Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Hebrews 11:1

1. Now faith is the substance (assurance JST) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

2 comments:

ethan said...

Paul to the Hebrews

ethan said...

I like all three words used here to define faith: substance, assurance, evidence; words like these make faith a lot more of a thing-easier to pin down than "faith is things hoped for and not seen..." or "faith is not to have a perfect knowledge." Both of those "faith is..." statements are a little confusing to me.
I also like this definition because I think that it helps to clear up a problem with Alma 32:21 which says that you can only have faith in things "which are true." If faith is an external "assurance" or some kind of personal evidence that comes from God, then it follows that it is true. By this definition, no one can have faith in lies because faith must come from God and, according to scripture, God cannot lie. The scriptures of the last three days point to faith not being an internal human motivation but an assurance, substance, or evidence- that comes from God.