How do you define faith?

Faith, whether by word or by sign, opens the eyes and
ears of the heart. Those who believe are said to see and to hear because faith
is a light and a word.


It is a light, in accordance with what the apostle says:
God, who told the light to shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ (2 Cor 4:6).


The time that God told the light to shine out of darkness
was when he called us from darkness to his own wonderful light (I Peter 2:9),
when he dispersed the darkness of ignorance and said: let there by light, and
there was light (Gen 1:3).

Faith is a word, in accordance with what the apostle
James says: Receive the inborn word with meekness. (James 1:21). The word inborn
because when God speaks within, it is implanted in our heart. The apostle
speaks of this when he says: But what does the scripture say? The word is near
you, in your mouth and in your heart (Rom 10-8; Deut 30:14).


The Commendation of
Faith
Baldwin of Forde, a 12th century Cistercian Abbot