In response to a recent article by Heather Heying here regarding what faith is versus what cynicism and skepticism are she said, faith is simple trust in authority. In one sense this is true. If the child has something in its mouth and the mom says “spit it out”, the child should spit it out before asking questions of why that is the case. She does the act “on faith.”

So there is a kind of faith which trusts the inherent wisdom of someone wiser, or someone more experienced than you. In fact, in some situations trusting someone implicitly without knowing the reasons is really the most logical thing to do.

Imagine a situation where you are called upon to fly a plane. The pilot of the small craft has had a heart attack, and the other passengers have selected you, a young leader, to fly them back to safety –you have no training, no practice and yet, because of the specific circumstances you are in, you must listen to ground control as he or she tells you which levers to pull and which to push and how to land the aircraft. Ground control eases your nerves by saying that this is not the first time they have had to help a novice return an airplane safely to the airport. They then proceed to instruct you on the basics of what lies in front of you in the cockpit: the compass, the thrust, the controls for the wings and landing gear. This is not blind faith where the doer of the actions is like a robot; no, the situation requires you to be in full command of your faculties and to listen well and yet, to do what someone tells you to do without questioning. Isn’t life sometimes like this? Aren’t there times when you do not know what to do and you open a newspaper or read a book and hear what the author has to say and your mind says to do one thing and yet what you read tells you to do another?

Cynicism would tell you not to trust the ground control.

Skepticism would keep you from thinking that you could actually fly the plane.

Blind faith would be to close your eyes and just hope for the best.

Rational faith would be to open your eyes, listen well, and execute the maneuvers.