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TheForgottenFoundations

ofFaith

Whatis“Faith?”

Dr. Joe Mulvihill August 4, 2021

  

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Hebrews11:1‐3,61 

“Now faith is the reality/substance/confidence of what is hoped for, 2 

the proof/evidence of what is not seen.For by this our ancestors were 3 

approved. 3By faith we understand that the universe was created by 4 

the word of God, sothatwhatisseenwasmadefromthingsthatare5 

not visible…6And without faith it is impossible to please him, for 6 

whoever would draw near to God mustbelievethatheexistsand that 7 

Herewardsthosewhoseekhim.” 8 

A) WHAT FAITH IS NOT 9  10 

B) WHAT IS NEEDED FOR REAL FAITH/COMPONENTS 11  12 

C) INVISIBLE EVIDENCE or EVIDENCE OF THE INVISIBLE? 13 

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Common Misconceptions on what is meant by “faith”/wrong definitions 15 

of “faith”: 16 

1) Un-evidenced (NO evidence/reason) 17 

2) Anti-Evidence (AGAINST evidence/reason) 18 

3) Belief v. Knowledge 19 

4) Must be held with ABSOLUTE certainty 20 

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In the biblical book TheActsoftheApostlesinclude 22 

“reasoning,” “arguing,” “persuading,” “examining,” “debating,” 23 

“disputing,” “explaining,” “defending,” “refuting,” “convincing,” 24 

and even “proving.” 25 

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All those descriptions are used of the faithful, and that’s just in that one 27 

book! On top of that, the most frequent description used in the New 28 

Testament to refer to someone’s conversion to Christianity is to say they 29 

were “persuaded.”30 31 

“FAITH” WORD IN THE NT (Greek) – pistisandnomitzo – not William 32 

James “Believin’ what you know ain’t true real hard!” or PENTECOSTALS 33 

“just believe” 34  35 

FAITH is NOT a blind leap. 36 

  

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BIBLICAL FAITH is an informed, evidenced TRUST (Marriage analogy/Bank 1 

$ analogy). 2  3 

ROMAN CENTURION “greatest faith in all of Israel” (shocking) was basedon4 

theevidenceofJesusmiracleworkinPalestineduringthattime. 5 

Verse 6 says that you cannot only believe “that it is true for you” (whatever6 

thatmeans– that is just not the way truth works logically), but you must 7 

believe God is true for everyone, even the ones who deny Him! To say, “I 8 

think God and Christianity is true for me, but I cannot say that it is true 9 

period - objectively true for all - I cannot proclaim or defend or 10 

confess/profess that!" is to introduce a foreign, non-biblical view of faith in 11 

God and Christ! Greg Koukl, “ChristianityisINSULINnotICECREAM–it12 

makesobjectivetruthstatementsaboutrealityandoffersanexternal,13 

realcureforarealspiritualdiseaseofpathologicalself‐centeredness–14 

SINandREBELLION.” 15 

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BiblicalFaithmakesusreach&lookforrealitiesthatEVENTUALLY17 

surpassournaturalabilitiesofdiscovery.18 

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WHAT IS BASIC to FAITH? Heb. 11 20 

THAT GOD EXISTS (vs.6) 21 

THAT GOD HAS A WILL/THAT GOD CAN MAKE DECISIONS/CHOICES 22 

(vs. 3,6) 23 

THAT GOD DESIRES RELATIONSHIP (vs.6) 24 

SUBTEXT – “SEEKHIM”- That GOD has good reasons to currently 25 

remain largely hidden to us 26 

There have always really only been two BASIC FAITH/TRUST 27 

premises/ideas: 28 

1. There is no God so the universe is self-explanatory/matter is 29 

ultimate/there is nothing but the visible 30 

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&ontheotherhand… 32  33 

  

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2. God exists & created it. 1 

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Romans 1:18-20 3 

18“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the 4 

godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth 5 

by their wickedness, 19sincewhatmaybeknownaboutGodis6 

PLAIN (obvious) to them,becauseGodhasmade itPLAIN7 

(obvious)tothem. 20For since the creation of the world God’s 8 

invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature — have9 

been clearly seen,beingunderstood fromwhathasbeen10 

made, so that people are without excuse.” 11 

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Christiansarepeoplewholookattheseenworld,andCONCLUDETHAT13 

thematerialworld/thevisibleworldisnotself‐explanatory‐itdoesn't14 

explain itself!We understand that the world, the universe, all that15 

isseendidnotcreateitself‐thatwhichisseendidnotcomefromthat16 

whichisvisible!17 

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If there is a God, then the universe, the material order and the cosmos makes 19 

sense! But if there is no God and all there is…ismatter(things that have 20 

weight, mass and are spatially extended), thentheuniversedoesn'tmake21 

sense! Christians are not ones who have skipped over thinking but rather 22 

those who have reflected and concentrated and reasoned about the 23 

universe/our world and haveconcludedthat if all that exists is that which 24 

we can see, then the world life makes little sense. 25 

  

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DESIGN ARGUMENTS & EVIDENCES 1 

BASED ON THE DETECTION (in nature/the world) OF: 2 

PLANNING, 3 

PURPOSE, 4 

INTENTION, 5 

FORSIGHT, 6 

INTELLIGENCE, 7 

INFORMATION 8 

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I simply do not have the time to do even a cursory run of the evidences and 10 

reasons for God’s existence in our allotted time – so I will instead give a 11 

brutally basic summary (I usually lay this one out over about 25 hours of in-12 

class instruction) of what isconcededbyour loudestopponentsas the13 

evidence/argumentforGodtheyfearmost – bytheirestimationthemost14 

powerfuldatapointsoftheensemble of evidences (and it is an ensemble) 15 

is #2 below… 16 

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Cambridge’s StephenMeyer puts it this way, “Three key scientific 19 

discoveries that I thought jointly supported theistic belief GOD exists and 20 

ACTS — what I call ‘the return of the God hypothesis’: 21 

(1) evidence from cosmology suggesting that the material universe had 22 

a beginning; 23 

(2) evidence from physics showing that fromthe beginningthe universe 24 

has been “finely tuned” to allow for the possibility of life; and 25 

(3) evidence from biology establishing that since the beginning large 26 

amounts of new functional genetic information have arisen in our 27 

biosphere to make new forms of life possible—implying, as I had argued 28 

before, the activity of a designing intelligence.” Meyer then goes on to 29 

sustain the claim and anticipate and dispatch with objections. 30 

  

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BASICDESIGNARGUMENT‐FAMILY/GROUPOFTELEOLOGICALARGUMENTS2 

(Dr. J.P. Moreland - The God Question) “The Human ear can discriminate 3 

among some 400,000 different sounds within the span of about ten octaves 4 

and can make the subtle distinction between music played by violin or viola. 5 

The human heart pumps roughly a million barrels of blood during a normal 6 

lifetime, which would fill more than three supertankers. Human eyes are 7 

composed of more than two million working parts and can, under the right 8 

conditions, discern the light of a candle at a distance of 14 miles. The eye bears 9 

a striking analogy to a telescope: the eye was made for vision, the telescope, 10 

for assisting it. Both utilize a sophisticated lens. Both reflect and manipulate 11 

light. Both are able to bring an object into proper focus. The muscles 12 

surrounding the soft lens of the eye move to bring an object into focus, and a 13 

telescope uses dials to move the lens. What are we to make of these facts? 14 

Theseandmyriadsofadditionalfactsconfirmwhatisobvious,thatwe15 

arethehandiworkofawiseDesigner.Infact,theevidenceforGodfrom16 

design ismost likely themostpopularargument forGod.Thedesign17 

argumentgoessomethinglikethis: certainfactsabouttheworldcannotbe18 

explainedbyimpersonalphysicalcauses,conditions,forcesandlawsofnature.19 

But a personal, intelligent,mind explanationworks perfectly.” We have no 20 

reason to think of these facts about the world as unexplainable. It is better to 21 

use a form of explanation, personal intelligent explanation, to explain them. 22 

Moreover, some of these facts have characteristics that clearly point to only 23 

one source, an enormously powerful intelligent agent. 24 

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FINETUNINGDESIGNARGUMENT 1 

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“GOLDILOCKS EFFECT” – we live in a “just right” universe 4 

WHETHER it is the GRAND RULES OF EXISTENCE (physics) – MACRO 5 

OR the information contained in our cells/basic building blocks of life 6 

(microbiology) - MICRO 7 

In ALL of our experience, 8 

CODEShavecoders, 9 

PROGRAMShaveprogrammers, 10 

Thingsthatexhibita“TUNED”qualityhaveTUNERS, 11 

EventsandResultsthatappearPLANNEDnormallyhave12 

PLANNERS. 13 

Things that look “overwhelmingly designed” likelyaredesignedby a 14 

Being (GOD) who could account for the EFFECT in question. 15 

These parameters or conditions and micro entities are largely invisible 16 

to us but are measurable and speak to us of GOD! 17 

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Atheist Oxford philosopher PeterMillican: “Theargumentisworthtaking1 

veryseriously.I am a fan of the argument…the fine‐tuningargumenthas2 

the right structure to deliver the conclusion that theists want…The 3 

argument points to atleastdeism, andpossiblytheism…Theargumentis4 

not based on ignorance; it is rooted in the latest results from the5 

frontiersofscience.” 6 

As theoretical physicist Paul Davies (former agnostic TURNED DEIST) puts it: 7 

"Itishardtoresisttheimpressionthatthepresentstructureoftheuniverse,8 

apparently so sensitive tominoralterations in thenumbers,hasbeen rather9 

carefully thought out ... the seemingly miraculous concurrence of [these]10 

numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic11 

design…There is forme powerful evidence that there is something going on12 

behinditall...Itseemsasthoughsomebodyhasfinetunednature'snumbersto13 

maketheUniverse...Theimpressionofdesignisoverwhelming.14 

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Theseinferencesandconclusions(fromwhatwecanseetowhatwe18 

cannot) are based on: 19 

COMMONSENSE(reason/logic), 20 

EVIDENCE 21 

andEXPERIENCE– notalackofthese 22 

  

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BIBLICAL CONVICTION/KNOWLEDGE that matches evidence THE VISIBLE 1 

DID NOT ORIGINATE FROM THE VISIBLE – THEREAREREALITIESTHAT2 

AFFECT MATTER BUT ARE NOT THEMSELVES MADE OF MATTER – 3 

faith extends beyond what we can learn through our five senses –“substance 4 

of things hoped for…” – substance = GRK - hypostasis = that which stands 5 

under – that which is foundational supportive/undergirding 6 

So you can reject a God behind the universe but not without losing the 7 

foundations that make sense of value,rights,morality,order,choice,logic8 

andreason (connecting your thoughts to reality) - just the features that make 9 

life worth living! But... 10 

If you start with a premise to your theory that leads you to the belief 11 

(philosophers tell us these are the logical implications and entailments) that 12 

orderisincoherent,reasonisuntrustworthy,choiceisanillusion,value13 

and love (just chemical reactions)areunrealor foolishbecause they14 

cannotbemeasured likea liquid…THENFRIENDS, it istimetochange15 

yourpremiseorprimary idea (time to jettison the awful incoherent idea 16 

that visible is self-explanatory - the only things that are real are things that 17 

can be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry or detected with your 18 

five senses - 19 

Anidea(materialism)thatleadsyoutobelievelogicallythatmyloves,20 

mythoughts,mytrust,myplans,myethicsareallimaginaryorunreal21 

isonethatneedstobediscarded.22 

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If your premise leads you to conclusions youknowarewrong, then it is time 24 

to change your premise or primary idea. 25 

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CONCLUSION: THIS HEBREWS SECTION reaches its climax with Jesus in 12.2, 27 

and then urges the readers to live within the story for themselves (12.4-17), 28 

before declaring what the goal of the journey is (12.18-24) and what will 29 

happen at the end (12.25-29). Chapters 11 and 12, taken together, thus tell the 30 

story from creation (11.3) to new creation (12.28), from covenant (11.8-29) 31 

to new covenant (12.24). 32 

  

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The question we should all be asking is: “HowcanIpleasethisawesomeGod1 

whoislovingandjust?” There was only one person who was well pleasing to 2 

God (Jesus at baptism) - so that we could be well pleasing to God. 3 

God was so mindful of us that He came to us to save us and set aside His glory 4 

so that we could have reunion with Him. We live in a world in which our 5 

students are going to a psychology class and a sociology class in college, and 6 

they're told their big problem and everyone's problem is “a lack of self-esteem 7 

and secret forces that thwart their dreams by others”…this is confusing and 8 

incorrect, but it's doubly confusing when they go into the philosophy and 9 

biology courses and they're told they're “really nothing with no purpose and 10 

no direction except perhaps survival!” 11 

The gospel tells us a radically different way of viewing the world and viewing 12 

ourselves; we look around at the trees, the stars, the moon, the grass, the sky 13 

and the clouds, and they sing to us two things: 14 

one, God is a great unimaginably powerful Creator and supremely intelligent 15 

and two, He loves us and He's mindful of us, and we can see in the fine-tuning 16 

of our universe and solar system the great care that this world should express 17 

to us from our loving Creator. HE was mindful of us?? Whatisman,thatyou18 

aremindfulofhim? (Ps. 8:4-8) 19 

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Psalm19:1–421 

1The heavens declare the glory of God; 22 

the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 23 

2Day after day they pourforthspeech; 24 

night after night they revealknowledge. 25 

3They have no speech, they use no words; 26 

no sound is heard from them. 27 

4Yet their voicegoesoutintoalltheearth, 28 

their words to the ends of the world. 29 

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