Faith and Reason: What Is Faith, Really?

Part 2: What Is Faith, Really?

If philosophy helps us think clearly about truth, faith opens us to the One who is Truth. But for many people today, the word faith has become distorted. It’s often caricatured as blind belief, wishful thinking, or a fallback for those who can’t handle reason. That’s not the biblical or Catholic understanding.

So what is faith, really? To answer that question, we need to clear up misconceptions and dive deeper into its true nature.

Faith Isn’t “Believing What You Know Ain’t So”

A popular misquote, sometimes jokingly attributed to Mark Twain, defines faith as “believing what you know ain’t so.” Sadly, many people think this is what religious faith demands—suspending reason, closing one’s eyes, and jumping into the void.

But genuine faith isn’t irrational. On the contrary, faith is trust in the testimony of a trustworthy authority. And we do this all the time. Most of what we “know” we accept on authority—history, science, geography, even everyday facts. You’ve probably never met Julius Caesar, but you believe he existed because credible sources say so.

Faith, then, is not opposed to reason. It depends on it. It rests on the judgment that the one we trust is reliable. In Christianity, that “someone” is God.

The Object of Faith: God, Not Just Propositions

When we speak of faith, we often refer to the content of belief—creeds, dogmas, doctrines. These are vital. They help articulate what we believe. But faith ultimately aims beyond statements.

The true object of faith is not a list of teachings, but God Himself.

We express our faith in propositions like “God is Trinity” or “Jesus is Lord,” but these truths point beyond themselves to the One who speaks them. The Catechism puts it beautifully:

“We do not believe in formulas, but in those realities they express, which faith allows us to touch.”(CCC 170)

Faith is not just agreement with truths. It is a personal entrusting of oneself to the Truth.

Faith Is More Than Belief

In Catholic tradition, faith involves the whole person. We can speak of it in four dimensions:

1. Emotional – Faith includes trust and confidence. It’s not merely intellectual assent, but a posture of the heart that leans toward God.

2. Intellectual – Faith is also belief. It is an act of the intellect, moved by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the authority of the One who reveals.

3. Volitional – Faith involves commitment. It is a choice to obey God’s will, not just to believe, but to follow.

4. Spiritual (“Heart”) – In Scripture, the “heart” is not emotion or sentiment, but the very center of the person. It is the seat of moral and spiritual decision, where the Holy Spirit dwells and works.

Faith, then, is a personal, holistic act. It unites head and heart, belief and trust, knowledge and love.

Sidebar: Faith as a Virtue vs. Faith as an Act

In Catholic theology, we use the word faith to mean more than one thing. The distinction matters.

• The virtue of faith is a supernatural habit infused by God. It disposes us to believe divine truth because of God’s authority. This virtue shapes our soul. It strengthens the will and illuminates the intellect so that we are able to say “yes” to God.

• The act of faith is our actual saying “yes.” It is the moment when we believe a particular truth (like the Trinity or the Resurrection) and assent to it with our mind and will.

You can think of the virtue as the power or capacity God gives, and the act as the movement of that power in action. Without the virtue, belief remains tentative, like philosophical opinion. But with the virtue of faith, the soul clings firmly to truth with confidence and love.

As Aquinas says:

“To believe is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”(ST II-II, q.2, a.9)

Faith Is Not Mere Opinion

A common confusion in modern thought is the conflation of faith with opinion. But the two are quite different. We need to recover the older, philosophical meaning of the word opinion to see why.

Today, when people say “That’s just your opinion,” they often mean a subjective preference, like a favorite flavor of ice cream. In this sense, opinions are non-binding and purely personal.

But in classical philosophy, opinion (from the Greek doxa) refers to a judgment held without certainty, because it lacks full knowledge or demonstration. Philosophical opinions can be reasonable and argued, but they remain provisional.

Faith is not that. Faith is not a preference or a guess. It is trust in the God who speaks.It is firm, grounded in divine authority, and commands more than intellectual interest. It calls for personal commitment.

As Aquinas teaches, the object of opinion is an idea. The object of faith is not merely an idea about God. It is God Himself.

"Faith is not a preference or a guess. It is trust in the God who speaks."Based on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas

Faith Is a Gift, but Also a Response

We must remember that faith is a gift. We do not generate it by sheer willpower or clever reasoning. As St. Paul says:

“It is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

But it is a gift that calls for a response. God invites, and we must answer. That answer involves trust, surrender, and obedience. As St. Anselm wrote, fides quaerens intellectum—faith seeks understanding. The more we believe, the more we desire to know the One we trust.

Coming Next: What Is Reason?

In the next part of this series, we’ll turn to the other wing of the soul’s ascent: reason. We’ll explore how its meaning has changed over time, and why recovering a rich understanding of reason is essential for both philosophy and theology.