Πίστις is said in many ways

Abstract

In this article, we will examine some aspects of the Greek notion of pistis (faith, persuasion, belief, confidence, trust, proof, etc.) in two very different fields: the religious one and the rhetorical and philosophical one. We will try to emphasize the rationality of religious pistis and to weaken, in a sense, the rationality of philosophical pistis. In short, we will try that: (1) the distinction between a rational/philosophical pistis (belief founded on rational arguments) and an irrational/religious pistis (belief founded on irrational arguments) is not valid from a theoretical point of view – and not applicable from a practical point of view; (2) the category rational/irrational is not useful to assess the epistemological status of a pistis/belief. To show this, we will refer to New Testament authors and Aristotle, who in some ways can be considered as representing specimens of these two (allegedly) opposite models of pistis.