Christian "faith" vs. plain "faith"

[watchamadoodle]

---

"Faith," like many words in English, has more than one meaning. Take a look at:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

faith

noun

[MASS NOUN]
1 Complete trust or confidence in someone or something:
this restores one’s faith in politicians


2 Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof:
bereaved people who have shown supreme faith


2.1 [COUNT NOUN] A particular religion:
the Christian faith


2.2 [COUNT NOUN] A strongly held belief:
men with strong political faiths

Because of the various definitions, people often speak past each other. The proper solution, of course, is to ask each other, what, precisely, does one mean by ones terms?

For a discussion of 2 (which is essentially belief without evidence), take a look at what William Kingdon Clifford had to say at:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm

If you are thinking of 1, there is a difference between trusting someone or something with evidence that the thing one is trusting is actually trustworthy, and trusting it without such evidence.

---

I'm surprised that the dictionary definitions in your quote all suggest that faith is either 0% or 100%. It would be very common to say "I don't have too much faith in political promises", or "how much faith do you have in Social Security?" Those statement imply that faith can range between 0% and 100%. Maybe I'm weird, but I would use "faith" in those sentences commonly.