Anon–faith is belief or trust. It is intellectual assent, or it is interpersonal trust. Those are positive descriptions, whether applied in a religious or other context.
This brings up the issue of “active” belief and “passive” belief (active faith or passive faith). Passive belief/faith is like knowing without knowing that we know–the way spiders know webs and birds know nests–it is passive knowledge/belief/faith. Active knowledge picks up where passive knowledge leaves off, to explore the world around us. Building nests and webs is practical knowledge, but this can also apply to, say, moral truth. We hunger for true meaning. The hunger is passive knowledge/belief/faith. Active knowledge of moral truth would be acknowledging that hunger and searching for what will satisfy it–by way of a moral truth litmus, by way of observing that the Golden Rule is in every culture in history, etc… That would involve mere intellectual assent (objective faith). Actually following the Golden Rule would involve subjective faith–of the Kierkegaard variety. Therefore, Kierkegaard’s faith is not blind–he is talking about something else besides mere intellectual assent.
[grins]
Don’t quote me on that.
So, we have
- Passive faith (intuitional default)–subconscious faith.
- Active faith (intellectual assent)–objective faith.
- Active faith (interpersonal trust)–subjective faith.