Over the next few weeks, we will begin to take a look at the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. But before we can start that, I would like to lay some groundwork – some preliminary ideas that help us when we start to think more specifically about God.
A good synonym for faith is trust. Religious faith, then, is trust in a god. For Christians, religious faith means trust in our God, the god of Christianity. Faith in a god or gods is the foundation of most of the major religions of the world. In general, religious faith or trust means that the individual recognizes his or her powerlessness and createdness in the face of the supernatural. In other words, the believer understands the god or gods to be in control of reality as creators of reality and the ones who sustain or keep it going.
Based on this definition of faith, we can begin to understand what a religion is. In the broadest sense of the word, a religion is a community of people who share a religious faith in a god or a specific group of gods. For example, Christianity is the community of people who profess their faith in the Triune God (the Trinity). As you can see, a religion requires a group of people. In addition, the practice of a religion takes place within the community. While all religions do emphasize the internal faith, devotion, and prayer life of the individual, all religions are also defined by the outward signs of faith, devotion, and prayer of the community as a whole. In Christianity, all Christians, no matter what their specific denomination, gather to worship God on Sundays.
Some of the religions of the world are monotheistic. Monotheistic religions believe in and worship only one God. There have been several monotheistic religions in history; the three most common monotheistic religions today are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These three monotheistic religions are related historically and share many similar beliefs. Polytheistic religions are much more common in the history of the world. Polytheistic religions believe in and worship more than one god. The largest polytheistic religions today are Hinduism, Shintoism, and the native religions of the indigenous populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, among many other civilizations, were also polytheistic. Finally, there are several religions that do not fit either of these two categories. They are called religious philosophies because they tend to focus more on the proper behavior for this world or on the individual’s development of their own social or meditative skills. Buddhism is a religion that is not at all concerned about the gods, although they do recognize the existence of gods; Buddhists focus on meditation to clear the mind and reach enlightenment. Confucianism is another religious philosophy. Again, Confucianism doesn’t deny the existence of the gods, but it focuses on how an individual is supposed to live a good and proper life for the benefit of all in the community.
