"Having faith is believing in something you just know ain't true."

Well, that's Huck Finn's definition of faith, at least.

People have all sorts of definitions. Some of them are quite disparaging. The late Christopher Hitchens said that faith is the surrender of the mind and the surrender of reason. Richard Dawkins, far less charitably, calls faith "the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence".

But Christians have had other definitions. Saint Augustine of Hippo said, "Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." And Soren Kierkegaard said, "Faith is the highest passion in a human being."

The writer of Hebrews wrote (NASB), "Now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Or in the KJV (for our friend Warrior of El): "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Interesting that the writer of Hebrews relates faith to proof, isn't it? That's basically the exact opposite of how the modern imagination in pop culture typically understands faith.

How do you define faith? Is faith an intellectual belief? An assent of the heart? Trust? Hope? Personal relationship? Loyalty or allegiance? Some combination of these?