Faith

श्रद्धा is rejected not as generically ‘too devotional’ but because it is a precisely theorized technical term: Bhagavad Gita chapter 17 analyzes śraddhā as threefold (sāttvikī, rājasī, tāmasī), classified by which guṇa of prakṛti dominates the believer’s constitution — a fully worked-out psychological-metaphysical doctrine incompatible with faith as simple trust in a specific person. भक्तिः names an entire soteriological path (bhakti-mārga) alongside jñāna-mārga and karma-mārga in Gita chapters 9-12, not a general disposition of trust. विश्वासः is comparatively untheorized in classical philosophy and is therefore the safer vessel for a new, specific meaning: trust placed in Christ.