And a good place to go for the correct definition is Scripture. GOD tells us what faith is.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
I see many people, especially Catholics, refer to *THE* faith, as if referring to Catholic belief, or Catholicism. But that is not what God says is faith.
So they say they are in *the faith*, apparently meaning they are actively practicing Catholics. But actively practicing religious activities is not what saves you and if someone is depending on their fidelity to Catholicism and its doctrines and practices, they are not trusting Christ to save them but the church.
The tax collector and the pharisee some to mind.
Luke 18:9-14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What lots of people have is a defective faith in their own mythical version of Christ.
So true.
It's the Jesus of the Bible who saves, not the one we create in our head. I think a lot of people want a god they can understand but please, a God that I can understand is not going to be much of a God.
I'd rather have a God that I don't understand. It at least means that I have not put Him in a little box, thinking I have Him all figured out.
So even if you completely discount church affiliation, if you have a strong set of well-defined beliefs, then you can be sure that those beliefs are shared by very few other people. There are many important an currently unresolvable differences between Catholics, Protestant, and Orthodox but there are also great divides among the Protestants especially with regard to those who have Calvinistic beliefs and those who find them abhorrent.
There's not a person on the planet with whom I agree completely on everything. The problem I see happening is that many people tend to judge another's salvation on whether they agree doctrinally.
I disagree with Calvinism on some points that they consider significant. I don't. They can consider me not saved if they wish.
In the end, it seems as if all "true believers" end up in the same place as the Calvinists with just a few of the elect ending up in Heaven and the vast majority of beings made in the image of God damned to Hell for eternity
I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense. If they are the elect, then they would end up in heaven. I don't see how only a few of the elect would end up in heaven. It's like saying only a few of the saved are saved.
I'm hoping the vast majority of humans DON'T end up in hell. Maybe a majority of humans do, but hopefully it's not most of them.
Every year a companies such as Apple, run and staffed by fallible humans, are able to put out tens of millions of very sophisticated products with only a relative few failing to meet customer expectations. The iPhones only work well because there are engineers at Apple who fully understand quantum mechanics and its implications and are able to design and fabricate the computer chips necessary for their phones to work. The entire cell phone network requires an understanding of relativity in order for every station to keep in sync with the orbiting GPS satellites they depend on.
On the other hand, an infinitely powerful God who creates beings in his own image, somehow manages to create these beings in such a way that their own flaws and the actions of a far inferior being by the name of Satan is able to cause the vast majority to end up as failures in Hell.
This is the message that I get from most true believers whether Catholic or Protestant.
I can't believe the liberal/progressive lie that pretty much everyone is going to Heaven because it is some sort of participation trophy for just having lived. However, the other extreme where proper faith is so narrowly defined that few are following it seems to be just as wrongheaded.