Paul Tillich says this,
"The terminilogical inquiry has led us into the the material problem itself. Faith does not confirm nor deny what belongs to the prescientific or scientific knowledge of our world, whether we know it by direct experience or through the experience of others. The knowledge of our world is a matter of inquiry of ourselves or those whom we trust. It is not a matter of faith. The dimension of faith is not the dimension of science, history, or psychology. The acceptance of a probable hypothesis in these realms is not faith, but preliminary belief, to be tested by scholarly methods and to be changed by every new discovery. Almost all the struggles between faith and knowledge are rooted in the wrong understanding of faith as a type of knowledge which has a low degree of evidence. It is, however, not only confusion of faith with knowledge that is responsible for the world historical conflicts between them; it is also the fact that matters of faith in the sense of ultimate concern lie hidden behind an assumedly scientific method. Whenever this happens, faith stands against faith and not against knowledge."
His theology is very complicated, but goes on to say that faith is the "state of being ultimately concerned". Yada, yada, yada...I don't have enough time to go into it, but he basically is stating that faith has been confused with belief. |