FAITH (OF. feid, foit, lei, foi, Fr. foi. It. fede, from Lat. fides, faith, from i'idcre, to trust; connected with Gk. relOav, peithein, to persuade, AS. biddun, Eng. bid). A theological term. de rived front the Scriptures, and which should be conformed to their usage. Besides its use to sig nify the whole body of religious convietions which Christians hold, faith is used in the New Testa ment in but two main senses: (1) A conviction of the truth of anything. This may be an ac ceptance upon evidence of any fact, such as a fact of history, and is hence often called an his torical faith. It might be called a scientific faith, since it is the same faith which is exercised in believing. upon evidence, any proposition of nat ural science. By this faith the existence of Clod is accepted. His truth is received upon conmmni cation from Him, Christ is believed to he the Saviour. the doctrine of the Trinity is accepted, etc. (2) It is used of trust in God and Christ, springing from the first kind of faith, hut involv ing an additional element, which is the character istic element of this kind of faith, the net of trustful self-committal of the soul to Christ. It is substantially a choice of Christ as Saviour and Lord: an act, therefore. of the will par excel knee, as the first kind of faith is chiefly an act of the intellect. These two great classes—that in which the will is chief, which is accompanied by the movement of the affections (whence it is often called love), and for which the soul is directly responsible before God, and that in which the intellect is mainly concerned—will be found to embrace all varieties of faith spoken of as a Christian virtue in the Scriptures.
The great controversy in theological history in respect to faith may be concisely stated as this: Which of these two kinds of faith is saving faith? The Roman Catholic Church requires both kinds, and has declared it essential to salva tion to believe (that is, hold as true) certain doctrines, as those which the Council of Trent promulgated. Catholic writers, however, are not content with a mere intellectual acquiescence. and nnder the term tides formata have included love in faith, and approached very close to the Protestant position. This position is that saving faith is the act of the will, is surrender, holy choice, the acting in view of the offer of salva tion as one ought to act, repenting of sin and turning to Christ for salvation. trusting Him, accepting His holy will as the law of the indi vidual life. The Protestant doctrine is that when a man thus believes, his sins are immediate ly forgiven for Christ's sake. See JUSTIFICA TION.
But while faith is thus an act of the will, it is not viewed in the Scripture as an act of man without reference to the operation upon him of God's Holy Spirit. The Pelagian controversy (see PELAGIANISM ) was upon this question, and Church doctrine from that time has insisted upon the necessity, to the practical exercise of faith. of the divine activity upon the soul, and of the priority of the divine element in the whole proc ess. God has an active agency, inclining the will by 'persuasions' (Augustine), under which the man acts freely. His act is faith.