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Faith
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What is Faith?

Faith is a foundational concept in religious studies, theology, and philosophy of religion, examined across courses ranging from introductory world religions to advanced divinity programs. It sits at the intersection of belief, reason, and lived experience, making it intellectually rich and contested. Students encounter faith not only as a personal or spiritual matter but as a force that shapes institutions, communities, and entire worldviews. Because faith operates across traditions — including Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism — and intersects with culture, politics, and history, it invites rigorous academic analysis rather than purely devotional treatment.

The papers archived under this topic reflect a broad range of approaches. Some take a theological or doctrinal angle, examining confessions of faith, Protestant roots, or Christian worldview frameworks. Others pursue historical and comparative analysis, looking at ancient Buddhism, classical-period societies, or Islamic monuments through an art-historical lens. Contextual and cultural approaches appear as well, with papers exploring religious culture in Korea, Mormon community programs, and missionary commissions such as those of Luther Rice and Adoniram Judson. Reflective and applied writing also features prominently, connecting faith to personal development and the study of secular literature.

A strong essay on faith requires a clearly bounded thesis — arguing something specific about how faith functions, evolves, or conflicts within a defined tradition, period, or community. Evidence drawn from primary texts, historical records, or well-documented case studies carries the most weight. The most common pitfall is treating faith as self-explanatory; successful papers define what faith means in the specific context under examination before building any broader argument around it.

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Terrorism as rational action: Islamic jihad, political motivation, and distinction from crime
¶ … terrorists are rational actors. There rationality may not appear so to those who are not adherents of their particular cause (or in some cases, their particular faith). However, for those who share the conviction of…
Paper Doctorate
The five pillars of Islam as expressed in Sufism
Sufis is not an ethnic group or religious group but it is a mystical movement that is found in the entire Muslim world which has a great influence on the population in the Middle East.
Paper Doctorate
Perspectives on human nature in Plato, Mencius, and Hsun Tzu
This order is a reading response for Plato, Mencius, and Hsun Tzu. The order analyses these ancient philosopher's view of human nature. The different views that the philosophers held regarding human nature is discussed, and what they share is in common is revealed. The order also gives examples from the reading to defend the arguments of the philosophers.
Research Paper Doctorate
God's active presence and observable ministry in the Book of Acts
The Book of Acts: Ministries of Observable Power
Paper Doctorate
Nutritional quality and responsibility in school lunch programs
If it is true that you are what you eat, many people do not know themselves very well. Nutritional value of any food is of extreme importance due to the fact of its contribution to the maintenance and overall health of…
Paper Doctorate
Theology as a distinct epistemology in Stone and Duke
In How to Think Theologically, Howard Stone and James Duke argue that theology works with a distinct template and epistemology or theory of knowledge, as do history, sociology and physics. Each theologian will have a distinctive template, but they all rely on Scripture, tradition, reason and experience to a greater of lesser extent (Stone and Duke 43). Martin Luther stated that his theology was based on Scripture and faith experience, for example, but he also accepted the traditions of the Catholic Church councils that defined the Trinity and the nature of Christ. Indeed, tradition has played "almost as prominent a role in Protestantism as in Roman Catholicism", and all churches have developed their own distinctive traditions of poetry, art, hymns and prayers over the centuries (Stone and Duke 49).
Essay Doctorate
Balancing parental engagement at the secondary school level
Parental involvement with children and their learning is imperative and important because it's the point in the child's life where they change over from being a child to being an adult. If these years are wasted, the child will stumble out of the blocks when they should be standing on their own. As such, managing parental involvement is sometimes (but not always) necessary.
Paper Doctorate
Secularism and the International Bill of Human Rights
Secularism is the separation of government from religion (Cliteur, 2010). It can work in two different ways. It can be used to keep religion out of the decisions the government makes, but it can also be used to keep…
Research Paper Doctorate
Cultural clashes in African and American literature
Cultural issues usually surface in a multicultural society like that of America's because co-existence of people from various different ethnic backgrounds can lead to undesired and unexpected conflicts.
Paper Doctorate
Medieval philosophers' failed attempts to reconcile faith and reason
The challenge of reconciling reason to faith has been one that has dominated philosophy since thinking and oration became known as philosophy. The challenge is to address the idea that the thinking person can fundamentally believe that reason rules all production of truth and fact in combination with the fact that faith is not a sentiment of reason, i.e. one must simply believe that something (in the case of philosophy usually God) exists to define and defend faith. The challenge has been met by everyone from Augustine of Hippo during the medieval period of Western Philosophy to Friedrich Nietzsche, in modern times. This work will look at the varied arguments of the medieval philosophers in their attempt to reconcile faith with reason in an attempt to persuade the reader that no such reconciliation can be made, the concluding thesis being that regardless of the amount of thought and reason one puts into it faith cannot be reconciled with reason as reason dictates that one can see, touch, hear and conclude that something is as it is and faith dictates that one must begin with a universal, i.e. acceptance of that which one cannot see, touch, hear or reason into existence. Therefore this argument will be centered on the idea that reason and faith i.e. religion cannot coexist in a line of thought, regardless of the fact that they clearly coexist in the individual mind.