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."

12. If someone thinks to himself or says to another, "Who is capable of an internal acknowledgment of truth so as to have faith in it? I am not," I say to him, "This is how: refrain from evils as being sins and turn to the Lord, and you will have as much as you desire."

To be shown that someone who refrains from evils as being sins is in the Lord, see The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem 18-31. That he loves truth and sees it, 32-41. And that he has faith, see The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem 42-52.