Does this phrase exemplify "redundancy?"?

Question

Blind faith.

Is that redundant? Explain. :)

Answer 1

No. Faith is trust in what you think is true. If a person places his faith in something he has good reason to think is true, then his faith is not blind. If a person places his faith in something he has no reason to think is true, then his faith IS blind. So "blind" and "faith" don't mean the same thing, and not all occasions of faith are blind.

Answer 2

Blind Faith!
Love is Blind!

Notice any similarities?

This is the mystery, that humans must solve!

*Nothing redundant concerning the "blind love" that a mother has for her children, now is there!

Answer 3

I was trying to play devil's advocate with this 1, but no matter how many times I flip it around it still comes up redundant. Nc1.

Answer 4

"blind faith" is faith without evidence as opposed to faith in something not yet seen but with supporting evidence. A simple example to demonstrate the two would be someone who was about to sit down in a chair in a place they had never been in before.

If the person went into a dark room and decided that they were going to believe that chairs were lined up against the wall and that they could reach out and touch a wall and then turn around and sit down and they would find them self seated in a chair, well, that's blind faith. It comes purely from their own imagination and desire and has nothing to support it.

If the same person went into a lighted room and saw a chair that looked like it wouldn't hold his or her weight if they sat in it because the metal legs were the diameter of a clothes hanger but their host told them that it was made of super strong materials and could easily hold their weight and they sat right down in it because they knew their host was an engineer who had a reputation for honesty and believed what they were told and trusted their host, that's an example of faith that is not "blind".

Another more "religious" example might be if someone had lost a loved one, say their mother. She saw her pronounced dead at the hospital and attended the funeral and saw the body before they closed the lid and buried it in the ground.

A month later she got a letter from someone she once knew who had been sent to an insane asylum because they had lost touch with reality and were having uncontrollable hallucinations and the letter stated that their mother had risen from the dead, she would have to exercise "blind" faith to believe such a report.

If on the other hand a month later she got a call from some friends who worked at an advanced scientific medical research center and her friends told her that her mother had secretly agreed to be a part of a research project whose goal was to test a new process that could restore life to people once they had died and that after the funeral with her mother's written permission her body had been exhumed and brought back to life but only for a short period of time. If they went on to say that they had a recording that her mother had made when she had come back to life for several hours and they thought she would want to listen to it and she went and listened to her mother's message and believed that it was actually recorded after her funeral because the staff all assured her it was so then she would be exercising faith that was not "blind".

Luke 1:1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 To them he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

To see why faith in what is taught about Jesus in the Bible is not "blind" check out...

The Divine Inspiration
of the
Bible
by Arthur W. Pink http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/divine.htm

...or from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Schools web site...

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html

Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)

Greenleaf, one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School, originally set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel all the myths at the heart of Christianity. But this legal scholar came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen.

Answer 5

It's an attempt to differentiate between the ridiculous faith of others and the "genuine faith" that they have...


"Others have no reason to believe in those things without evidence, but I am noble for believing in this thing without evidence."

Answer 6

*chuckle* There's no need to tack "blind" onto the word... faith is ALREADY blind.

Oh my goodness, it IS redundant!

;-)