Faith [addendum] | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Faith [addendum]

This entry focuses on the various ways in which recent philosophers working within or in reaction to the scriptural traditions have construed the relationship between faith in God and the belief in God's existence. The entry will also touch on different views regarding the question of whether faith is, can be, or should be, rational. However, a full treatment of the issue of faith and reason is beyond the scope of this entry.

There are several different camps of views regarding the relationship of faith in God and belief in God's existence. One camp holds that faith is not belief, because it is, so to speak, higher than belief; faith is knowledge of God. Thus, Dewey Hoitenga (1991) holds that faith is a knowledge of God that comes through direct acquaintance. According to John Hick (1957), faith is the interpretive element within religious experience that results in an awareness or knowledge of God. On this view, a person who merely believes that God exists does not really have faith at all. And, on this view, faith is rational, in the sense that it is based on a religious experience of a certain sort.

A second camp follows Thomas Aquinas in treating faith in God as basically equivalent to belief in God's existence.

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