What is Faith?
Faith is the graced decision to believe and act (trust) inspite of uncertainy, so as to risk one's way of life.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
posted by Tom Arthur at 9:43 PM
Friday, June 30, 2006
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9 Comments:
I agree with the spirit of your proposed definition, but I think we can be more precise.
First, I challenge the notion that faith is a decision. That makes it an event. In contrast, I see faith as pure action - performance. I think it is imperative to distinguish between faith and belief. The two may be coincident, but they are distinct. Belief is intellectual. Faith is kinetic.
Moreover, for our purposes, it seems we ought to mention the object of faith. I think that is critical because of Harnack's folly: For Harnack, the essence of Christianity is not about Jesus but is the message of Jesus. If our faith is in the message of Jesus and not in the Christ Himself, then we can quickly reduce it, as Wilson warns, to the Golden Rule.
To borrow from Tillich: faith is the grace-given acceptance of one's acceptance by God, in spite of one's unacceptability, that allows one to overcome doubt in order to make the imitation of Christ one's ultimate concern. Wordy, I know. But rather Lutheran.
Version 2:
Faith is the grace-given acceptance of one's acceptance by God, in spite of one's unacceptability, that allows one to overcome doubt so that the imitation of Christ becomes one's ultimate concern.
I believe this version has the benefit of making room for backsliding, which we Wesleyans feel is our prerogative.
Dear Craig,
I find your suggestion that "faith" is not in at least some way an event to be bewildering considering your other post on Methodism which suggests that Methodists value "conversion." Certainly conversion is a life-long process but it has at least an event that begins the conversion (even if that event is baptism as an infant). What I was trying to hold in tension in my definition (a venture I suspect Wilson will be skeptical of to begin with) was belief and action. I think faith is both. If it is just pure action, then isn't Harnack bascially correct in labeling it morality. If it does not have some element of belief (even if that belief is as basic as, "Jesus is hope"), then it seems to be to problematic. I also wanted to sidestep the "decision" being of our own will entirely. I wanted to hold in tension our will and God's action. Thus, a "graced decision." (Calvin is rubbing off on me a bit...and I realize that by adding the "grace" part in there I am moving a bit away from Wesley...or maybe not). I also wanted to hold in tension the uncertainty that I think is a human constant in regards to knowledge.
Steve,
You would have to bring up the Bible in this conversation. To be honest, I have never found Heb 11:1 very satisfying. Part of what I don't like about it is the NIV's (which is the Bible I grew up with) use of the word "certain." The NRSV says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Any Greek scholars out there want to help us out here?
Tom,
OK, I will ease up on my objection to the "decision" part, because I recognize that decisions - the acts of discriminating among choices - are part of faith. However, I want to resist what I thought you were implying, which is the common notion that faith is a solitary event, a one-time intellectual decision we make that earns us what we didn't have before: salvation. I hear that preached all the time and I worry about reinforcing the promise of 'cheap grace.' It is not our story. Certainly there must be that first decision for the prodigal to go home, so certainly we may be able to point to that first decision. But I believe with Wesley and Aquinas (among many)that faith does not consist of that one decision, but rather is a continuum of decisions (acts) that are visible and concrete and that cause us to speak of faith as a journey. It is significant that Aquinas calls faith a habit rather than an event. Faith has a vector quality - it is visible as habitual movement in the direction of God. That's why I call it kinetic.
I challenge your willingness to separate faith from ethics. I think we fall into a seductive fallacy when we do that, similar to the fallacy of separating faith from politics. Show me the distinction between faith and ethics in Jesus' life. I believe our story is that Jesus identified faith with actions that, collectively, inaugurate the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is populated with people of Christ-like action, and not people who merely embrace abstract ideas.[Luther said the former, and Harnack implied the latter!] What distinguishes this concept of faith from morality and secular ethics is that we describe it in terms of God's salvific actions in the world, and not as a set of decisions that life presents that can be abstracted from the realities of both creation and eschaton. For we say that through the divine gift of the triple helix of faith, hope, and love, God transforms us, makes us holy,cleanses us, makes us 'just' women and men. I think we can't separate these three from ethics, but rather that faith and holiness are different sides of the same creative activity of God that are bringing about his eschatological purpose.
Obviously I still strongly resist any identification of faith with belief. I suggest they may be coincidental, but not identical. Note that Aquinas distinguishes between will and intellect. Certainly there is a point at which the cognitive recognition (i.e., belief) of God as the "greatest good" happens. But that cognitive recognition is not identical to the grace-given holy habit called faith.
You importantly mentioned hope. Aquinas helpfully distinguishes between faith and hope. The distinction seems to be in their object. Faith trusts that rescue or redemption will result immediately in the action of following Jesus. Hope trusts that evil will ultimately be conquered and that eternal blessedness and justice (the resurrection promise?) will ultimately be found on the same path. The tension between those two - the "here and now of faith" and the "eschatological tomorrow of hope" propel us on the journey of imitating Christ that perfects us with the habit of love. Faith and hope are like points A & B on the homeward journey that orient us towards the eschaton and thus define the nature of those actions that are Christ-like. Faith lifts us out of the muck of pigs as we trust in the immediate promise of new creation, and hope shapes our ethics along the homeward journey eschatologically. That's my read of Aquinas and I think Wesley and Gregory of Nyssa as well. I think all three depict faith as the habit of movement in a particular direction that results in our perfection rather than as a moment or a series of moments of intellectual assent. Frankly, focus on belief rather than action seems to make it too easy for us Americans to build gnostic fortresses and sanctify our walls with Christian mosaics.
It seems we agree on the role of grace. I tried to capture that by speaking of "grace-given acceptance" but perhaps that was unclear. Although it may be that I feel a stronger need to see grace as the author of both God's acceptance of the sinner as well as the sinner's will to accept God's acceptance. Again, I am in keeping with Wesley here, aren't I? It seems the latter is simply grace acting operatively or preveniently.
We seem also to agree on the fact of human uncertainty in the encounter of the divine. I substituted the word "doubt" in my proposed language, thinking it captured the ideas of both "uncertainty" and "risk". Perhaps you can clarify the differences you see. It seems we agree with Tillich that uncertainty and risk "are necessary elements of faith." Perhaps you are slowly becoming a Barthlichian like me?
Craig,
I don't want to remove ethics from faith. But I also don't want to make faith entirely ethics. I want to hold both belief and action in some kind of dynamic tension/relationship. I think that's why I've said faith is belief and action. Minus the action, its only the faith of demons. But if its only action, then what benefit does one have knowing Jesus and scripture?
I also don't want to say that "faith" is something that just happens in one solitary moment and "you're in." I'm way too Wesleyan for that. I think faith is a thing that happens regularly (how regularly, I don't know).
I have not read a sentence of Barth so I have no idea what I think of him.
Tom,
You said: "But if its only action, then what benefit does one have knowing Jesus and scripture?"
[I keep trying to suck Phil into this but he won't take the bait, but the following ought to do it...]
I perhaps am making too subtle of a distinction. But I am explicitly embracing the way {here it comes, Phil!} Kevin J. Vanhoozer thinks of Scripture, Jesus, and tradition as depicted in "The Drama of Doctrine." (IMHO, this is an awesome book that we all should read and discuss.) Instead of thinking in terms of belief (which I define as acceptance of propositions), I want to persuade you to think in terms of action that sees Scripture as the script that Christian actors interpret in improvising their part of God's drama. It's not as much "belief" as it is accepting, in spite of uncertainty, Scripture as "our story" into which we must live. "They will know we are Christians by our love," not by our beliefs. Faith is found in the life of one who, overcoming uncertainty about God's promises, lives with Scripture as the script that determines her part in God's drama, regardless of any propositions she may or may not accept as true.
The benefit of knowing Jesus and scripture should be clear. The only way we can know our part - the only way we can know who we really are - is to know Jesus and Scripture. Scripture becomes our script.
BTW - to titillate Phil a bit - I now fully embrace Vanhoozer's notion of sole scriptura as he develops it in Part two of the Drama of Doctrine.
I think I come at the word "belief" slightly different that you do. I don't necessarily equate it with assent to certain propositions. Though that may be part of it. I'm thinking more from a cognitive psychological perspective that says that beliefs are the things that dictate our actions (I'm trying to bait Steve into this conversation again). They are the stories we tell ourselves that form how we think about being and doing in our world. For example, if I believe that I am a loser, I will act like a loser. If I believe I am a winner, I will act like a winner. If I am uncertain that I am a winner, but chose to believe that I am a winner inspite of any uncertainty I might feel about whether I actually am a winner or not, I will be more inclined to act like a winner than if I choose not to believe because I am uncertain.
Craig, you and I have too much time on our hands today. I'm glad I'm not the only "loser" who's spending his Saturday checking the Socratic Blog! :) That was supposed to be funny.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Actually, all of my family left this morning for Hilton Head for the week. So I am alone. Sharpening the saw with you et al makes the house seem not so empty without them....
But you didn't, no points for celebrating the birth of another vanhoozite if you didn't break into song.
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