On Faith

Le Marabout Errant: Tell me, Dervish Baba, what is faith? Dervish Baba: Faith is something one learns to acquire over a lifetime. LME: So, over the course of one's life, one learns to believe certain things? DB: Naturally, over the course of one's life certain beliefs are acquired, but that is not faith. That is what I call the "Protestant Reduction" of faith to credal assent--which is, typically, a form of credulity. LME: Then what is it that one acquires over the course of a lifetime and that you call "faith"? DB: Faith is learning to suffer others in love. The proof of faith is not believing this or that proposition. The proof of faith is hilm.