To have faith is to have positive confidence or trust in something. It is to think something is true, even without proof. But then, the question stands, how can one have confidence or trust in something with no evidence to back up that faith and trust?

In this episode of Ask Teal, Teal Swan Explains that to have faith is to have confidence in or trust in, but to not know and that people all too often confuse faith for knowing. Many people believe that faith is the absence of doubt. This could not be further from the truth. We only think that faith is the absence of doubt when we confuse faith with knowing. To doubt is to have uncertainty about something. Faith cannot exist in a universe of certainty, certainty is knowing. Faith is not required when we know. And so, if doubt is uncertainty, doubt is a necessary condition of faith. If we take doubt a step further (and let doubt mean what it means emotionally to most people), to doubt is to consider something unlikely. To consider something unlikely is to act as if you know. It is to pretend you know something that you do not know. It is to bring a sense of certainty to a universe of uncertainty. For this reason, doubt in all actuality, is the flip side of faith. Doubt is only another kind of faith. It is faith in the negative instead of faith in the positive.

Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel - used by permission http://www.sacreddream.com