1) is faith an emotion or a thought? What if it is neither
2) are the purpose of koans to bring out faith?
3) when Muslim scholars of old had the two-truth position, is this a dialectical form of faith?
4) is creativity faith?
5) is courage faith?
6) Finally, why do Christians argue whether faith must have hope and love in order to cause salvation? Are not those three things always intertwined together? — Gregory
1) I would say faith is not an emotion or a thought (although faith comes in the form of thoughts, it's just not a thought itself) and the general use of the word faith supports this. One general phrasing is “to
have faith, which either means it's some understanding/knowledge/acceptance of something or that it's an attribute of a person (which is generally what I lean to, that it's an attribute of acceptance of something). This brings up an interesting idea with faith, which is that the idea of faith as acceptance and of belief can be very different. Some might argue that faith is belief despite reasonable doubt (or some may say that it is belief past reasonable doubt but within the boundaries of our ability to deny it and justify a lack of faith in ourselves) but I generally think that faith is the acceptance of the idea whether or not we could reasonably doubt it as long as it is within our ability to deny it. It often comes from 2 factors: some reason that it could be true and some reason why it would explain something were it true/would help us if we believed and it was true.
2) I believe (although I am not very knowledgable in the subject) that koans are used to invite the subject to meditation and considering the problem but not to be answered. So, this would mean that it would be to bring out faith if the purpose of the meditation is to bring out faith.
3) Faith that the distinct philosophical and religious ideas had purpose and value in their own domains, for sure. I think it was mostly just the idea that the may to make the separate ideas most practical was to keep them within their own domains, otherwise things often get difficult to reconcile. In that way (considering a shift to most philosophical thinking), it could definitely be viewed as an acceptance of the fact that the things are hard to reconcile but choosing to have faith in the religious concepts (and philosophical concepts!) anyway.
4) If creativity is the attribute of being able to create something (often something which could not be true) and faith is the attribute of being able to accept something that you know might not be true, then I would say no, as you are not necessarily creating the thing if you have faith/believing it if you created it (of course, there are some people who have faith in their creations, but it is not always the case).
5) I think courage comes out of faith but the two are distinct. Courage is the attribute of being willing to do something despite fear and faith can be used to counter fear (ie. faith that something will work out, faith that it is worth it, etc.) but faith is not
the same thing as courage.
6) As for whether faith, hope, and love are always intertwined, I would say that it makes sense that this could be a possible topic for discussion (salvation and these attributes) because they are not always necessarily intertwined. Faith often does not affect hope (the desire that something that might not occur will occur/vice versa) as you could desire something to happen while still denying that it will happen, and the opposite is true as well (you could accept that something will happen and desire it to not happen). I don't view hope as only existing where there is a possibility of whatever is hoped for happening or not in the mind of the person who is hoping for it, if that makes sense. I would say that, like faith, it is within our ability to deny it (meaning that the two are similar in some ways but not always intertwined). For love, which has to do with belief because of the fact that you cannot truly love something you don't believe in, in this context I would say that it is always within faith (but obviously not the same as faith). In the Christian context you gave, I would say that faith is in the possibility of salvation, hope is within it and love is connected to hope and faith through the overall context.