> It seems to me that the way you're trying to distinguish between "faith" and "belief" and "assumption" has more to do with what a person is "assuming", "believing" or putting their "faith" in

Absolutely, when we are using the words casually, we can use the dictionary definition. But when we're discussing spiritual ideas, I think that we need to take into account all the stuff the bible says about faith, so that we don't say something that's inconsistent with the scripture, as I'll explain below.

I would almost say that faith is a subset of assumptions (i.e. all faith is assumption, but not all assumptions are faith), except that assumptions are usually about things that are unknown but possible, whereas faith can also be about something that is impossible by natural means.

> But Peter did have evidence that when it came to Jesus, physics weren't normal, and Jesus himself was walking on the water proving that Jesus had command of that ability. Peter wasn't blind at that moment, but he did have to assume (or believe) that if Jesus said he could walk on water, then Peter could walk on water also. There was extrapolation from evidence and relationship, but not full knowledge yet.

Agreed, but I think we both agree that there are different levels of faith. And I think the level of faith one has in a particular word from God is inversely proportional to the evidence we have supporting that thing, and directly proportional to the evidence we have against it. To the extent Peter had evidence, he did not have faith, and he had faith to the extent he had to defy his senses and trust Christ. Jesus said to Thomas, for example, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Unfortunately for Thomas, he did not have much room for faith (though he did have a little, since he could have chosen to believe that this Jesus was an illusion or a demon or something, as some others did). In another place, Paul said, "We walk by faith and not by sight" (emph. added), which implies that faith and sight are mutually exclusive, that one can't walk by faith _and_ sight simultaneously. (Tangentially, I think that the man who brought his son to be healed by Jesus, and cried, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief" represents us all, and we simply differ in the 'ratio' or 'proportion' of "I believe" to "help thou my unbelief" we each have. It's greatly comforting to me that even though that guy said, "help thou my unbelief," it must have been good enough for Jesus, because he subsequently healed his son. Also, in this way of thinking, it follows that the "greater" the sinner, the greater the faith, because the more visible evidence he has against his own righteousness.)

> When the bible says that we are saved "by faith" it is describing the mechanical process in simple terms. [...] You won't enter into a contract if you don't believe the contract exists, if you don't believe the one offering the contract exists, if you don't believe that the contract is possible, and so on. When you choose to accept God's offer of salvation you have to do so by faith, because there is not 100% definitive proof of all that before hand. You are, in other words, choosing to accept as true something you can't prove with 100% certainty. And though the degree of faith being exercised is different, that is exactly the same thing that happens in empirical science, where nothing is proved 100% but things are shown to be true to some degree of probability (usually very high, but never 100%).

The problem that I see with this approach is that it doesn't exclude what the scripture excludes. The way you have described it, any covenant with God would require faith, because e.g. we would have to assume that the person with whom we are speaking is actually God and not Satan disguised as God, etc. etc. In particular, the Law of works, which is simply the agreement that we will do certain things and abstain from others and thereby earn righteousness, seems to fit your criteria for faith. However, the scripture rules this out when it says "The law [of works] is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, 'The person who does these things will live by them'". The "law of faith", on the other hand, is not only believing God in general, but specifically believing the idea that God justifies the ungodly, and all the things that follow from that.

> But if the Bible is shown to be false, then it is folly to persist in its teachings.

Funny you should say that, because if the Bible is true, then it is also folly to persist in its teachings, so it's folly either way! As it says, "The cross is foolishness to them that perish", "It pleased God that by the foolishness of preaching men might be saved", "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise" (mark, the foolish things _of the world_), etc. So, I think we should expect the Gospel to be foolish to the world and to our natural selves. In fact, Jesus at one point said, "I thank you God that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes." (And of course I think the "wise and prudent" are not a group of specific people, but rather an _approach_ to knowing God that will not work; the way God allows himself to be known is rejected by people who desire wisdom (i.e. "The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom", etc.).)

And I guess my point is that whether the Bible is shown to be false or not is relative to the person judging the evidence. If I am stupid, then someone might show me a bad, invalid argument and convince me that God doesn't exist. But you and I won't always be able to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments; we're all stupid at some point. Can only the people smart enough to defend against invalid arguments be saved? As we said, the gospel was designed for the simple and the foolish. So, in my opinion, to rely on sight "backing up" your faith is setting yourself up to be knocked down by anyone who can weave an argument better than you can untangle. Instead, I think we have to own our position of foolishness and believe rather than see, and that way we are invincible :) In this way of viewing things, we would call it faith when you are presented with an argument that appears valid to you that goes against the word of God, and yet you believe God anyway.

> Even Paul said, "...if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die." (1 Cor 15:32).

If you read verse 12 in that chapter, it says, "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" So I don't think it was about whether the teachings in general are false (and certainly not whether they are verifiably true), nor about whether there were people saying that Christianity is a lie (there were many of those), but rather that some people _within the church_ were teaching or promoting the idea that there is no resurrection of the dead (and maybe they were inspired by the Sadducees, a sect of Jews who didn't believe in the resurrection either). That is to say, Paul wasn't surprised that there are some people who don't believe the gospel, but rather that some people who said they did believe the gospel were preaching that there is no resurrection.

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Again thanks so much for taking the time to converse, I'm interested in hearing your perspective. I think it does both of us good to see where our ideas are clear and unclear, and how we can best explain them. There is a quote that I love which says, "Writing is nature's way of showing you how sloppy your thinking is", and I definitely feel that in my writing here :)