Faith can be confidence in something coming true as in the expression “I have faith in my team winning for example.” The other type of faith like you say is the religious kind as in having faith in there being an afterlife or a god. Faith does not require evidence of such a thing existing but merely confidence in it being so.

Faith is correlated with belief in that they relate to things being true or coming true according to that individuals world view especially concerning the supernatural such as Gods etc or other scenarios where there’s uncertainty involved.

Is there an academic division between types of faith based on different criteria? I took philosophy of religion but other than the range between theism and atheism and types of miracles a table of types of faith wasn't really covered.

There are lots of distinctions. Let me just throw out the few I am aware of and see if that helps:

"Faith that..." versus "faith in x..." is the most popular distinction in philosophy of religion. "Faith that..." applies to propositions and facts, whereas "faith in," is about persons or groups or persons. "I have faith that it will rain, the garden will be fine," is saying a different sort of thing when compared to "don't worry, she'll come through, I have faith in Edith." Faith in persons entails a sort of regard and respect for the "trustworthiness of an agent."

Effective distinctions:

Demonic Faith: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19). This would be faith in a self-evident or well supported fact, rather than a personal "faith in/regard for." "Belief in the obvious is to no one's intellectual or moral credit," is the point. This is a default, rather than radical skepticism.

Dead Faith: "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:17) This is faith insufficient for producing more than sentiment or desire, but without directing one's life. I've seen people call this incontinent faith following Aristotle as well

Justifying/Saving Faith: Trust in/that which motivates life changing/defining action and strong emotion

Indwelling/Supernatural Faith: this one is more unique to the Christian tradition. It is faith pouring from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and is connected to the ideals of catharsis, illumination, theosis, and deification.

Levels of maturity in faith - faith AND reason

In a number of places Saint Paul makes a distinction between those who are "babes in Christ," who must have a soft and nurturing faith, and be given "spiritual milk," those who have moved on to vegetables, and those who must chew over "spiritual meat." Origen has a fairly common view of how to interpret this, which is that new faith is largely emotional and experiential, not grounded in knowledge or practice. Over time, faith develops like a virtue (habit/skill) and is challenged and deepened by the intellect and reason.

The babe might need the milk of the fairly straightforward expressions in the Gospel of Luke. Those of developed faith must chew over the meanings of the Pentateuch, Canticle or Canticles, etc. These books confuse novices of weak faith who read in a fleshly way, in a literal manner, whereas the deep faith is informed by analogical, typological, and anagogic interpretation ("the sprit gives life, the flesh profits nothing" John 6). The unity of being hangs together in the Good, the Beautiful, and the True (Plato - Good only — Plotinus, Augustine, Bonneventure, Aquinas, Eckhart, etc.) and the unity of faith encompasses gnosis and logos as well as pathos. In this view, faith is not opposed to reason, but rather fused into it ever more deeply, as is practice/techne. There is a blend of techne, episteme, phronesis (discernment), nous, and sophia; whereas faith today is often understood primarily as nous/intuition.

I think the main philosophical thing to draw out here is the idea of faith as habit/practice/techne in addition to initial nous, the natural role of reason in techne, and then the progression from techne to a blend of techne and sophia (Aristotle's uses of these terms). We could also think of the progression in explanation in Plato from mythos to logos, and particularly the "unity of reason," and primacy of the whole in true knowledge.

This is not how Saint Paul and the author of Hebrews is always interpreted. Medieval fideists rejected this view, opting for a more intuitionist faith separated from logos. Luther builds on this, and has some rough things to say about reason. However , this blended, progressive view remains strong in Catholicism, Orthodox, and Coptic/Oriental thought, and is certainly not absent in Protestantism, but is less ubiquitous there.

Obviously, of can be applied outside of theological settings, in terms of how skepticism is overcome, particularly in terms of circular, falliblist epistemologies.

You could also consider the idea of faith as being necessary for beginning any inquiry (faith in your ability to learn, faith in the intelligibility of the subject, etc.) found in Saint Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury.

"Faith: not wanting to know what is true." ~Freddy Z

How many types of faith are there? — TiredThinker

I discern three "types of faith": (1) trusting the impossible was the case, (2) hoping the impossible will be the case and (3) imagining the impossible is (always) the case; and by 'the impossible' I understand that which is rational to deny, or negate (e.g. contradictions ... incoherent objects, inconsistent things, unconditional events ... reified ideas aka "idols"). :halo:

A lot of people like to set science and religion apart as of they are direct enemies, and religion is based on faith and science has nothing to do with faith.

I'm gonna take a controversial position as someone who is anti religion and pro science, and say that I think that's a misunderstanding, the average persons scientific belief IS largely faith based, but it's based in epistemically better faith than religion.

They are both faith based, but the two types of faiths are as different as faith can be

In evidence we trust ... :smirk:

I'd even go a bit further than that. I haven't looked at most of the evidence for the scientific statements I believe. If you put in front of me most of the evidence for relativity, I'd be unqualified to judge if that really supports or contradicts relativity.

Religion and science both involve trusting people, first and foremost. They have that in common. What they don't have in common is why they trust the people they trust.

Well, consider a statement made during the Korean War such as, "the situation is extremely dire, and the UN forces have collapsed into a chaotic rout. However, I have faith in General Rigeway to sort the situation out. He's an excellent commander and he's pulled a rabbit out a hat before."

The person making the statement doesn't, and wouldn't claim to "know" that organization will be restored and the Chinese offensive halted. However, their assessment isn't blind either. They have a faith in the character and abilities of the general, and this is not "blind" but based on past experiences.

And perhaps we could say that the general benefits from "faithful officers," who have "faith in" him and so execute his commands even if they do not understand or agree with them.

The "faith in," and "faith that," distinction targets persons and propositions respectively. The problem with discussions of faith, particularly in religion, is that these two uses end up mixed ambiguously.

There is a similar distinction between "knowing how," and "knowing that." Knowing how to ride a bike doesn't seem to tie neatly to propositions. But religious practices sometimes fit the "knowing how" distinction better, and this seems to lead to confusions when religion is thought of in terms of a set of propositions.



Would it be fair to say this is more a "faith in" institutions, rather than a "faith that," given claims are true?

I don't consider –semantics aside – "trusting people" synonymous with faith (e.g. "having faith in people") as I point out here: .

oh, I guess to me that's pretty much fundamentally what "faith" always (or almost always) means. Faith in your family and friends, but also religious faith - you're trusting your religious leaders to be telling you what they believe to be true, and you're trusting them to be competent to know what the truth is.

I'm just reducing faith down to its main part, I understand it's not a black and white concept that you can't have some uncertainty in a judgement, what do you think military intelligence is? — Vaskane

Exactly. Only the most trivial and mundane of things can be known without doubt. The volume of water in that glass is 300 ml. As soon as you begin to contextualize a fact, uncertainties begin to accrue. Will 300 ml quench my thirst? I have to do a long drive, will I have to take a bathroom break? The notion that "science" eliminates uncertainty is ludicrous. Human contexts are rife with uncertainty, which means that there must always be a certain element of trust in our own beliefs demanded of us in living our lives. So what some people derisively call faith is obviously both real and crucial.

I think your example of courage is also an excellent one.

It might be that this way of thinking comes out of libertarian intuitions. Given libertarian free will, we cannot "know" how a person/persons will act because they are "free" to choose between possible courses of action. Truth values about future acts are indeterminate, not probabilistic in such a view, hence "faith in," generally applying to choice/persons.

But this might highlight some of the coherency problems in naive libertarianism, because our ability to have such "informed" faith presupposes that choices are determined by things that exist prior to them, in which case free will would not seem to be wholly undetermined.

How many types of faith are there? — TiredThinker

No idea. Outside of religion the word is used metaphorically and IMO wrongly.

I've heard it said that faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they have no good reasons to beleive it.

As per Hebrews 11 - "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Religious apologists will often try to bend the definition of faith to include science or daily activities in an attempt to normalize the magical thinking.

The common ones - 'You have faith that the plane you catch will fly safely." "You have faith you can cross the road safely."

I think it's inaccurate to use the word faith in those instances. They are actually reasonable expectations, not faith. They are founded on experience and knowledge. For instance, we know planes fly safely. We know there are trained pilots. We know there are engineers who maintain the equipment on planes. We know there's a demonstrable physics which explains how planes fly. We know that almost all flights take off and land safely. To use faith here is absurd. We can have a reasonable expectation that plane flight is safe. But we don't have access to certainty.

Ditto crossing the road. If we cross with care we can be reasonably confident we can cross without being hit. Faith would be crossing the road wearing a blindfold and marching straight into traffic.

To argue, as some might, that we have faith in science is a specious argument. Science is a model that provides reliable results we can test. It's empirical, so faith is superfluous. I think we can be confident in science as a tool which provides tentative models for understanding the reality we know. Science is not a synonym for certainty.

Is religious faith special in that what is believed is taught systematically to many and reinforced versus faith an individual can have based on their own observations of how things tend to play out? — TiredThinker

The point of religious faith is that is concerned with salvation (in Semitic religions) or liberation (mokṣa or Nirvāṇa) in Eastern religions. (They're very difficult to compare.)

In the context of ecclesiastical Christianity, the central role of faith is on account of the role of Jesus Christ as Saviour. 'Faith in Jesus' is the sole criterion for salvation in those religions. Faith is the actual means of salvation.

There are very different conceptions in Eastern religions, not to mention in gnostic religions and other religious forms. For instance early Buddhism is oriented around self-reliance, 'by oneself one is purified, by oneself one is defiled'. But that is against the background of the Eastern concept of Saṃsāra, the eternal wheel of death and re-birth, meaning that the journey to eventual Nirvāṇa might occupy many lifetimes. Christianity doesn't endorse anything like that (some of the Gnostic sects such as Cathars do, but they are designated as heretical.)

Hindu faiths are likewise set against the background of acceptance of saṃsāra. So in both Buddhist and Hindu religions, faith is significant, but it has a rather different meaning than in Christianity. The 'saving grace', at least in the early Buddhist texts, is liberating insight, actual understanding of the mechanism which causes repeated rebirth. Similarly for Vedanta, which is the philosophical school of Hinduism. They both rely on the cultivation of insight, which is distinguished from faith, because it comprises wisdom (Jñāna).

That said, it is understood that at the outset, the aspirant will not possess that insight, and so must have faith that it is realisable. Faith in Buddhism is 'sradha', meaning 'to place one's heart upon'. It is more like faith in the efficacy of the Buddhist path. (Although the largest east Asian Buddhist school is Pure Land, which requires faith in the saving grace of Amida Buddha, and in that respect, is rather like Christian faith, although of course the belief system is completely different.)

Furthermore, in Christian Mysticism there are many parallels with the wisdom schools of Eastern traditions.

Another point is, that in Eastern faiths, for example, there is recognition that there are many different kinds of individuals with differing levels of adaptation and personality types, requiring different kinds of religious or spiritual models. See for instance Swami Vivekananda's Four Types of Yoga and also the 84,000 Dharma Doors of Buddhism. Western conceptions of this issue are very much a product of Western cultural history, which is very different to Eastern.

Faith and reason are in complete opposition. One believes what it wants, and the other believes what it must. It is like having two masters with opposite minds, so one must always betray one to serve the other at any given time. The basis for faith is, at a minimum, desire or emotion and, at most, dogma. The basis for reason is, at a minimum, evidence and, at most, proof.

Jeremiah 17:9
"The heart is deceitful above all things"

Matthew 6:24
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other."

"Man prefers to believe what man prefers to be true." - Sir Francis Bacon

Well, religion can just as easily involve trusting a story teller as a preacher. Science involves trusting people that can propose a way to verify what they're talking about independently.

Yeah, that's all true

How many types of faith are there? Is religious faith special in that what is believed is taught systematically to many and reinforced versus faith an individual can have based on their own observations of how things tend to play out? — TiredThinker

Basically, there are only two types of Faith : Familial Trust or Rational Belief. All of us take certain things for granted, based on either a> repeated personal experience or b> other's experience via hearsay. Of course, type a> is specific and limited to the senses of a single person, and is implicitly accepted as true*1. But type b> is more general and combines the broader more-inclusive knowledge of many people, who may range from reasonable to irrational. However, Type a> may be expanded to include b> when defined as those of "like precious faith"*2. Since we have no way to verify those varied hearsay experiences, our acceptance of Reported Facts requires Trust in the Veracity & Authority of the source of information. Hence, the development of Scriptural Authority and Empirical Science.

The inherent uncertainty of limited personal experience, may be why the gossip-grape-vine (including modern Mass Media) is so important to most of us. But also why Blind Trust can leave us mis-informed. Apart from sensory illusions, we have little reason to doubt our own direct impressions of what is real & true. But, gossip combines the feelings & opinions of several observers, resulting in diluted quality of scrutiny. So, any form of mass observation needs to be filtered through a rational screen to weed-out extreme subjective views in favor of the moderate average, which, for unverifiable philosophical questions*3, may be closer to Objective Truth.

For those who are uncertain of their own rational powers, Familial Trust may be projected onto a Virtuous Person (Reverend), or Technically-trained Person (Scientist), or Authorized Scripture (Bible). But for Philosophers, trust in one's own personal reasoning abilities is essential to informed & vetted beliefs. :smile:

Familial Trust : unquestioned Self-confidence or Social Trust (extended circle of familiarity)
Rational Belief : tested & verified facts that are flexible, non-extreme, and logical.
Hearsay : information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor. Social media.
Grapevine : informal communication spreads throughout the organisation in all directions without following the formal path of communication. Social media.

*1. Chico Marx in Duck Soup :
"Well, who ya gonna believe me or your own eyes?"
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/07/31/believe-eyes/

*2. 2 Peter 1:1-8 King James Version : "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us"

*3. Aristotle : "The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/aristotle_148491

There is only one type of faith, blind, faith works via believing, not knowing. — Vaskane

I have faith in what I know.

faith works via believing — Vaskane

I think you have that backwards. Believing works vis faith. It seems simple enough that faith is generally what we rely upon when it comes to beliefs regarding the unknowable. When it comes to believing that which can neither be proven true nor false, believing either way must of necessity require faith. For beliefs of a non-empirical nature, what other metric could there be?

I know this is bad, and I apologize. But the first thing that came to mind is vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.

accidental double post. That'll teach me.

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute?

I understand confidence in plausible things happening, but religion asks people to have confidence in things that quite possibly never happened before.

Semantics here don't matter — Vaskane

yes it does

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute?

I understand confidence in plausible things happening, but religion asks people to have confidence in things that quite possibly never happened before. — TiredThinker

Here's what will likely be a controversial post for many regarding the issue of faith.

All which follows will assume that “faith” is here interpreted to signify “one’s firm, or else complete, belief in something for which one has no proof”:

To my mind there is first and foremost an umbrella dichotomy between these two types of faith: a) faith in that which directly contradicts the basic logical reasoning which one otherwise upholds and a) faith in that which doesn’t do this.

An example of (a): in certain cases, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is valid and true, i.e. conforms to that which is real (this being the typical interpretation of the Christian Trinity)

Firm belief in a plethora of common sense tenets for which there is no proof will be a vivid example of the second type of faith: from faith that what we experience as time and change is not fully illusory, to faith that the sun will once again rise tomorrow (rather than the planet being destroyed by a meteor or an alien laser beam in the meantime), to faith in what is technically termed free will and the praise and blame this allows for, to faith that everyone else is not a p-zombie, to faith that the goodness which humanity has so far imperfectly exhibited with not all go down the drain in the blink of an eye, and so on and so forth (examples could get far more outrageous in terms of things which typical common sense denounces but for which one holds no proof of so being erroneous).

For a good number of people, questioning (b) type faith will be just as reflexively taboo as questioning (a) type faith.

Also, those who proclaim to not live their lives via any faith whatsoever—this as faith is defined above—will, for example, either not hold firm belief in others not being p-zombies (this being commonly considered a sigh of less than optimal mental health) or, otherwise, will profess to hold proof that others are not p-zombies (this being bullshit, or else the proof could be readily shared with all others upon request).

Going by the just expressed, all sane people will to some extent live their lives via faith (irrespective of whether it is consciously recognized or else strictly unconsciously maintained), faith which is often enough required to engage in life-sustaining actions and reactions. The principal difference, again, being that some live their lives by reason supported, and thereby justifiable, faith (this being faith-type (b)) while others will uphold their faith in manners contradicted by the very reasoning they otherwise support (this being faith-type (a)).

Though a controversial stipulation for some, to my mind, none of this should be in any way surprising to any fallibilist out there. (For one thing, in honest fallibilism, there is no definitive proof for anything, for nothing epistemological is infallible. But this does not preclude firm, or else complete, belief in fallible conclusions—conclusion for which there thereby is no proof—this just in case these conclusions are consistently justified by reasoning such that they cohere into one’s total body of justifications without any contradictions.)

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute? — TiredThinker

How did you arrive at that? Isn't faith certainty?

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute? — TiredThinker

How did you arrive at that? Isn't faith certainty? — Tom Storm

If @TiredThinker had something else in mind, he can of course provide a different answer. For my part, though:

Certainty comes in different degrees of strength—e.g., from being fairly certain to being extremely certain—and so it need not be absolute, by which I here understand “unshakable” and “complete”.

Faith, however, is unshakable and complete, and so it is more than mere psychological certainty. It is unshakable psychological certainty. Via the dichotomy I’ve just expressed in my last post, this either because one’s logically consistent justifications upon which one’s faith rests do not warrant one’s questioning one’s own faith, or, otherwise, because one is dogmatic about one’s faith in manners impervious to any reasoning evidencing it erroneous.

As an example of the first, I personally have full-fledged faith that solipsism is false precisely because this a) is an unshakable belief/certainty which I hold despite not having any infallible proof for it and b) because it is fully in-line with the body of all justified beliefs which I hold such that no contradictions unfold by my holding this unshakable belief/certainty. Here, the stated faith remains for me unshakable until the time contradictions in my holding this faith arise.

As an example of the second, were someone to have faith that the pink elephant they saw in their own house when they were drunk actually exists (rather than being a figment of their imagination) despite all reasoned arguments to the contrary (e.g., the house doorways needing to be damaged were an elephant to walk through the house from room to room), then this would be one example of a logic-impervious unshakable belief/certainty. Here, this faith remains unshakable regardless of the contradictions that might or else do arise.

But both will be faith in that they are unshakable and complete certainties regarding facts for which no proof exists.

Certainty comes in different degrees of strength—e.g., from being fairly certain to being extremely certain—and so it need not be absolute, by which I here understand “unshakable” and “complete”. — javra

My question came about because of the use of the word 'confidence', which I had laid out in a different context earlier, as an alternative to faith.

In relation to degrees of certainty, I have no particular view on this. Generally I either believe something or I don't. As far as I can recall, I don't often ascribe probabilities or degrees of confidence to anything. I don't think I am absolutely certain about anything.

The only time I use the word faith in conversation is to describe someone's religious views. I try to avoid using this word to describe quotidian matters.

My question came about because of the use of the word 'confidence', which I had laid out in a different context earlier, as an alternative to faith. — Tom Storm

Sorry. I missed that connection.

The only time I use the word faith in conversation is to describe someone's religious views. — Tom Storm

OK, but, as you well know, you are not the only English user of that word. Other people do use it in wider contexts than just the religious, even if you might consider such usage “inaccurate”.

I try to avoid using this word to describe quotidian matters. — Tom Storm

I don't know. Religious matters can well be quotidian (i.e., commonplace and everyday) in certain populaces, which seems to fully sidestep the distinction you're trying to make. For instance:

Especially in relation to all the radical relativism discussions that have been going about, that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is upheld by some as sometimes being valid and true—everyday/commonplace and so quotidian though this issue of the Trinity might be for many—seems nevertheless significant to this discussion regarding types of faith. Namely, is the presented summation valid and true on account of it being socially constructed by those who have faith in its so being—this as radical relativism would have it—thereby making this arithmetic justifiable? Or would this be an article of religious faith that is reason-impervious regarding matters of fact and thereby wrongheaded—quotidian though it is in most aspects of western cultures?

OK, but, as you well know, you are not the only English user of that word. Other people do use it in wider contexts than just the religious, even if you might consider such usage “inaccurate”. — javra

Yes, and as I have said on this site many times, I consider it a bad use of the word. I will always be happy to point this out in my conversations with others.

I don't know. Religious matters can well be quotidian (i.e., commonplace and everyday) in certain populaces, which seems to fully sidestep the distinction you're trying to make. — javra

My point is that 'faith' is best used to describe certain people's justification for gods. To use 'faith' to describe plane flight or crossing the road is a rhetorical tool used by apologists who like to equivocate on language to help them smuggle in their ideas.

I am well aware that people use language differently, which is why I enjoy having my say when there is an opportunity. We're not trying to change the world here, just have conversations and share our views. :wink: