Due to the complexity of faith, it is separated in to the two concepts of trust and belief. Trust and belief are the closest you can come to a definition of faith. They encompass hope, confidence, and acceptance in an ideal or a person. But faith can rarely ever be that complete. With faith there are times of doubt and misunderstanding during which a person must question their faith and decide whether or not it is valid or good. Faith consists also of a great deal of risk. Even if your faith is based on previous actions a person has made or previous validity of an ideal, you can never be sure that the same outcome will occur the next time you put your faith in something. Faith is about overcoming that sense of fear and hesitation and putting your trust into something or someone. Also, Faith is never final�it is a process that usually lasts a lifetime. Faith is continually assessing situations and choosing whether or not to put trust in something by using either your past faith judgments or your knowledge and perception to make a sensible choice.
One of the most important aspects of faith is making informed decisions. Decisions, whether moral or not, can affect you or people around you in both negative and positive ways. When making decisions, faith will never be the only basis, even if you think it is. A person�s entire decision-making process is based on biases, knowledge, perception, and emotion as well as faith. The quality of a person�s decisions is limited by these characteristics, but faith can help fill in the gaps. Faith is only truly attainable if you accept these limitations and continue on in spite of them. As shown in Michael Shaara�s The Killer Angels, even the great General Lee�s decision to have Pickett charge the Union line was hindered by the little knowledge he had of their position and troops, but he put his faith in his men to get the job done. Although his men failed after breaking the line, Lee�s decision was probably the right one in hindsight.
Faith is a great thing to have and it�s also something you cannot live without. It is truly only an opinion because of its uniqueness to everyone and their individual limitations. Faith is a good measure of someone�s moral values because decisions based on faith can usually reflect good or bad qualities in an individual. Even though some people try to deny their faith or disregard it, it is always there to guide their lives; without it they would be completely lost.
