1. A summary of the key ideas of this section:

The key idea of this section centers on the question “What is faith?” People most often answer this question with the secular definition: faith is either loyalty towards a person or belief ,or it is a strong conviction in something. Christians look at faith the same way but also have a separate definition for Faith, speaking in a religious sense. As the text puts it, Christians “see faith as an intellectual assent to a loving God and his revelation” (page 80). To simply say that is to barely skim the surface of the concept of Faith, as it goes far deeper. A basic way to begin to try to understand it is by dividing the idea into seven different parts: Faith is a grace (a free gift of love God extend to us in order to help us move closer to him), faith requires a free human response , faith is a risk , faith is reasonable, faith seeks understanding , faith is certain, and finally, faith is a virtue. Christians believe the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, are essential to their faith, while also recognizing the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. All in all, humans have the necessity of believing in something in order to truly live, and for Christians that “something” is Faith, or the Golden Way. Christians embrace neither radicalism (beliefs with no reason) nor nihilism (reason with no beliefs) but choose something between the two extremes: faith, or beliefs supported by reason.

2. Two major ideas I want to remember and why I want to remember them:

The first major idea I want to remember from this section is that Faith, in the religious sense, is not the same thing as the religion of Christianity itself. I think I often get caught up in my religion- the things that must be done, how to do those things, when to do them- that I forget that it is really just a means of expressing my Faith, which is really in God. For this reason I am reminded that religion itself is not perfect, even though God is, and I should not just follow it blindly if I believe it is leading me against my conscience. In The Mission (see link below) Father Rodrigo Mendoza is put into a somewhat similar situaiton. He believes that abandoning the native Guarani tribe of South America is wrong and against what God is calling him to do, even though the Church, through Papal emissary Alta Mirano, says otherwise. Mendoza follows his conscience, though, fighting for the natives, who have become his Christian brothers and sisters, and that is what I believe God would have wanted him to do.

My second major idea from this section I got after reading "Inside the Mind of an Iraqi Suicide Bomber," an article written by Aparisim Ghosh for Time magazine in 2005 (see link below). The article helped me realize that in reality there is no set standard or conventional form of Faith. Marwan, the Islamic suicide bomber, has so much belief and trust in his God, or Allah, that he is willing to give his life and take the lives of others for Him. Growing up as a Catholic, I believe this is totally and unnecessarily radical, and that it is the opposite of what God is really calling us to do. Yet I also believe that if Marwan, deep down in his heart and conscience, truly believes this is what Allah is calling him to do, and he is willing to sacrifice so much in order to do it, then he shows he has a dimension of Faith that I fear would make mine seem weak and shaky. Although I disagree with Marwan's expression of Faith, in reality it is still genuine Faith, and I believe it to be much stronger than mine.

3. One image that captures the chapter for me:

4. One significant question I have from this chapter, whether intellectual or personal, with a possible answer:

In The Mission, Alta Mirano makes the decision allow the disestablishment of various Jesuit missions in his region, which would result in the loss of protection for the natives from becoming slaves to the Spanish and Portuguese. Although this had many negative consequences that Alta Mirano was aware of, he truly believed that what was he was doing was the right thing for the good of the whole Church. Would God have preferred this choice over Alta Mirano sticking up for the native peoples?

My opinion is that God would have rather had Alta Mirano defend the Jesuits and the natives. The Guarani proved to be devout Christians and were just as much God's children as were the Europeans. If sticking up for them really would have led to a crumbling in Papal power, then I would think there would have already been something wrong with the Vatican in the first place. God had in previous times put His followers in difficult positions that sacrificed the well-being of the Church (even before it was officially "established"), yet He always stood by them when they made the right and moral decision. I believe God would have done the same in Alta Mirano's situation as well.