2. Real faith is nothing else than an acknowledgment that a thing is so because it is true. For someone who possesses a real faith thinks and says, "This is true. Therefore I believe it." For faith is a faith in the truth, and truth is the object of faith.

By the same token, if the same person does not understand a thing to be true, he says, "I do not know whether it is true. Therefore I do not yet believe it. How am I to believe what I do not comprehend? Perhaps it is not true."

“Faith” technically means “belief,” but it has taken on a thick layer of emotional import in the modern world, at least in terms of religion. Many people could happily entertain intellectual questions about what we believe to be true, but if those questions touch on our “faith” then they suddenly become an “attack.” We also use “faith” to describe the connection we can feel with God during emotionally charged worship services. This idea also filters through to secular uses: when we express “faith” that our favorite football team can win a game, that’s more of an emotional statement than an intellectual one.

One reason for that emotional content may be that Christian churches adopted the word “faith” to mean “accepting something as true even though it can’t be seen or understood.” For instance, the idea that God is one, divided into three persons without being divided. This defies reason, but Christians have long been called on to accept it as a “mystery of faith.” The idea that God the Father is completely loving, but that He requires the blood sacrifice and pleading of Jesus to let anyone into heaven is equally confounding, but is also an article of faith. Since it’s basically impossible to see the truth in these ideas from our minds, we have to simply believe them in our hearts, which makes them into emotional issues.

Swedenborg, however, uses “faith” in a more traditional sense, defining it as “an internal acknowledgement of truth.” That has some connection to the Christian concept of faith - it is truth seen and acknowledged, not necessarily truth that has been reasoned out and proven logically. But it’s not truth that defies logic; instead it is truth that is plain on its face.

Swedenborg is also clear that faith must include charity, or the desire and actual act of doing good to others, and that both act together to be complete. For us too, it is helpful to link faith with faithfulness, to God and to what we do. Swedenborg is consistently opposed to faith-alone: faith that lacks charity and good works.

For reference, and further reading, here are some key sections from Swedenborg's capstone theological work: True Christian Religion 337, 339, 344, 348, 355, 373, 393.

(Reference: Teachings about Faith 27, The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding Faith 1, 4, 11, 13, 18, 24, 25)

338. The faith of the Apostles was solely in the Lord Jesus Christ, as is evident from many passages in their Epistles, of which I shall quote only the following:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; but the reason that I now live in the flesh is that I live in faith, which is in the Son of God, Galatians 2:20.

Paul to Jews and Greeks proclaimed repentance before God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts of the Apostles 20:21.

The man who brought Paul outside said, What must I do to be saved? He replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, so shall you be saved and your household, Acts of the Apostles 16:30-31.

He who possesses the Son has life; he who does not possess the Son of God has no life. I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have everlasting life and you may believe in the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5:12-13.

We are by birth Jews, not sinners of gentile origin, but we know that man is not justified by the deeds prescribed by the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; so we too have believed in Jesus Christ, Galatians 2:15-16.

Since their faith was in Jesus Christ, and such faith also comes from Him, they called it 'the faith of Jesus Christ', as in Galatians 2:16 just quoted, and in the following passages:

The righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ [is manifested] to all and upon all who have believed, with a view to the justification of him who is of the faith of Jesus, Romans 3:22, 26.

To have the righteousness which comes from the faith of Christ, the righteousness of faith which comes from God, Philippians 3:9.

Those that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus ¹ . Revelation 14:12.

By faith which is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:15.

In Jesus Christ is faith working through charity, Galatians 5:6.

[2] These passages may serve to establish what faith was understood by Paul in the saying so often repeated nowadays in the church:

We conclude therefore that man is justified by faith without the deeds prescribed by the law, Romans 3:28.

This was not faith in God the Father, but in His Son; much less was it in a sequence of three Gods, one from whom, another for whose sake and a third through whom. The church's belief that his faith in three persons was meant by Paul in that saying is due to the fact that for the last fourteen centuries, that is, from the time of the Council of Nicaea, the church acknowledged no other faith, and so was unaware of the existence of any other, believing it to be the sole and only possible faith. Consequently, wherever the Word of the New Testament mentions faith, this is thought to be the faith intended, and everything said there about it is attributed to this faith. As a result the only saving faith, that in God the Saviour, has been lost, and so many fallacies too have crept into its teachings, as well as so many paradoxes which are repugnant to sound reason. For any teaching of the church which is intended to teach and point out the way to heaven, that is, to salvation, is dependent upon faith; and because, as I have said, so many fallacies and paradoxes have crept into its teaching, they were obliged to propound the dogma, that the understanding must be kept in obedience to faith. Now since in Paul's saying (Romans 3:28) faith does not mean faith in God the Father, but in His Son, and 'the deeds prescribed by the law' do not there mean those prescribed by the Ten Commandments, but by the law of Moses given to the Jews (as is evident from the sequel to this passage, and also similar statements in the Epistle to the Galatians 2:14-15), the foundation stone of modern faith collapses, together with the shrine erected upon it, like a house subsiding into the ground until nothing is left showing but the top of the roof.

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