What is Faith?

I'm currently working on my masters thesis and the topic is faith, specifically faith as described by James W. Fowler. The main question of my thesis is a question of how we understand what faith is. What is faith? How does it work? Who has it?


Faith is essential to who we are and our identity. Fowler writes that faith, "...is what keeps us going when love has turned to hate or hope to despair. Faith helps us carry on when there is no longer any reason to go forward. It enables us to exist during the in-between times: between meanings, amid dangers of radical discontinuity, even in the face of death. Faith is the sine qua non of life, a primal force we cannot do without” (Life maps: Conversations on the Journey of Faith, 1). According to Fowler, we really wouldn't be much with out faith. That's why I'm writing about faith for my thesis. Not to question faith, but to examine deeply what we really do when we have faith.

So what do you think? What is faith? How would you describe it or define it? (If you answer is good enough, I just might quote you in my thesis.)