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Faith as skill: an essay on faith in the Abrahamic tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2023

M. Hosein M. A. Khalaj Open the ORCID record for M. Hosein M. A. Khalaj [Opens in a new window]
M. Hosein M. A. Khalaj*
Affiliation:
Center for Science and Theology, Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran School of Analytic Philosophy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran
*
Email: mhmakh@gmail.com
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Abstract

What is the nature of religious faith as understood in the Abrahamic tradition? This article suggests a novel answer to this question. To this end, I first outline five desiderata, characterized by appealing to conceptions of faith in both the Islamic and Christian traditions, which I think every adequate account of faith should satisfy. These five desiderata are: (1) explaining the principle of the relationship between faith and religious actions; (2) accounting for the maxim of the relationship between faith and moral virtues; (3) showing how the thesis of the priority of faith over knowledge can be the case; (4) providing a basis for the axiom of the gradability of faith; and (5) solving the dilemma of faith as a gift or an achievement. Then I make my case and develop a model of faith that satisfies all five desiderata. Following the accounts in the literature that describes faith as a kind of know-how, the central idea of my suggestion is that religious faith is partly constituted by intellectual, practical, and moral skills.

Keywords

faiththe Abrahamic traditionspractical skillintellectual skillmoral skill
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 61 , Special Issue 1: Featuring articles on The Existence and Nature of God: Contributions from Latin America , March 2025 , pp. 16 - 36
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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