Joseph F. Merrill (1898-1952) was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1931 until his death. In a radio address he gave (September 9, 1945) he offered the following definition of “faith”:
FAITH DEFINED
Now according to
reliable human testimony one of the conditions for discovering God is to have
faith, defined by the Apostle Paul, (Heb. 11:1) as follows: “Now faith means we
are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do see.” (Moffit’s
Translation.) So according to scriptures and personal testimonies the
predominating sense in which the term faith is generally trust in religious
literature is that of full confidence and trust in the being, purposes, and
words of God. Such trust, if it is implicit, is said to remove doubt concerning
things accomplished or promised by God, even though such things be not apparent
to the ordinary senses in mortality. Human experience teaches that such a
feeling of trust exists in different persons in varying degrees, from weak to
strong.
Belief, faith, and
knowledge, in careless language used more or less synonymously, are of course
really different. Belief may consist in merely intellectual assent, while faith
implies such confidence and conviction as will impel to action. In a sense,
belief is passive—a mental agreement or acceptance only; faith, in the sense we
are using it, is active and positive. Faith in God comprises belief in him,
combined with trust. One cannot have faith without belief; however he may
believe and still lack faith. Faith is vivified, vitalized, living belief. To
have faith is to fulfil one condition usually necessary in finding out God, so
Mormonism teaches . . . we are not left to rely wholly on belief—not even
faith—for knowledge can be obtained. We have tried to point out, as you
know, that it is as reasonable to believe marvelous things in the realm of
religion—in things spiritual—as it is to believe in at least some teachings
found in the realm of physical science, for true Christianity does not ask for
the acceptance of anything more mysterious or unanswerable or unexplainable than
does science. (Joseph F. Merrill, The Truth-Seeker and Mormonism: A Series
of Radio Addresses [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1946], 94-95)
