Faith & Doubt

I’ve had a growing interest in the definition of words and word usage lately. What I’ve been thinking about just recently is, if you can describe how a word is used, do you have a definition? This led me to ponder the following.

Does the word faith have an inherent element of doubt in it?

That’s my question. It seems that one could say, Faith = strong conviction in something you fear could be wrong or fail. This is an interesting description of faith. Take two examples:

Sometimes you’ll hear, “I have faith in humanity,” or, “I have faith in the U.S. dollar.” Both of these statements imply that the person has a strong belief in these two things (humanity and money), but doesn’t it also seem like these statements convey a general doubt that they could fail? When you hear someone use the phrase, “I have faith in humanity,” it’s not as if they are saying they know that humanity will always act in good ways. It seems more like they’re saying, “I think humanity will do good, but I have some deep seeded doubts myself.” Same with the dollar; that person is saying, “I think this paper money will continue to be valuable, but there is a remote possibility that it won’t.”

So does this mean that the phrase, “I have faith in God,” translates to, “I think God will do good, but I have my doubts”? Originally, I thought it might translate to, “I think there is a God, but I’m not entirely sure.” But the interesting thing about the statement, “I have faith in God,” is the implied existence of God.

The God part is not doubted in the statement, “I have faith in God;” rather it is the properties or actions of God. This is the same with the money and humanity examples as well; the doubt is in the actions and value of humanity and the U.S. dollar, respectively, not their existence.