The question of what "faith" is just came up between James Schultz & me, & we agree on at least a couple things about it:

 

1) It doesn't mean the same thing as "belief",

 

and

 

2) Many people think it does.

 

I'm not sure how to start this off... Maybe an analogy: Many people think "imagination"= 'the act of thinking up things that don't make any sense, don't relate to the "real" world, etc.'  And some people (Ursula LeGuin being a prime example) mean something more along the lines of:  ~'seeing how actual things must behave, working from limited data, intuition, extrapolation from experience & better-known cases.'

 

What brought this up, for example, was James Schultz saying that humankind was meant to be guided by 'faith', not by what we sense.

 

Comments?

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@James.  I'll try to express your idea in my own words.  Tell me if I'm understanding you.  Jesus spoke of the bread others could not see which was to do the will of the Father who sent him.  This "bread" is faith.   To listen to God in the moment (this is why you emphasis the "now") and to be obedient in the moment, is to tap into the power of God.   So if God tells you to tell that mountain to move and you obey, the mountain will move. 

 

Is this pretty close?

 

Nice. Regardless of what we call it, I believe that this is what we're supposed to do!
That's pretty much what I think.  There's power to do what we're being asked to do if we do it timely.  If we put it off the power dissipates.  I'll have to pray a little about the bread analogy.  Seems good.

For each and everyone participating in this discussion:

If you feel for a moment unassigned, please consider that this conversation  may be having a profound effect on one or more humans you may never meet. As I veer from belief to disbelief I am heartened by your clarity and the example of listening to This speaking through each other.

Eric H-L

Jesus is definitely referring to the faith that keeps Him going as his sustenance.  Your reference is opening up the scriptures about feeding the thousands to me.  It also leads me to Luke where Jesus says if we had faith as a grain/kernel of mustard seed.  I always thought of this as referring to the size of the mustard seed but looking at it from Forest's energy analogy I think that's what it really means.  The power/energy in a seed is great.  Just needs the right conditions to explode.  neglected it can rot or as in the parable of the sower be eaten.
Faith is a state of the soul
Can you please elaborate a little... What's the state of a soul in 'low-faith' mode?-- How does one move from one such state to another? How specific & technical are you being about this word: "soul"?-- vs "mind", "spirit", "ego", etc.?
Great.  A discussion on the soul!  I love it.

What is low-faith mode? Why should I move from one state to another? If  faith is state of being of the soul,it is souls way of living.

I am not technical at all.I really experience my soul being that something of Good in me.A kind of inner asylum , a state which I can reach by meeting for worship.

I think it is interesting that in a fairly long discussion of "faith" and "belief" at least five of those leaving comments refer implicitly or explicitly to Jesus without ever connecting the discussion to him. Why is he referred to? Why are his words on anything authoritative? I think it is because we have "faith" in him and that we have faith in him is inextricably wound up with "beliefs" about who he was that are rooted in the narrative of the scriptures and in the insights early Christians had that hover over him (and us) in little theological clouds we don't pay much attention to.

 

I love discussing the soul because no one thinks much about it although everyone uses the word.  There is a common expression that says: I am a spirit, I have a soul, I live in a body.  Jesus states "what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses the life of his eternal soul".  If I read you correctly you are saying that our soul lives by faith and that faith is to the soul what sight, hearing, etc. is to the body.  Is that correct?

Yes, something like that,thank you.I am saying that faith is a state of the soul ,like : State of  mind. Not exactly like sight or hearing but as a quality of the soul. Better?

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