What is Faith, Anyway?

Note: I've been participating in an online discussion forum called Quora for over a year now, and as well as reading some very thought-provoking questions and replies from others, I have done a lot of outside reading and thinking myself. Several threads I'm following have to do with the nature of religious faith, and here are my current observations about faith.

The word has several meanings. Part of the reason why there is some contention about what faith is, is because faith has several related meanings:

• An inner attribute. It is the motive to confide in things that are uncertain but useful or desirable. Like all elements of character, it can be strengthened with practice, but atrophies with disuse. In this sense it is related to the words belief, trust, confidence, hope, conviction or allegiance;
• A world-view. It is the complete set of axioms that underpin our understanding of our world. We commonly say that we believe certain tenets which cannot be shown conclusively to be true.  This means that we accept them because they complete our model of how life works, and allow us to make coherent decisions in the face of unknowns and uncertainty. In this sense it is related to the terms religion, system of belief or set of principles; and
• A lifestyle. It is the aggregate of all the actions we take that result from the world-view.

Faith is a very rich concept. Faith has many attributes - it is:

• Subjective. Much of the evidence we have for our faith is based on personal experience. Although there is also objective evidence for the tenets of our faith, most is circumstantial and in aggregate it is supportive but not conclusive. Although some people are convinced that objective evidence conclusively shows their tenets to be true, if this were true then much of the scientific community would accept those tenets;
• Volitional. We choose to accept certain tenets into our world-view and then choose to live accordingly. Although we can (and should) continue to explore our doubts, we take confident action despite uncertainty. Although some people base their faith on an authority (such as a priest, the church or scripture), in the final analysis the power of that authority derives from the adherent’s assent;
• Rational. Faith is logical, rational and methodical, being based on reason and both subjective and objective evidence. It is not scientific, as the most convincing evidence is subjective and the empirical evidence is non-conclusive. But we can be rational without being scientific;
• Dynamic. Our faith changes with time, both in its tenets and its strength. Whenever we make an error, it is reasonable to examine its causes; sometimes it is a result of an inaccurate tenet of faith. At this point it would be silly to hang onto the tenet rather than to learn from experience and modify our world-view. Further, our successes and failures cause our confidence in our world-view to grow or shrink;
• Consistent. Faith should not contradict our observations and experiences, or the trusted observations of others (for instance, science). If we hang onto a tenet of faith despite contradictions, we say that that faith is blind rather than rational; and
• Necessary. We need to make assumptions to combine with incomplete knowledge in order to make life choices. Disallowing these assumptions may make a rational choice impossible. For instance, we can never be certain that our choices of career or spouse were the best possible. An element of faith was required: we hoped or trusted that the outcome would be satisfactory.

Food for thought!