A Question About Faith In God?

Question

Okay. Read Carefully. DO YOU THINK THAT ALL PEOPLE ARE BORN WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF FAITH IN GOD? In other words, whether they believe God exists and that He is a loving God. Think about it. There are some people in this world who can lose their mother and father in a car accident and say "God exists and still loves me" (a person with a lot of faith) and others who in that situation would say "God can't exist and/or God doesn't love me" (a person who lacks faith). So... if people are born with different levels of faith, how can God purposely create someone who LACKS FAITH and then when they die decide to send them to hell for not believing in Him? That doesn't seem to make any sense. Why create them at all? So... do you people think that WE ARE ALL BORN WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF FAITH, and if so, HOW CAN GOD JUSTIFY THIS? Really think about it before you answer. I really want to know your answers. (Admit it, this is a great question).

Answer 1

To begin with, your premise that people are "born with faith" is plainly flawed. No one is "bon with faith". Faith is an acquired essence. The scriptures state that "Faith cometh by HEARING, and hearing by the Word of God."

Answer 2

Yes i believe that people are given different levels of faith.
Some people beleive all things, some people believe certain types of things when they happen, some people believe in the words of one person or many.
I think that the gift of faith is like a volume control, it can be given to one person at full volume or almost completely turned off.
it may also be possible to have a negative volume and unless a person seeks to get the volume turned up they become athiests with no willing desire to hear anything what people and eyewitnessess say.
Sigh.
The spirit of God gives gifts without repentance, he also gives spirits the right to choose what gifts a person gets. each gift has its blessing and is counterbalanced with a curse. so it seems, there are many reasons why people Dont have Faith, but i do think it has to do with Choice more than any other.
brainProgramming and indoctrination can also pervert a persons mind to have their beliefs made up already.
if i tell you i am an eyewitness to seeing jesus christ and you reject that portion of truth, you cant say I didnt try. but most people will not go to hell for lack of belief alone, usually hell is a place for criminals and the unrepentant. Ive been to a couple of different places already myself. but even still there are people who do misionary work in the after life. and people are given the chance to choose again.
All great questions have been asked and all of them have correct answers. I hope i came close to giving the correct one too.
There is common question i cannot answer,and that is where did God come from?

Answer 3

Yes... what you are asking is a truly hard question. From the Christian perspective (I am a Christian), all can offer is this:

1. Every person born into this world is born with a fallen nature (inherited from our first parents who fell - Adam and Eve). The fallen nature (some call it the "sin nature") gives every person a proclivity to sin and to evil. This is why we all need to train our very young kids to NOT do wrong because doing wrong seems to come naturally to all of us even though we know it is wrong. How else can you explain why every culture and civilization throughout human history has a LAW code of some sort?

2. Faith (in God) is not inherent in us... i.e., we are NOT born with faith - at least not the kind of faith that saves. That kind of faith is a GIFT from God. And now we come to the rub... the difficult thing to accept:

3. God elects (chooses) some for salvation by giving them saving faith (which is an enablement from the Holy Spirit - 3rd Person of the Godhead), while He by-passes others (reprobation). If God did not elect anyone for salvation, He would still be Just... I mean, you cannot FORCE anyone to choose you for this or that and still say that person was free in choosing... This is why Christians say that salvation is by GRACE (of God). Grace is a free gift and is given NOT becuase of any merit in the receiver but often inspite of it (i.e., it is totally UNDESERVED). Why God by=passes some (reprobation) and elects others is beyond my comprehension too. I guess it is like a householder who issues an invitation to certain people to come and live with him, while NOT extending the same invitation to others. Those invited MAY CHOOSE to come and some indeed do. While for those NOT invited, well, only the householder knows why he did not invite them.

4. The gift of faith can be cultivated... from a seed to a great tree.

I know this will not satisfy someone who thinks that God owes us something or that God has to be Fair and Just in the Manner we think is fair and just. Job struggled with similar questions about the justice of God and in the end, when God di reveal Himself to him, Job could only fall down on his face and say, "I spoke of things I did not comprehend..." God's ways are higher than man's ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts. We just have to trust in Him that in the END, God will do right! But then again, that too takes faith.

Answer 4

Birth is not the beginning of our existence. We can see in the Bible, Christ existed before his birth. Additionally, in Jeremiah 1:5 we can understand that before Jeremiah was born the Lord knew him too. The questions comes up, what about us? The Bible also says that God is unchanging. So, it stands to reason that we also were known by God before we were given this temporal body. Before this life we existed with God!!! While there, we each developed our spirits, everyone to differing degrees of knowledge and developing different dispositions. We are sent here without the remembrance of the previous life to develop faith. God allows us to be tested, we can choose to develop faith or not. Just like in school, different children come with different dispositions, but most are on the same intellectual level. Some decide, through guidance from parents and loved ones, to develop their intelligence, while some choose not to. The teacher didn't create there intelligence levels, the children ultimately did. Similarly with us, God doesn't create us faithless, some people developed their dispositions in order to have faith some do not.

Answer 5

People are not born with faith in God at all. By God's free gift (called grace) he makes all men capable of receiving him by faith. In other words, when "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that we would not perish but have eternal life" (Jn3:16), he did this for the WHOLE WORLD, through all time and place. And all people, in all places, are offered a chance to love God and be with him forever.

The reason people have different levels of faith is because God made us free to reject him or to deny him at any point.

It would be unjust for God to deny some people faith. He his love to all, as you see in John 3:16. Otherwise, he would not have suffered for EVERYONE'S sin on the cross, right?

Answer 6

I do believe that religiosity is, in part, genetic. It is also, however, influenced by environment. In other words, both nature and nurture play a part.

I was not born with the kind of mind that will accept, as truth, that which has not been proven. I am far too analytical for that. I was raised in the Catholic faith, but abandoned it as soon as I felt it was safe to do so (in other words, once I was strong and independent enough to deal with my mother's reaction).

If I were to accept this belief in the existence of God as truth (and that is not going to happen), I would have to explain, like you, why God created non-believers to suffer eternal torment in Hell. I would have to conclude that this is not a benevolent God, and my worship of such a God would stop...unless I was completely brainwashed and delusional enough to try to justify and rationalize that which can be neither justified nor rationalized.

Answer 7

Your faith grows by reading the word of God found in the Holy Bible. I think we all have the same amount of faith from the start.

Then again I'm not for sure, I have always believed in God and every word of the Holy Bible. My faith is very strong today, no matter what I will always believe God. I know Jesus Christ lives because of his Holy Spirit living inside me.

If you or anyone needs more faith, all you have to do is ask God, and drown yourself in the word of God.

Answer 8

I read in a Science magazine last year that faith is easier for some people than others, because their brains are hard-wired to more easily accept thinhgs without proof. Conversely, atheism may be a biological phenomenon more than one based on reason, as atheists claim. Sorry athesits, you may have been born that way. The experiment involved MRI's and brain imaging, so it's not a fairy tale.

Answer 9

I think some people are born in families that make it easier to accept religion, through incouragement and church etc.But we're each our own person are'nt we? We should ultimately decide for ourselves if we believe in God or not. The grass may seem greener on the other side. Maybe people who are sent hardship are really worth the extra attention in the eyes of God.
I often wonder about lost tribes in the Amazon though!

Answer 10

You seem to be saying that faith is a genetic thing. I don't think I would buy into that. A friend of mine is a Christian minister but his parents were unbelievers as were his grandparents. We cannot come to God until He calls us to Him, but WHEN He calls us, if we reject Him, He is not obligated to call us again. We chose whether we want to believe or not. God could easily have made us all automatons who had no choice in the matter, but He allows us to make our own choice. The Bible tells us that to those who practice their faith, more faith will be given, and to those who don't, what they have will be taken away. My advice to everyone is to lock onto what faith they have and hold it close as if it were "a pearl of great price".