What is Christian Faith?

In general, faith can be understood as the acceptance of something as true based on the trustworthiness of the one revealing it. Any kind of deep friendship requires a trust between friends. Otherwise, the relationship will remain superficial, without any deep intimacy and communication of what is most important to both. In true friendship, each person speaks from the heart, revealing what is of deep significance. To accept as true what a friend says involves having human faith in our friend’s trustworthiness and honesty.

Christian faith is in some ways like human faith. If we have faith in Christ, we accept as true what he reveals about himself. If you had met Jesus while he was walking on the earth, you could have known for yourself certain truths about him, such as his height, his weight, and the sound of his voice. If you heard Jesus say to you, “The Father and I are one” or “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” you would have the choice whether or not to accept what Jesus says as true. The person with Christian faith views Jesus as an honest and trustworthy person, and therefore accepts what Jesus says as true. In a similar way, if you view your friend as an honest and trustworthy person, you would probably accept as true what your friend tells you about himself.

But Christian faith is unlike human faith in some respects. Since it is, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), “adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature” (150). As Christ differs from the average human being, so Christian faith differs from human faith. An average man could be a liar trying to manipulate you or could be honestly mistaken about something that he tells you. Most human beings are not maximally trustworthy.

If the Christian God exists, then there is an all-knowing, all-good, all-loving, and all-powerful Creator. An all-knowing God cannot be ignorant or mistaken about anything past, present, or future. If God is perfectly good and loving, then all his actions reflect perfect goodness and infinite love. A perfectly loving and good God does not do evil actions such as lying and manipulating. So what such a God reveals deserves our maximal trust. This is Christian faith.

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