Faith Fundamentals

What are the fundamentals for something to be considered faith?

A simplified description of “faith”, from my understanding, might be; believing something without complete evidence. 

A technical definition is; “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”

In further analysis, it seems arguable that there may be no such thing as “complete” evidence or trust. There are varying degrees of everything (as I further explained in a post from 1.5 yrs ago; Indistinctivity), and when it comes to someone’s perspective of certainty, it’s plausible that nothing is 100% (as I argued in a post from 3+yrs ago; Open). This means that someone could easily have the perspective that there is no “complete evidence” for anything, since even if something has been proven 1 billion times, there’s still a possibility that the next test will have different results. This suggests that according to my 1st definition, every belief of someone could be considered “faith”. But according to the technical definition, if someone does not have “complete” trust in anything, then none of their beliefs count as “faith”. 

This is relevant to distinguish that any belief by someone is likely to have some degree of evidence, and some degree of trust and confidence.
Perhaps a better definition is; strong trust or confidence in something without strong evidence.
“Strong” is a bit vague, and open for interpretation, but allows adaptability for which circumstances fit the concept. A lack of evidence seems necessary for the definition, since common interpretation of the term “faith” does not seem to include something with an overwhelming amount of evidence.

What degree of confidence or trust counts as faith? Outlining degrees of trust becomes obscure, as there’s no distinct measurement of how much someone believes in something, but perhaps someone's actions based on a belief is the best method of measurement. If someone is willing to act on a belief, it could be considered that they have strong trust in that belief. But it still becomes indistinct, when it's taken into consideration; which situations they act on. Someone may act on a belief in some situations, but not others, and it may come down to the individuals estimate of risk and reward. 

For eg, someone may trust their own car and driving capabilities, enough to act on driving, but there may still be situations where they would not take the action of driving, if there is higher risk, or less reward. If the roads are a bit icy, they may consider the risk too high, and no longer trust driving. But then if there was significant reward, of perhaps $10 000, they might then trust their car enough to act on driving in those same icy conditions. This person seems to have “faith” in their car and driving capabilities, in some scenarios, but not others. 

The degree of evidence may be another component of faith. If someone has significantly strong evidence of something, it seems to no longer fit the category of “faith”, as it would then be more of a belief or knowledge, which seems would be commonly interpreted to no longer require “faith”. If something has so much evidence that it is completely obvious, such as [fire will cause heat], or [humans need oxygen to live], then it seems to no longer fit the term “faith”. Similarly to trust, the degree of evidence which counts for “faith” seems to be obscure and relative to an individual's best estimate. Rather than requiring a higher degree (such as trust or confidence), faith seems to require a lower degree of evidence. Perhaps the degree of faith required for an action, is relative to the degree of evidence. The less evidence that someone is aware of, the more faith is required for them to trust and act.

It seems to come down to someone’s willingness to act on trust, despite a lack of evidence. Trust in any given concept is somewhat indistinct, since willingness to act on trust in that concept, can vary from 1 situation to another. Perhaps someone's trust in something can be distinguished for particular circumstances, and (despite being likely incalculable) the total of all situations included in the concept, can be (hypothetically) used to determine the overall degree of trust for that concept. This value could then be incorporated with the amount of evidence the individual is aware of, to discern some degree of faith. Surprisingly many situations and concepts in life, seem they could potentially fit some degree of; Faith Fundamentals.