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  FAITH VS BELIEF
  by Jacques Ellul
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Summary: Faith is a personal relationship with God that leads to
individualization, doubt, and questioning, while belief is a system of
explanations that can lead to fundamentalism and intolerance.

Topics: "Faith And Doubt", "Personal Relationship"
Scripture References: Proverbs 3:5, Romans 10:17, 1 Corinthians 13:2, Hebrews 11:1, James 1:22

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DESCRIPTION
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Jacques Ellul emphasizes the distinction between belief and faith,
highlighting how belief seeks to explain and create consensus through
shared ideas and rituals, while faith focuses on listening to God's
questions and nurturing a personal relationship with Him. Belief tends
to bring people together in institutional structures, fostering rigidity
and intolerance, while faith encourages individuality and uniqueness,
challenging certitudes and societal norms. Faith acknowledges doubt and
tests every aspect of life, guiding individuals to question human
activities and avoid attaching ultimate significance to them.

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CONTENT
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Belief provides answers to people's questions, so as to find assurance
and provide a solution; so as to fashion for themselves a system of
beliefs. Faith is not to supply us with explanation, but to get us to
listen to God's questions. Belief talks and talks, it wallows in words,
it takes the initiative to explain. Faith listens patiently. Belief
brings people together, joined in the same institutional current,
oriented toward the same object of belief, sharing the same ideas,
following the same rituals, enrolled in the same organization, speaking
the same language. It has the social benefit of consensus and
identification. Faith individualizes.

It has to do with a personal relationship with God in which God confers
each with unique identity.

Faith separates people and makes them unique, set apart for what God
wants to do. Belief is antithetical to doubt. It is the basis of
fundamentalism; people unbending in their convictions, intolerant of any
deviation. In their articulation of belief they press rigor and
absolutism to their limits. Belief is rapidly transformed into
passwords, rites, orthodoxy. Faith recognizes doubt. Faith puts to the
test every element of my life and society. It leads me to question all
my certitudes, all my moralities, beliefs, and policies. It forbids me
to attach ultimate significance to any expression of human activity."

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/jacques-ellul/faith-vs-belief/
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