Bad Faith?

Every conversation we have today, whether it’s around the kitchen table, in a Bible study class, or on someone’s Facebook page, comes with a question: are the people in it actually trying to understand one another, or just trying to prove they’re right?

With this in mind, I want to talk about just what constitutes a good faith and a bad faith conversation. These terms aren’t religious, even though they sound like it.

Good Faith vs. Bad Faith: Where It Comes From

The origin of “good faith” and “bad faith” goes back to ancient Rome. In Roman law, “bona fides,” or good faith, described someone who was behaving honestly, with no intention of being deceptive. “Mala fides,” or bad faith, described someone with deceptive or fraudulent intent.

A good faith argument or conversation is when someone is genuinely interested in hearing and learning from another person’s perspective.

A bad faith argument or conversation is when someone has already decided their view is the only correct one and has no interest in hearing from or growing in understanding toward the other person, but enters the conversation pretending they do.

In our time, a lot of folks have become famous through video clips of debating others using almost exclusively bad faith tactics. They never show interest in the other person’s perspective, only in controlling the platform so they can demean them and prove their own superiority. They come armed with soundbite zingers designed to trigger emotion rather than logic, and they choose audiences they know are easy prey, often young people such as high school or college students, and sometimes even senior citizens.

I’m sure we’ve all seen this in our own feeds. Someone makes a well thought out post, trying to understand more than one side of an issue, and within minutes a stranger replies with a one liner designed to make the original poster seem unintelligent, instead of considering what was actually said. From there, the replies pile on and the comments section descends into childish bullying. The goal of the bad faith commenter was never understanding. It was to score points in front of an audience.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying different types of tactics people use to mislead others. These are deliberate techniques, used when making claims, statements, and arguments with the goal of convincing someone to go one way when logic (and often common sense) would have led them in the opposite direction. Bad faith conversations are where we most often find them.

The crazy thing is, we see these tactics everywhere we look. They show up in conversations online, around the dinner table, disguised as news reports, printed in reputable publications, and even behind the pulpit.

As followers of Christ, our goal is to conduct ourselves with the utmost integrity. Not knowing the difference between good faith and bad faith practices can do real damage to our witness, leading to lost friendships, missed opportunities, and the very people we may hope to help being led away from truth rather than closer to it.

A Real Life Example

Let’s look at what good faith and bad faith can look like in a real conversation.

Imagine we are in leadership at a local church that a friend has recently left. We invite them to coffee to talk about their reasons for leaving, and they tell us they never really felt welcomed in any of the Bible study classes they tried to join.

If we came in bad faith, we might respond by becoming defensive, telling them there are plenty of Bible study classes and they must not have tried very hard, or perhaps they were too judgemental. We may not even realize it, but we went into that conversation defensively, having already decided they had no legitimate reason for leaving, and in doing so we missed a real opportunity to make our church a better witness.

If we came in good faith, we would listen and ask questions to understand what specifically made them feel unwelcome in those classes. From there, we might naturally start wondering if others have felt the same way, and what our church could do to help people feel a sense of belonging. A simple mind shift can lead to an outcome that brings honor to the Father and helps countless others, who may have otherwise slipped through the cracks, come to know Him.

Jesus had to deal with bad faith arguments, too. In Matthew 22, the Pharisees sent their disciples to trap Jesus by His own words. They began by complimenting His integrity and understanding, and then asked a trick question about whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. The question was not sincere. It was a trap set to condemn Him no matter which way He answered.

There were crowds of Jewish brethren following Jesus who deeply resented Roman occupation and oppression and felt that paying tax to this king was an insult to their understanding of YHWH being their true King. If Jesus said the people should pay it, they would likely turn on Him or, at the very least, stop listening to His teachings. However, if He said they should not pay the tax, He could have been reported to the government as trying to stir up a rebellion against Rome. There seemed to be no way to win. But Messiah recognized that they were not operating in good faith and responded in a way that left them powerless.

Beginning in Matthew 22:18 we read:

But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

Being Right vs. What Is Right

Being able to recognize whether someone is taking part in a conversation in good faith can save us a great deal of time and stress. The way I often think about it is to first look at whether someone is seeking “to be right” or seeking “what is right.”

If someone is seeking to be right, they’ve already decided they are correct and anyone who does not fully agree with them or has another perspective is wrong. Nothing we say will change their mind, because they aren’t entertaining other perspectives or looking for further wisdom. Any conversation they enter is usually seen as an opportunity to further demonstrate their own self righteousness. It’s like the old adage about why you should never play chess with a pigeon. Eventually, the pigeon will just knock the pieces over, poop all over the board, and then fly away telling everyone it won.

On the other hand, two people from entirely different viewpoints who are seeking what is right can have a good faith conversation in which neither walks away agreeing with the other, and yet both are wiser for having taken the time to learn from one another. Because they came in good faith, they both genuinely sought and expanded their understanding.

Closer to Home

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) took the terms good faith and bad faith to a more personal level, using them to describe self deception, the way we lie to ourselves to justify our own behavior.

For example, imagine two people who were dating and, over time, both came to realize they were simply better as friends than as a couple. All too often, people in this situation focus on the other’s negative traits and build a narrative about their character to explain why the relationship had to end.

In good faith, both people can simply admit they weren’t compatible, while still recognizing the other as a genuinely good person they enjoy being around. They don’t need a negative narrative to justify the relationship ending.

Scripture calls us to examine ourselves honestly (2 Corinthians 13:5), and repentance is only possible when we stop building mental narratives that always place us as the hero and our fellow man as villains. Bad faith isn’t just something we watch for in others. It’s something we have to be willing to confess in ourselves.

Understanding the difference between good faith and bad faith can help us avoid unfruitful conversations and useless arguments. Even more important, though, it allows us to recognize when we are not behaving in good faith so that we can self correct and meet whomever God puts in our path with integrity, sincerity, and grace.