Ponder these words, O spiritual companion and wayfarer on the path of truth -
"By faith is meant, first,conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds."
-- Abdu'l Baha
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:) Glad to know you've caught up.
I find this definition of faith to be so illuminating and powerful and so seemingly contrary to the idea of faith that I grew up with as being something that involves blind trust.
Abdu'l-Bahá tells us here that it's conscious knowledge first, then deeds. Does this imply some kind of order, that we must first consciously know before we can truly and accurately demonstrate with our actions? Or is it that conscious knowledge supersedes our deeds? We talked before about how the search and our deeds are probably mutually reinforcing.
Looking forward to discussing this with you more. There are so many good quotes in the section on Faith!
I think conscious knowledge and deeds go hand in hand when one talks of faith - I believe he means the "first" and "second" only as numbers, not in terms of order or precedence or hierarchy. They are, as you say, mutually reinforcing. And both together make up faith - for one might have knowledge of something, but unless one acts on the basis of that, one cannot claim to have faith. Likewise one might act in certain ways, but if one does so randomly, without any basis, again one cannot claim to be acting on the basis of faith in something.
Also, its not just knowledge - its conscious knowledge. A certain level of awareness, therefore, is necessary. And one needs to constantly be checking the results of one's actions in a scientific and objective way, to see if they correspond to the faith which one used as a basis for the action in the first place.
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