It may be rebutted but it cannot be refuted that no one can live and no academic discipline can operate without faith, properly defined! Faith, like its twin sister hope, is fragile but is a fundamentum in life, by that I mean it is absolutely foundational to life. So you ask me what then is faith in my book? As I have argued in lecture theatres and urged in sermons, faith is belief, based on but slightly in excess of evidence. Hope, if you must know, is confident assurance about the ‘not yet’. Those who are familiar with Hebrews 11.1 may be wondering about the nature of my definition. For those who lack familiarity with the Bible I’ll quote that text then explain the difference between it and my approach to faith. Heb. 11:1, from the New Revised Standard Version reads, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,… read more
