DON'T PANIC

English

faith

Nearest English gloss

trust placed, or faithfulness kept

What the gloss loses

Modern English often hears a creed, or a mood. The older English still remembered a pledge you could break.

Etymology

From Latin fides via Old French feid. Related to fidelity and federal. words of pledge, not of private feeling.

History

This Guide uses faith as a historical practice of trust where the ending has not arrived. It is not a synonym for pistis, and it is not a proof that events were destined.

What can be entrusted when certainty is absent?