Faith

• Dawkins: “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think.”
• John 14:9: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
• Martin Luther: “According to John 1:18, God does not want to be known except through Christ; nor can be he known in in any other way.”
• Calvin: “God is known in the first place simply as the Creator, no less by this beautiful masterpiece the world than by the general teaching of the Scriptures and then afterwards appeared as our redeemer in the face and person of Jesus Christ.”
• Revealed theology is the idea that God has deliberately chosen to give some knowledge to people - knowledge that could have otherwise not been gained.
• Many protestants emphasise the need for revealed theology as our fallen nature as humans prevents us from being able to fully know God with reason.
• Catholics believe revelation is needed due to the sheer size of the differences between God and humans.
• Faith is a belief in something that does not necessarily have evidence to support - it is a leap someone makes without perceiving anything with their senses.
• Understanding and accepting that God sent Jesus to die for our sins through his grace is accepting Gods revelation and brings a person knowledge of God, often knowledge more intimate than can be achieved by reason alone.
• The Holy Spirit, Christians believe to be acting in the world today. It inspires and guides people and it is what gives them faith and strengthens them to live a good Christian life. Therefore, it is through the Holy Spirit that Christians can fully understand God's work in the world.
• 'till the Spirit has become our instructor, all that we know is folly and ignorance' - John Calvin
• For Calvin, faith requires the grace of the Holy Spirit and so knowledge of God does too. We cannot achieve true faith on our own.
• To Catholics, grace is the gift of the Spirit and is the 'free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God.' - Catechism of the Catholic Church.
• Engaging with God should not be seen as merely an academic exercise but as a spiritual and emotional task: life is not just about academics or physical things.
• It stands to reason that a God who is beyond this earth will not be able to be understood without faith and God's grace to enable that faith.
• Belief in Gods existence is a relationship with a personal God and all relationships require more than just theory
• Atheist thinkers dismiss faith as a projection of human desire for there to be more to this life than meets the eye. As such, all acts of faith should be rejected
• Faith without the support of reason could lead to beliefs in anything
• Why would God create humans with the ability to be rational and then seem only to offer some and not all humans the gift of faith.