Faith
Faith is a person’s Fundamental existential commitment,
o constituted by and expressed in
Attitudes (hope and confidence),
dispositions (concern & respect),
values
and practices (e.g. worship)
combined into a coherent position and justified by certain claims about reality.
Faith claims: Self-involving claims-requiring appropriate response.
Example: uninterested responses to what one understands, believes and
what matters to one
Faith Claims versus Knowledge claims:
Knowledge is the adequate perception of the real,
and faith is the
conformity of will and sentiment to a truth imperfectly perceived
by the intelligence.
Faith as Trust: Epistemic Gap: Event of Mt. Safa mount
Faith and Belief: Mental affirmation is a component of Faith, not its equivalent.
o Faith =Belief + Full assent (will + spirit) (Assent of the whole Being; to see what
one has faith in; Faith is the conformity of intelligence and will to the revealed
truths
From Islamic Side
o Faith: تصدیق بالقلب اقرار باللسان عمل بالجوارح
o تصدیق بخبر الرسول
REASON AND FAITH
o Roles of Reason:
1. Drawing implications of religious beliefs: birth of theology
2. Drawing (religious)implications from rational insights: rational arguments
for religious belief
3. Comparing faith and theology: e.g. Vision of God verus lan
tarani/Anthropomorphic descriptions
4. Revising and correcting implications of rational insights (e.g. ghazali
contra philosophers, knowledge of individuals)
5. Reconciling apparently conflicting theological doctrines (Ashaairah on
divine will and human freedom)
6. Making theological understanding plausible to modern thinking
7. Rationally Justifying religious doctrines
o Value of Arguments: the moderate position. Horseman and Mountain Peak