor vocabulary of the Croyance. These words are themselves the translation of Hebrew terms which derive from the same root mercy , a radical which evokes solidity, firmness. The biblical faith is thus initially business of confidence as a God, before relating to a belief or dogmatic contents: to see for example 1 Samuel 3,20. In the Gospel, Jesus compares the believer with a man who builds his house on the rock and which gives a really indestructible character thus to him. It gives to Simon, the first disciple to recognize in him the Messie and Sons of God, the nickname of " Pierre" , allusion to the faith which makes of him a rock.

To characterize the relation of the believer to his God, the Bible does not use, in its Greek and Latin translations, the word of religio which is usually employed in the ancient world (and which insists on the observance of the rites, obedience with the commands and the absolute respect of the habits). It marks this manner the deeply original character of the attitude believing in Israel: the believer is not that which believes that God exists, but which believes IN God, formulation included intentionally in the Christian symbols of faith and on which will return Saint Augustin. This faith is checked in the daily life, by the observation of the commands. It gives the certainty of the reality of God and his truth.

To speak about the faith, rather than of the theoretical statements, one will find in the Bible of the accounts: the model of the believer is thus Abraham, that faith-confidence as a God will push to leave his country and to sacrifice his/her son. Another model is Job, which preserves the faith in spite of the unjust suffering of which it is victim.

The Nouveau Testament proposes, him also, a model of believer: Jesus, whose Paul says to us in the Lettre with Gallates that, by his faith , he is the author of our hello. The gesture in which manifest Jesus what is the faith is the offering which it makes of its own life, in an act of total confidence as a God. The faith is thus, for the Christian Writings, the place of the hello of humanity. Another model of believing is Marie, mother of Jesus, who believed, the first, in the realization of the promise which was made to him by the Ange Gabriel.

To be complete, one will conclude while pointing out that the biblical faith, if it is initially business of confidence as a God, by no means excludes dimension from knowledge of divine realities. This knowledge is simply in the more fundamental context of an interpersonal relation at God.

Relationship between the faith and the grace

The relations between faith and grace were discussed much in the theological debates. In itself, the faith is included/understood as being a grace, i.e. a divine favor.

It is said that Marie had a so great faith which it “was filled of grace”. The monks, the families and the faithful ones in general seek the divine grace like instrument of their hello, grace which one should not confuse with the mystical experiment.

Among the theologists who discussed grace and his relationship with the faith, there is Augustin d' Hippone, Jean Cassien and Jean Calvin. The Catholic church retains the doctrines augustinienne grace.

In his Epistle in Éphésiens, the apostle Paul de Tarse regards the faith as " the moyen" allowing to obtain the divine grace: " Because it is by the grace that you are saved, by the means of the faith. And that does not come from you, it is the gift of Dieu" .

Faith of the Islam: Al-Imâne

Transcription: the Faith says Arab Al-Imâne in . Al-Imâne means literally: “Knowledge, Belief and Conviction without any possible doubt” . Al-Imâne is at the base of Islam.

The Foi ( Al-Imâne ) in Islam is a firm conviction, an exhortation to be accepted in a God, His Ange S, Its Books, Its Prophets, in Last Day, and the Prédestination favorable or unfavourable.

The profession of faith ( Chahada ) holds place of first pillar of Islam. It consists of a declaration of unicity of God, and with the recognition of the prophet Mahomet like envoy of God. Its transcription is the following one: " I attest that there is not of another divinity with share God, and that Mahomet is Its Envoyé."

The Moslem faith thus rests, above all, on the firm belief in the unicity of God. The Muslim cult is only dedicated to God. God, the Single one. Without any form of association. Without any form of idolatry.

In addition to the firm belief in the unicity of God, the Moslem believes in the mission of envoy of the Mahomet prophet (Peace and Hello on Him) and, therefore, in the revelation of the Coran which was made to him.

The Moslem also believes in the prophets former to Islam, like Jesus wire of Marie (called Issa - or Issa Ben Mariama to underline its filiation with his/her mother Marie (Mariama)), Brace (called Foamed), Jonas (called Younouss), and Abraham (Ibrahima) which is a model of piety for the Moslem.

He also believes in the Angels, with the revealed Books former to Coran, Last Day, and favorable or unfavourable Predestination.

Quotations

“It is the heart which feels God, and not the reason. Here what it is that faith: Sensitive God in the middle, not with the reason. ”

-- Blaise Pascal

“the faith is a firm insurance of the things which one hopes for, a demonstration of those that one does not see. ”

-- Epistle with the Hebrews, chapter 11.

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