Is it Biblical to speak of “sight” as the antithesis of “faith”?
What I see is that faith is simply “having belief.” It looks to me that “faith” and “believing” are basically the same word in Greek. One is a noun, the other is the verb form.
Anyone care to share your thoughts on this? Is there anything in Scripture that says ‘believing doesn’t count if you saw first’?
Sonia
Sonia.
Never heard of it…because it is probably not in the bible. So, my vote is “NO” it is not biblical. Kinda sounds mystical. 
Jesus talked about faith in terms of sight or blindness, repeatedly. Paul did the same. An epiphany is a sudden ‘seeing.’
“We shall SEE Him as He is.” The need for ‘belief’, at that point, is done away with.
Belief counts if that belief was translated into advancing Christ’s Kingdom - it will be rewarded. There will not be shacks in His Kingdom, but there will certainly be mansions for His nobility. It is a Kingdom, after all.
This Scripture came to mind…?
John 20:29 (New International Version)
29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Hi HSMom,
That’s actually the passage that got me looking at this a little in the past, and I’ve been looking at it again now. I’m going out on a limb here, maybe, since I’m not very knowledgeable about Greek, so if this is wrong, someone please let me know!
Here’s what I’m thinking:
The Greek “pistis” is faith, which is a noun. The verb form of “pistis” is “pisteuo” which we translate “believe.” As far as I can tell, it’s the same word in different forms.
So if our noun “faith” could be used as a verb, like the Greek word, we would put the passage like this:
…then he saith to Thomas, Bring thy finger hither, and see my hands, and bring thy hand, and put [it] to my side, and become not unfaithing, but faithing.' And Thomas answered and said to him,My Lord and my God;’ Jesus saith to him, `Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast faithed; happy those not having seen, and having faithed.’
I hadn’t noticed before that the Gospel of John never uses “faith,” while the other 3 gospels do, but John uses “believe” far more than the other Gospels combined, and nearly as many times as the rest of the New Testament. I’m not sure if there’s any significance in that, but I find it interesting.
Sonia
Is that Biblical enough for you? For goodness sake! it took me 30 seconds to find it.
Add to that Heb 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
I KNEW there was another one lying around there somewhere!
John 20:29
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Thomas was not condemned for his lack of faith, he was only told that blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Most people are selfish in how they read this, they see a comparison and some how assign guilt to Thomas but Jesus did not condemn him at all.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight
**Heb 11:1: **
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
These are misnomers. Faith and sight are not opposites, the two Scriptures above though having an appearance of faith and sight being at odds, is not what it looks like. Faith is the confidence and conviction of that which is not ‘understood’ because not everything seen is what it seems.
In English grammar, we learn that the verb form of a word is the “action word”.
So yes; In fact I look at it this way… Belief is faith’s outworking. In other words, belief is faith in action (pistis becoming pisteuo. That’s why a friend of mine says that if you’re not acting upon something, you don’t really believe it.
An example: If I say that I have faith that a bridge will support me, but refuse to walk across it, do I really believe that the bridge will support me? (Assuming that I don’t have other legitimate reasons for not crossing it in this example). I have thereby demonstrated my true belief, that the bridge will not support me.