Faith
Friday, August 19, 2022
10:08 AM
Faith: (a) Faith involves the content of theological convictions; (b) Faith is an active trust in the object of one's faith (i.e., God). Faith is believing God; (c) faith is "believing in" or constructing one's life or the life of a community around the relationship between the believer(s) and the object of one's faith.
New Testament--(1) Jesus spoke of faith as an active impulse to put one's trust in someone, often himself.  Thus, people who were healed were often identified as effecting their own healing through their faith; (2)  Koine Greek uses the same word (pistis) to refer to both the faithfulness or reliability of the object of one's faith and the content or quality of believing in the objects of one's faith.  This polysemy factors into the interpretation of Galatians 2:16,"And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ."  The Greek construction of this verse makes another plausible translation, "we have believed in (Xriston Iesouv episteusamen) in order that we might be justified (dikaiothomen) from the faithfulness of Christ."  This interpretation emphasizes that faith is a response to the character, qualities, attributes, and actions of the object of one's faith. (3) The writer of Hebrews interprets faith as an active obedience or response to unseen and hoped for realties and narrates several OT characters have having faith which was embodied in specific acts.  
Early Church--Clement of Alexandria understood faith to be assent to the content of Christian faith and acknowledged it as a quality of Christian life that stood in contrast to the reason of Greek philosophical tradition.  Clement distinguished between faith and trust, "Trusting is more than faith.  For when one has believed that the Son of God is our Teacher, he [sic] trusts that His teaching is true."          