Does faith imply doubt?

[Wootah]

If you say you have faith in something doesn't that necessarily imply doubt? Isn't the dogmatic position no faith?

[shnarkle]

If you say you have faith in something doesn't that necessarily imply doubt? Isn't the dogmatic position no faith?

If I have faith that the butcher isn't infecting the meat he prepares for sale, then I will eat it. if I have faith that the vegetables in the grocery store aren't infected with ecoli or some other nasty parasites, I will buy them. If I doubt that they are safe to eat, then I will probably not buy them because I have no faith in them.

[Wootah]

[Replying to shnarkle]

If i have no faith in the butcher then i am in no doubt their meat is bad.

If I have faith in the butcher then I am overcoming my doubts to trust their meat is good.

Maybe just word play?

To have faith in the butcher we need to first have doubt and overcome it.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to shnarkle]

If i have no faith in the butcher then i am in no doubt their meat is bad.

If I have faith in the butcher then I am overcoming my doubts to trust their meat is good.

Maybe just word play?

To have faith in the butcher we need to first have doubt and overcome it.

I don't just naturally doubt the skill or reliability of others; perhaps that's just me. When someone gives me a reason to doubt then I lose faith. Perhaps faith could imply doubt for some. I don't doubt that when I get up tomorrow, I will continue to stick to the ground and not fly off into space. It isn't something that ever enters into my mind. Yet I don't have to have faith or believe in gravity. The two don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. I could instead believe that we are all sticking to the earth because of electro magnetism, and if it takes more than a few seconds for the pole shift to take place, those on the equator will fly off into space. I may have quite a bit of faith in this theory, but then see that there are some flaws to it and begin to doubt its veracity. Yet even with these doubts, I could still maintain my faith in much the same way those with gambling addictions continue to squander their paychecks at the races or the casino every week.

[ThePainefulTruth]

If you say you have faith in something doesn't that necessarily imply doubt? Isn't the dogmatic position no faith?

The dogmatic position is blind faith. If a philosophy doesn't make sense and all it offers is ancient supernatural hearsay, you don't doubt it, you dump it.

[Atef]

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."--Rabindranath Tagore

“Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.�—Oscar Wilde

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe."--Saint Augustine

"Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible."--Mary McLeod Bethune

“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.�—Voltaire

“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.�—Mark Twain

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.�—Edward Gibbon—also attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Tcg]

If you say you have faith in something doesn't that necessarily imply doubt?

I've never heard anyone say they have faith in gravity. Faith is only needed for things for which there is no evidence. Gods and such for example.

Of course people will doubt the things they have faith in and yet there is no evidence for. Deep down all humans are rational, to have faith in the nonexistent requires a denial of this natural rationality.

Isn't the dogmatic position no faith?

As is so often the case, I have no idea what you are attempting to say. I doubt it matters much in this case.

[ttruscott]

I've never heard anyone say they have faith in gravity. Faith is only needed for things for which there is no evidence. Gods and such for example.

Faith is only needed for things for which there is no PROOF. There is lots of evidence for the Christian faith; the Bible, especially the stories about Jesus is evidence, the witness of millions to its perceived truth is evidence, the experience of the in-dwelling Holy Spirit is evidence and the fulfillment of the character changes of a sinner upon conversion is one of the strongest pieces of evidence there is...and your rejection of this evidence as unacceptable is not proof there is no evidence.

And I'm sure you remember that Rom 1:20 claims that everyone has clearly seen the PROOF of YHWH's divinity and power by watching the creation of the physical universe yet that proof did them no good as they repressed that knowledge from their conscious minds because they loved sin more than the truth as the rest of that chapter repeats at least three times, which is usually accepted as a true definition of our reality by Christians.

[ttruscott]

If you say you have faith in something doesn't that necessarily imply doubt? Isn't the dogmatic position no faith?

Faith is the essence of an unproven hope... Is that hope real if the person is willing to hold the proof of that hope in abeyance?

Does hope contain doubt? Sure but hope can also grow as the evidence of its being a true hope is realized by experience until it is a conviction, a certainty. The whole concept of a mature hope / faith is that it has grown from an uncertain hope (with some doubt) to a very certain hope, (no doubt.) as per Heb 6:11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized.

International Standard Version
But we want each of you to continue to be diligent to the very end, in order to give full assurance to your hope.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
But we desire that each one of you have this diligence for the perfection of your hope until the end...

[marco]

If I have faith in the butcher then I am overcoming my doubts to trust their meat is good.

To have faith in the butcher we need to first have doubt and overcome it.

Yes, you have a point about faith being linked to doubt. When we trust the butcher there is no certainty; we have indeed overcome our fear or our doubt and we buy the meat.


There are many shops in which I would not use a card for fear it would be duplicated. I think most areas of decision involve some doubt, and faith is no exception. People do declare certainty -but this is mere hyperbole unless it is of the form of mathematical certainty.