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Faith Definition

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Argumentation:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints places Faith as the first Principle of the gospel. How is faith defined and taught?

In Hebrews 11: 1 we read “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (1) Notice the lack of evidence is inherent in the definition provided of faith. Alma 32: 21 from the Book of Mormon says “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” (2) Finally from LDS.org we read that to have faith is to “show.. hope for something that we cannot yet see.”(3)

From this we see that the LDS concept of faith is to hope for …show more content…

Evidence is “that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.”(4) Thus we see that the notion of “walking by faith, and not by sight” (5) is to believe in something without grounds for belief. This is clearly nonsensical. Can I tell you to walk without the means to walk, or to see without the ability to see? Surely not, but here the concept of faith is just that. To believe when one should …show more content…

In James 2:17-18 we read that “Faith without works is dead.”(7) Thus it is not enough to profess belief in something without grounds to believe, you must act on it. Let say, for example, I have faith that the world is to end tomorrow. This means that despite lack of evidence of any kind I believe that the world is to end. I must now act in a way that demonstrates this belief. No matter what evidence is provided, rational reasoning, persuasion or whatever, doesn’t matter. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than man” I am to have my faith override all. (8) This makes those acting on faith unable to be reasoned with…

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