Short Post About Defining Faith

By Mmcgee

Many atheists are attacking the Christian worldview based on changing the definition of the word “faith.”

Some of them define faith as “belief without evidence,” “irrational belief in something despite all evidence to the contrary,” and “belief not supported by evidence or reason, but assumption alone.”

Others define it as “pretending to know things that you don’t know,” “glorified ignorance,” and “the ability to believe in something in which there is no physical evidence that even exists.”

Interesting.

I spent 30 minutes searching for current definitions online from a wide variety of non-religious sources. Each is the ‘first’ definition listed by each source. Take a look and see if the atheist definitions line up with the rest of the world.

“complete trust or confidence in someone or something” … OxfordDictionaries.com and MacMillanDictionary.com

“a high degree of trust or confidence in something or someone” … Cambridge Dictionaries Online

“strong belief or trust in someone or something” … Merriam-Webster.com

“the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony” … Webster’s 1913 Dictionary

confidence or trust in a person or thing” … Dictionary.com and Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary

“complete confidence in a person or plan etc” … Vocabulary.com

Faith is defined as confidence or trust in a being, object, living organism, deity, view, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion, as well as confidence based on some degree of warrant.” … Wikipedia.org

“strong belief or trust in someone or something” … LearnersDictionary.com

“Faith is defined as trust or confidence” … YourDictionary.com

The Word Faith in Any Other Language Would Mean:

The word “faith” comes to us from the Latin word fides, which means “trust, confidence.”

The Greek word translated into English as “faith” is pistis, which means “trust, confidence.”

One of the Hebrew words translated into English as “faith” is amanah, which means “agreement, covenant, certain portion, something fixed.”

The German word translated into English as “faith” is glaube, which means “trust, credence, persuasion.”

The French word translated into English as “faith” is foi, which means “credence, belief.”

The Spanish and Portuguese word translated into English as “faith” is fe, which means “conviction, confidence.”

The Italian word translated into English as “faith” is fede, which means “confidence, trust.”

The Russian word translated into English as “faith” is bepa, which means “trust, confidence.”

The Turkish word translated into English as “faith” is inanç, which means “conviction, confidence.”

The Chinese word translated into English as “faith” is xinyang, which means “conviction, confidence.”

The Japanese word translated into English as “faith” is shinko, which means “conviction, confidence.”

It would seem that most of the world agrees, based on definition, that Christian faith is “confidence based on evidence.”