What is faith?

The Christian faith is not a blind faith. It does not require us to check our brains at the door. But nor is it just intellectual or cognitive–which I will discuss in future posts. But as a starting point, this is a good description:

“Faith does not feed on thin air but on facts. Its instinct is to root itself in truth, to earth itself in reality, and this distinguishes faith from fantasy, the object of faith from the figment of the imagination.”—Os Guinness

This is from his very helpful book on faith and doubt called God in the Dark. In fact, I think it is the best book on doubt and how to walk through it available and would encourage all Christians to work through it.

The argument from disagreement is overrated (cf. moral relativism)

It is often claimed that since so many individuals and cultures disagree regarding moral issues, then the obvious conclusion is that there must be no objective moral values. But as Francis Beckwith points out, “relativism does not follow from disagreement.”[i] Simply because people disagree, doesn’t mean there is no fact of the matter. Suppose you run into a member of the “flat earth society,” and find yourself in a heated discussion about whether the earth is indeed flat. At the end of the debate, you still disagree. Does that mean that there is no objective fact of the matter concerning the earth? If anything, disagreement ought to motivate us to understand why we disagree; not giving up on the conversation all together.

[i] Francis J. Beckwith, “Why I Am Not a Moral Relativist,” in Why I Am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe, ed. Norman L. Geisler and Paul K. Hoffman (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 19.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FvOHX9moU