Front PageA Working Definition of Faith: v1
Submitted by bill on Thu, 08/09/2007 - 14:06. commons faith Faith, Meaning & Purpose faithcommons meaning
As I struggle along the path to understanding Faith in our emergent, quantum, relative, global world commons1, I'd like to offer this working definition of faith.
faith: n. due diligence to relationship
Due Diligence comes from the common translation into the word faith and derivative words, of the Greek words pistis (fidelity) and pistos (reliable), and the Hebrew words emunah (faithful) and aman (enduring), in the Judeo-Christian scriptures to mean faithfulness toward a patron or often God. That is, the word we often read as 'faith' should usually be read faithful or faithfulness.
Relationship is what faith always relates to. Faith is a two way protocol. First there is trust and then follows trustworthiness. If trustworthiness, or faithfulness, fails; then the relationship fails.
Additionally, as far as I have traced this so far, patronage is the original model for faith. The modern mind is perhaps too quick to think 'patronization' when it hears or reads 'patronage', but that would be bad faith. Patronage is still quite important today. Brand loyalty is related to patronage. All politics is patronage, as is most art. The relationship between parents and their still-at-home children is probably patronage. But patronage is certainly less than optimal.
If you're familiar with Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis2, then you're probably thinking Parent-Child transaction, here. Is such a condescending relationship maintainable and healthy in our age? Yes, I think so, if we're talking about a transcending relationship with a super concept or being beyond corruption. But no, if we're talking about relationships in the adult commons. And this is why the ancient and medieval hierarchies cannot be merely translated into the modern and postmodern world.
The examples used by writers of sacred scripture, and the prophets whose words were written down by later writers, necessarily use the relationship models that the people of their generation would understand. Must we assume that they were so clairvoyant as to choose their words so that they would carry exactly the same meaning from age to age, through translation after translation? What do you think?
The assumption that I'm working under is that essential concepts are the same and have always been so. However, humankind both individually and collectively are progressing in our ability to build civilization. The larger our civilization, the more complex our relationships, and the more difficult it is to get along together. As more of the six billions of humans on this planet get plugged into a single economy, the harder we must work at relationship or pay a very high price for our failure. This is ultimately what faith comes down to.
In the end, after all the analysis is finished, the faithful are those who pay due diligence to all relationships, including the one with their Self.
Notes
1 emergent refers to emergent complexity which recognizes that 'things' emerge out of latent potentiality from the resonance of multiple variables rather than linear strings of formulaic events; quantum and relative refer to General Relativity and our non-Newtonian world; and global refers to the obvious and mandatory cultural pluralism that all social concepts must consider to be useful. And commons (like complexity) recognizes that all things are ultimately connected in some way.
2 Eric Berne revised Freud's model of id, ego, and super-ego to child, adult, and parent, respectively and wrote a hugely popular self-help book titled Games People Play. The gist is that certain transactions are healthy under certain conditions and others aren't.
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Quandry
Submitted by bill on Thu, 08/09/2007 - 22:02.
Reido,
Seems I overlapped your comment there by a few minutes, and then ran offline for several hours before I could reply.
Shortly after I posted this I read another article on ancient patronage which reminded me of your recent comment. This brought be back to reality regarding good faith and bad faith relationships. And I'm not sure that we know the difference much of the time. For example, we can't know when we've trampled the sensitivities (faith and trust) of someone from another culture or subculture until notified in some way. But, I suppose this circles back to 'due diligence'.
Anyway, shouldn't a definition include some mention?
bill
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Descriptives As Symbols
Submitted by reido on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 11:10.
Bill
I think you are safe from everyone but the theologians and etymologists. (They could argue with a stump over minute details that no one really cares about.) It makes the descriptive point, and helps to understand the ancients a little better -- also helps me to see that it is not necessary to attempt an identical copy.
"Due Diligence" suggests to me that the relationship goes beyond mere political debt making (which I readily understand as shallow and self-serving mask wearing, rather than genuine). The original language bears out that there was no infallible model in the language--- and I think that is a good thing, because there still isn't one.
reido
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Fly in the Ointment
Submitted by bill on Thu, 08/09/2007 - 15:57.
The first "fly in the ointment" for my working definition here is obvious with Reido's comments about Ingratiation. The problem worsens with a bit of looking into ancient patronage; here's and article by Stephan J. Joubert.
In fact, my definition of faith above leaves open plenty of room for the kinds of abuses common in institutional church where a set a leaders sits behind closed doors deciding how to spend other people's money.
bill
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A Definition that Works
Bill
"Due Diligence" puts a finishing touch on a definition that's hard for folks to get their arms around. I'm going to study your post more when the cobwebs clear a little -- especially that footnote 1 is like a gigantic waterfall.
I think this works -- very well.
reido