Cwic Clips- Faith is Not Belief It is Trust

Belief is a start, but Faith is Trust. This is an important factor in building your faith. Don't fall for the the religious and anti-religious treatment of faith as 'belief'. You build faith just as you build trust. They are one and the same!

LDS Mormon

so let's go over a few of these things

and look at really in a little more

technical sense what faith is to me as I

say in the subtitle of my podcast it's

practical theology it is practical it is

not a nebulous thing out in the air

somewhere like I believe belief is in a

sense belief is a great starting point

but it's not enough it's the first step

toward having faith it is not the

following I had I I read this online and

I was really disappointed when I saw

this but this is one pastor I'm sure a

good guy but this is something where it

is so misleading to people and it's

going to weaken your testimony and

weaken your faith in God if you follow

this but I'm gonna read this to you so

you know what it's not he says faith and

trust this is all about trust faith and

Trust are two entirely different things

one may even argue convincingly faith

and trust are contradictory faith has

been called the substance of hope faith

requires no evidence for belief nor

practice no this is the exact wrong

thing this is the exact opposite of

faith faith requires evidence that's

what faith is it is the result of

evidence is the substance of evidence

otherwise it's just what we would call

blind faith which is just a belief it's

just saying I believe in this I believe

in that it's not faith it's nothing

concrete it is only a start and if you

believe that faith and trust are

contradictory then you don't know what

faith is faith is not belief faith is

trust and if you think of it in those

terms

faith is trust then you'll have a better

understanding of what faith is how do

you build trust it's the same answer is

how do you build faith because they're

one in the same thing if we believe that

faith and belief are the same thing

we're going to be very weak in what we

believe it's not it's not anything

that's concrete it just doesn't work

you're going to have doubts because

facts and fiction are encroaching in on

your belief but when facts and fiction

encroach in on faith on trust that is

already built then that changes

everything you have to have a knowledge

first before you can have faith and a

lot of people think it's the other way

around it's not you have got to have

knowledge before you have faith and you

have to have those two types of

knowledge right you have to have factual

knowledge and you have to have

experiential knowledge in Spanish for

example and in Latin you have those two

distinguish as far as knowledge goes

there's sabe Judea or saber to know to

know something or to know of something

and then there is conocer to know

something intimately or to know

something by experience by familiarity

and that one the latter is the most

important of the two but both are

required McConkie goes over this and he

says this very specifically in his new

witness to the articles of faith his

last book and he specifically says you

have to know about the character of God

and know who he is to some degree before

you can start exercising faith in him

how do you have faith in something you

don't know anything about because it's

not belief you can't trust in something

that's not perfect or that isn't true so

you have to have that knowledge of

something first secondly you've got to

have an experience

on experiential knowledge of

something before you can really exercise

faith let's look at an example say with

your spouse or any member of your family

the more you know them the more you know

you can trust them or you know areas at

least of where you can trust them and

Trust is a very interesting thing it's

very common for philosophers to talk

about suffering being the greatest

reality we know there is reality because

there is suffering and when people are

closest to suffering they are closest to

reality and I think that's true but I

think it's limited I think that you also

need to look at faith faith is one of

those principles that you cannot fake

think about it think about somebody you

know well think about people you trust

and people you don't trust and think

about why and think about what it's

taken for you to get to that point in

that relationship where you have that

trust you have faith in them faith is

something you rely on and why do you

rely on it because you've had experience

with it or with that person or with that

principle and you know it works you know

that it works so you can trust in it and

you can rely on it