1. WHAT IS FAITH?

1) The Meaning of Faith

You have to find the root of love, namely the love of God. St. Paul said: "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." \What is faith? In Chinese characters the character shin means "faith." If we remove from the shin-character the in-character meaning "a human", the eun-character meaning "word" remains. Then, faith means "a human's word." Words mean a relationship has been formed between two people. If there is no relationship there is no talking. Therefore when we speak, basis for the reciprocation must first exist, and to form a relationship we must have faith.

From where does such a basis come? It comes from ties that come to exist through love. But those ties cannot be formed at will. They are formed because first the conditions for the power to form such ties existed, and the basis of each other's goals could coincide. (20-25)

What we call faith is to pursue the personality of a true person. Furthermore, attaining such a personality is to lead a life of faith. The Korean word for faith is shin-ang. In Chinese characters, the character shin (faith) consists of the left-side radical "in" (a human) and the character "eun" (a word). Furthermore, the character "ang" (to have respect) is also written with the left-side radical "in" (a human). The ang-character also includes the aspect of a human: it is the way to go centered on a human. "To respect" does not mean respect towards oneself but rather towards a highly regarded object. From such a perspective we shall attain true words. A life of faith is for the purpose of bringing a direction though those words. (10-28)

When we think about this thing called faith, it's object is not a human being, but God. It is the way to go having God as the object. In other words, there will be a relationship of subject and object between God and myself, and all that is done by the subject reaches the object and everything realized by the object must be connected to the subject. Without such a relationship you cannot become a person in harmony with God's will (40-276).