What Is Faith?

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The late Eric Butterworth told of a time when he was addressing a group of theology students. When one student asked what Unity believed about a particular subject, Butterworth turned the question back on the student. “What do you believe about it?” he asked. The student thought for a moment and then turned to his professor. “Professor, what do we believe about this?”

While faith is often treated as a collection of beliefs hammered out and published by some religious authority, Butterworth recognized it as something more than a list of beliefs we profess simply because we’re told to. Faith is a faculty of mind that directly impacts every aspect of our daily life. Where this faculty is pointed always supersedes the impact of a list of beliefs we can carry in our shirt pocket or purse.

The writer of Hebrews pointed out that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. When you do something as simple as pour a cup of coffee, you have faith that when you tilt the pot, coffee will flow into your cup. You have so much faith this will happen that you will not tilt the pot over your new carpet. Your faith is the substance of the thing you hope for, in this case a cup of coffee. If you had no faith in the fact that coffee would flow from the pot, you wouldn’t attempt pouring it. You withhold substantive action from the thing you hope for. Hope without faith is a pipe dream, a 19^th century term that referenced fantasies generated while smoking opium.

Faith is much more than a list of professed beliefs. The overall quality of our life is the out-picturing of where our faculty of faith is directed most of the time. Are we enjoying our coffee or is our carpet full of stains? If the latter seems true, then we work toward becoming conscious of how we are directing the substance of our faith. We all have faith in something. Where our faith is directed is our most important consideration.