Judaeo-Christian faith as trust and loyalty

Abstract

Abstract Disputes over the nature of faith, as understood in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, sometimes focus on whether it is to be identified exclusively with trust in God or with loyalty/fidelity to God. Drawing on recent work on the semantic range of the Hebrewʾĕmûnâand Greekpistislexicons, we argue for a multidimensional account of what it is to be a person of faith that includes trust and loyalty in combination. TheTrust-Loyaltyaccount, we maintain, makes better sense of the faith of exemplars, including Abraham, and fits well with the biblical language of faith. Further, a normatively appropriate combination of trust and loyalty towards others is a recognizable social virtue, aimed at promoting flourishing relationships. Finally, we consider how to make sense of ancient and modern exemplars of faith who protest against God, such as Job and Elie Wiesel, and argue that theTrust-Loyaltyview is uniquely well suited to accommodate them.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 41 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.