Faith (is) a basic attitude of a person, a character trait which pervades all his experiences, which enables a man to face reality without illusions and yet to live by his faith. It is difficult to think of faith not primarily as faith in something, but of faith as an inner attitude the specific object of which is of secondary importance. It may be helpful to remember that the term „faith“ as it is used in the Old Testament – „Emunah“ – means „firmness“ and thereby denotes a certain quality of human experience, a character trait, rather than the content of a belief in something. ― (1947a: Man for Himself. An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, New York (Rinehart and Co.) 1947, p. 199.)
There is an important distinction between rational and irrational faith. While rational faith is the result of one’s own inner activeness in thought or feeling, irrational faith is submission to something given, which one accepts as true regardless of whether it is or not. The essential element of all irrational faith is its passive character, be its object an idol, a leader, or an ideology. ― (1968: The Revolution of Hope. Toward a Humanized Technology, New York (American Mental Health Foundation) 2010, p. 14.)
Man cannot live without faith. The crucial question for our own generation and the next ones is whether this faith will be an irrational faith in leaders, machines, success, or the rational faith in man based on the experience of our own productive activity. ― (1947a: Man for Himself. An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, New York (Rinehart and Co.) 1947, p. 210.)