Is faith really a gift?

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I've often come across the idea here that faith is a gift but is that true?

What's often quoted is Ephesians 2:8-9:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

This appears to be saying that it's salvation, by grace and through faith, that's the gift, not faith.

Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)? That is, we are persuaded about the truth of something based on the evidence.

This would eliminate faith being a choice --we don't choose to believe that the Earth is round, we either believe it or disbelieve it based on how persuasive we find the evidence for it. Similarly, don't we believe in Christ because we find all the evidences for it: the Bible, personal testimony and various philosophical arguments, complelling enough to make a commitment to believe?

So is faith a gift or is it a reasoned response to the evidence that has convinced us, at least on balance, that it is true? Is "accepting Christ" a matter of accepting the evidence for the gospel story rather than accepting a gift?
 

Gregory Thompson

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Faith is the trust developed between the person and God.

That God interacts with us prior to salvation to develop this trust, could be considered a gift - but when people speak of a gift of faith they might mean some have more than others.
 
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Dave L

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I've often come across the idea here that faith is a gift but is that true?

What's often quoted is Ephesians 2:8-9:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

This appears to be saying that it's salvation, by grace and through faith, that's the gift, not faith.

Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)? That is, we are persuaded about the truth of something based on the evidence.

This would eliminate faith being a choice --we don't choose to believe that the Earth is round, we either believe it or disbelieve it based on how persuasive we find the evidence for it. Similarly, don't we believe in Christ because we find all the evidences for it: the Bible, personal testimony and various philosophical arguments, complelling enough to make a commitment to believe?

So is faith a gift or is it a reasoned response to the evidence that has convinced us, at least on balance, that it is true? Is "accepting Christ" a matter of accepting the evidence for the gospel story rather than accepting a gift?
“For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” Galatians 5:6 (KJV 1900)
 
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“For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” Galatians 5:6 (KJV 1900)

But isn't there also an intellectual to faith just as with science? To be a good scientist, you need to have a love of science but you also have to reason about the evidence.
 
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d taylor

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Every person born is given the gift of faith. That is being able to believe something is true.

For an example many people believe that man got into a metal rocket and few 230,000+ miles to the moon. That takes faith to believe that.

I for one do not believe that man did fly to the moon, so not every person does believe that.

Same can be applied to The Bible, some have faith that the evidence presented in The Bible is true. And there are people who do not believe the evidence presented in The Bible.

Also i do know The Bible states Eternal Life is a free gift from God.


But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
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Dave L

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But isn't there also an intellectual to faith just as with science? To be a good scientist, you need to have a love of science but you also have to reason about the evidence.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It comes from God, not you. It bears witness of the reality of the invisible it represents Heb.11:1
 
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d taylor

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I will also add it is the object of faith that is special in christianity.

Example childern have faith, that there is a santa claus but their faith at that age is based on a lie.

But the faith used to believe in The Messiah for Eternal Life, is based on truth.
 
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In Ephesians 2:8-9, grace is the gift.
Faith is a Gift (of the Spirit) in 1 Corinthians 12:9.

"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for
  • to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit,
  • to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
  • to another [increased] faith by the same Spirit,
  • to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
  • to another the working of miracles,
  • to another prophecy,
  • to another discerning of spirits,
  • to another different kinds of tongues,
  • to another the interpretation of tongues.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills." 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 NKJV
 
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Andrewn

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What's often quoted is Ephesians 2:8-9:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

This appears to be saying that it's salvation, by grace and through faith, that's the gift, not faith.
Eph 2:8-9 can be interpreted either way. I found the best analysis in the Cambridge Commentary:

"Does it distinctly state that “faith” is the “gift of God,” or does it state, more generally, that “gratuitous salvation” is the “gift of God,” leaving it open whether the faith which accepts it is His gift or not? The question is largely occasioned by the construction of the Greek, in which “that” (neuter) does not agree with “faith” (feminine).—Many great expositors, Calvin at the head of them, accordingly take “that” to refer to the main previous idea, and “through faith” to be a separate inserted thought. Alford, who takes this view, states the case for it briefly and well.

"Nevertheless we recommend the other explanation, and for the following simple reason: the phrase “and that” (lit., “and this”) is familiar in N.T. Greek to introduce an addition of thought, enforcing or heightening what has gone before. See 1 Corinthians 6:6; 1 Corinthians 6:8; “and that before the unbelievers;” “and that, your brethren;” Php 1:28; Hebrews 11:12, (A.V., “and him, &c.”). But if it here refers only to the general previous idea, gratuitous salvation, it is hard to see what new force of thought it adds to the words “by grace.” If on the other hand it refers to the last special statement, “through faith,” there is a real additional point in the assertion that even the act of believing is a gift of God; for thus precisely the one link in the process where the man might have thought he acted alone, and where therefore, in St Paul’s sense, he might claim to “boast,” is claimed for God. Let the clauses, “and that, not of you; God’s is the gift,” be taken as a parenthesis, and the point of the interpretation will be clear; while the Greek amply admits the arrangement."

The bottom-line, I think, is that the verse itself is equivocal and has been understood both ways. I'll be adding more comments on the rest of your excellent analysis.
 
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For an example many people believe that man got into a metal rocket and few 230,000+ miles to the moon. That takes faith to believe that.

It does take faith, but not blind faith. We do need faith that the scientific community, the media and the politicians are not all lying to us in a big conspiracy but that is, I believe, a reasonable thing to assume.
 
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OP question: Is faith really a gift?

Eph 2:8 For - "by grace" - "are ye saved" - "through faith" - and that not of yourselves: "it is the gift of God":
(MY NOTE: By grace, you will be saved, when you apply faith to Christ's sin payment & resurrection. God's grace is the Gift here)

Thayers Greek/English Lexicon defines the Greek word (charis) translated gift as: A Gift of Grace, a favor received without merit.

Strong's Concordance; charis: Definition: grace, kindness. Usage: (a) grace, as a gift or blessing brought to man by Jesus Christ,
(MY NOTE: Thayer's & Strong's define grace as a GIFT)

Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved

Rom 5:15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the "gift by grace", which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

Rom 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
(NOTE: Faith, is the conduit/vehicle whereby we access, God's unearned/unmerited "gift of grace")

Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as "God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith".
(MY NOTE: Everyone has been dealt a measure of faith)

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
(NOTE: The gift of God's grace has a name. For God so loved the world (Jn 3:16); he gave us Jesus the Christ)
 
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Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)? That is, we are persuaded about the truth of something based on the evidence.

This would eliminate faith being a choice --we don't choose to believe that the Earth is round, we either believe it or disbelieve it based on how persuasive we find the evidence for it. Similarly, don't we believe in Christ because we find all the evidences for it: the Bible, personal testimony and various philosophical arguments, complelling enough to make a commitment to believe?

So is faith a gift or is it a reasoned response to the evidence that has convinced us, at least on balance, that it is true?
I heard these arguments before and used to be convinced by them. Preachers sometimes say things like you have to have faith in the chair before sitting down. Today, I think this is nonsense. Sitting in a chair is based on empirical evidence, not faith.

I'm convinced that if something can be proven by empirical evidence, it doesn't really require faith. Faith is not built empirical evidence, otherwise all/most people would have had the same faith. Perhaps faith is built on personal evidence from a direct relationship with God:

Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

I'll go back to quoting from Cambridge Commentary:

"That “faith” is a matter of Divine gift is clear from e. g. 2 Corinthians 4:13; Php 1:29. Not that a new faculty of trust is implanted, but gracious manifestations—of the soul’s need and the Saviour’s glory—prevail upon the will to choose to repose trust in the right Object. The “gift” of faith is but one phase of the Divine action which (Php 2:13) “worketh in us to will.” And it may be said to be one aspect of the “gift of repentance” (Acts 5:31; 2 Timothy 2:25), for repentance is no mere preliminary to faith; it is the whole complex “change of mind” which includes faith."

2Co 4:13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,

Php 1:29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

These are the 2 verses quoted as irrefutable evidence that "faith" is indeed a gift.
 
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Sitting in a chair is based on empirical evidence, not faith.

I'm convinced that if something can be proven by empirical evidence, it doesn't really require faith

I agree it doesn't really require faith, although I think philosophically it does. The fact that we trust that a chair isn't going to collapse when we sit on it is really based on the law of induction: chairs never, or very rarely, break when you sit on them so therefore it won't break, or is very unlikely to, when I sit on it this time. I'm not saying we consciously nake this argument to ourselves - we don't - but I think that's what's going on. It's not a really valid argument because the law of induction can only be used to prove things about numbers, not chairs, but I agree with you that we don't really operate like that in life.

That “faith” is a matter of Divine gift is clear from e. g. 2 Corinthians 4:13; Php 1:29. Not that a new faculty of trust is implanted, but gracious manifestations—of the soul’s need and the Saviour’s glory—prevail upon the will to choose to repose trust in the right Object.
...
Faith is not built empirical evidence, otherwise people would have had the same faith. Perhaps faith is built on personal evidence from a direct relationship with God:

That sounds persuasive to me! Would you say then that the role of the Bible and the church is to provide an intellectual framework and supportive community in which your personal experiences of God can be interpreted and developed?

Thanks for all the verses too btw.
 
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"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for
  • to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit,
  • to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
  • to another [increased] faith by the same Spirit,
  • to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
  • to another the working of miracles,
  • to another prophecy,
  • to another discerning of spirits,
  • to another different kinds of tongues,
  • to another the interpretation of tongues.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills." 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 NKJV
This is different from salvific faith. Here is the explanation in Meyer's Commentary:

"ΠΊΣΤΙς] cannot be the fides salvifica in general, seeing that this is a possession common to all and required of every Christian, not a peculiar charisma of certain individuals. Hence it has been understood by most commentators, following the Fathers (see in Suicer, Thes. II. p. 727), to refer to the fides miraculosa, Matthew 17:20. But this is clearly too narrow a meaning, since not only the ἰάματα and ΔΥΝΆΜΕΙς are ranked under this head, but also the ΠΡΟΦΗΤΕΊΑ and the ΔΙΑΚΡΊΣΕΙς ΠΝΕΥΜ. What is intended, therefore, must be a high degree of faith in Christ produced by the Holy Spirit, a heroism of faith,[1949] the effects of which manifested themselves in one in healings, in another in wonders, in a third in prophecy (Romans 12:6), in a fourth in discernment of spirits."

And Ellicott's Commentary has the following:

"(9) Faith.—This cannot mean the faith which is necessary to salvation, for that belongs to all Christians; but such faith as is mentioned in Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6, the results of such a faith being here enlarged, and not embracing miracles alone, but prophecy and the discerning of spirits. In the Greek “the word of wisdom” is said to be given by the Spirit; “the word of knowledge “according to the Spirit; and “the faith and gift of healing” in the Spirit. By the use of this variety of expression the Apostle probably means to indicate the variety of methods of operation of the Spirit, as well as the diversity of the gifts which He lavishes."
 
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I've often come across the idea here that faith is a gift but is that true?

What's often quoted is Ephesians 2:8-9:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

This appears to be saying that it's salvation, by grace and through faith, that's the gift, not faith.

Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)? That is, we are persuaded about the truth of something based on the evidence.

This would eliminate faith being a choice --we don't choose to believe that the Earth is round, we either believe it or disbelieve it based on how persuasive we find the evidence for it. Similarly, don't we believe in Christ because we find all the evidences for it: the Bible, personal testimony and various philosophical arguments, complelling enough to make a commitment to believe?

So is faith a gift or is it a reasoned response to the evidence that has convinced us, at least on balance, that it is true? Is "accepting Christ" a matter of accepting the evidence for the gospel story rather than accepting a gift?

Faith in the Bible means "Faith in Christ and God". This is a requirement set forth by the New Covenant. Law on the other hand can be witnessed and precisely measured in a trial in court. It is an objective measurement of one's behavior in the past. "Faith" cannot be measured by humans precisely. "Faith" can however be measured precisely by God and Jesus Christ because God judges hearts. It is thus a more fair and more thorough judgment done by God subjectively but fairly, not only with the scope of one's behavior in the past, but also one's heart/mind and possibly what he would do in the future. To put it another way, such a judgment of Christ/God is not limited by one's past behavior as what can only be done by Law.

Faith when generally used other than as "faith in Jesus", is a fundamental element for humans to get to a truth of any kind. Humans largely rely on faith in testimonies to get to a truth. It is so because humans don't have the ability to get to a truth directly. Humans in majority will have to rely on a few who have a direct contact with a truth to get to a truth. A truth can only be contacted by an extremely few humans then for the rest of human kind to approach by putting faith in the testimonies of this extremely few eyewitnesses. That's how this reality operations, which even the most intelligent humans may fail to grasp.

Moreover, science doesn't rely on evidence to stand, it is a deception to think that science need faith on evidence to stand. Science is rather a detection of a future. We humans don't have the ability to know a future. So if a theory which allows us to predict a future occurrence precisely without failure, we thus know beyond doubt that this theory holds a truth. That's the nature of what science is, the term evidence is irrelevant (except for Satan to introduce confusion and deception). We established a predictable orbital model such that we can anytime tell precisely how our earth is rotating around the sun and by itself, and we predictably know earth's behavior which sticks precisely as we speculate it. We know it is a globe by predicting what we can measure before we actually do any measurement by any means.
 
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This appears to be saying that it's salvation, by grace and through faith, that's the gift, not faith.
The belief is that Faith is received through grace. "Grace" means that it's a gift.

Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)?
That is, we are persuaded about the truth of something based on the evidence.
It is entirely possible to preach the Gospel to a person until you're blue in the face without him every coming to the Lord. It will seem like myth or fiction or something else, no matter what.

But for others, it "takes." And this has nothing to do with culture, age, or anything else of that sort.

Grace is necessary when it comes to believing this evidence since, obviously, it is about supernatural matters and not something that science, etc. can reveal.
 
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Grace is necessary when it comes to believing this evidence since, obviously, it is about supernatural matters and not something that science, etc. can reveal.

Good point. Believing in Christ is a different kind of belief than, say, believing Newton's Third Law of Motion. It is supernatural, i.e. beyond the natural, physical world that science can investigate.

Your point about the different types of knowledge reminded me of a story I read once that exemplified this. It was about an elderly couple and they were visiting some friends and the woman wanted to show their friends some wedding photos of one of their grandchild. Her husband had been charged with bringing the photos but he started patting all his pockets and struggling to find them. Exasperated, the woman said to her friends "I know him like the back of my hand, but I'll never understand him!". The point being that we can know God from our relationship with Him but never understand him... He'll always be capable of surprising us, or, as in this story, of annoying us! and our understanding of God will always be incomplete.
 
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Albion

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Good point. Believing in Christ is a different kind of belief than, say, believing Newton's Third Law of Motion. It is supernatural, i.e. beyond the natural, physical world that science can investigate.
Well said. :oldthumbsup:

... "I know him like the back of my hand, but I'll never understand him!". The point being that we can know God from our relationship with Him but never understand him...

:clap:
 
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Moreover, science doesn't rely on evidence to stand, it is a deception to think that science need faith on evidence to stand. Science is rather a detection of a future.

Science is evidence based and is used to predict future events, e.g. what will happen when I press this detonation button, not "detect" them, whatever you mean by that.

So if a theory which allows us to predict a future occurrence precisely without failure, we thus know beyond doubt that this theory holds a truth. That's the nature of what science is

Science provides us with working models that best explains the data we have at the moment. It does not define absolute truth in the way you said it does because it is always subject to new facts being discovered.
 
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...Isn't faith something a bit more prosaic than that, something that we get just like we get faith in science or in the democratic process (perhaps a bad example at the moment!)? ...

I have understood faith comes from word faithful, which means loyal. If we are faithful, we are loyal. And if we are loyal to God, we keep what He has given and don’t reject Him. To become loyal, we must first hear from God, what He says and that is why I think faith is a gift, it comes by hearing. But it is also our choice, if we accept it.
 
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