This paper can serve as a beginning, or a stage along the way, but it clearly won’t serve as a definitive statement. It does attempt to clear some underbrush off the path, but this is a deep and wide topic that deserves much study and thought.
So, as an introductory step into deep waters, this paper first looks at American English usage of the word faith, then at what John Calvin had to say about the nature of faith, and then it draws some conclusions.
The Usage of a Word
The American Heritage Dictionary is not a theological resource, and therefore does not tell us what faith is. It does, however, tell us how people use language, so it’s a reasonable starting place for finding what people usually mean when they use the word “faith.” The on-line version, at dictionary.com, gives the following definitions:
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. Often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
The first four definitions combine two aspects of personal action, in which 1) the subject accepts a person or a body of ideas as trustworthy, and 2) the subject defines his world at least partly in terms of a positive relationship with the object of this trust. And the element of trust can be taken to imply that this action goes against some resistance, that there are other options that we refuse when we have faith in something or someone. Thus we continue to have faith in a friend who may appear to ignore or slight us, we do not change our political or economic views of the world merely on the claims of today’s news, and we risk our lives on the assumption that the laws of physics will be as relevant tomorrow as they were today and yesterday.
The second definition recognizes that faith takes a step that is not demanded by logical proof and material evidence, but does not specify how big that step is. For example, the expression “leap of faith” denotes a gap so big between evidence and belief that landing safely on the other side seems like an unlikely outcome. But we also take extremely reasonable steps of faith every day. Will the sun rise tomorrow? We have no logical proof that it will, and we have no material evidence about tomorrow at all. There is an extremely small probability that something will interfere with the sun or with our planet, and the cosmos is full of mysteries that we have not mapped. The likelihood that the sun will not rise is greater than zero, but so small that I don’t believe it. If I tried to keep up with all possible events with a probability that low, the strain of it would do me in before a planetary catastrophe will.
Michael Shermer, in his book How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, exhibits a similar kind of faith, i.e., “belief that does not rest on proof or material evidence,” when he opposes those who say that miracles are an argument for God. He writes, (p. 95),
A miracle ... is really just a name for something we cannot explain. This is the “God of the gaps” argument, but as soon as we are able to fill the gap with an explanation, it is no longer a miracle.
Mr. Shermer has full confidence in his view of the world because it works very well day to day. This worldview has the backing of a great deal of material evidence and the logical analysis thereof, so he is justified to trust that the world usually works a certain way. He lacks evidence and proof, however, for saying that the world never works in a way counter to the description of the scientific tradition. He definitely has grounds for being skeptical of miracles. But when he implies that there are no miracles, he has left the area of science and entered metaphysics. Science rests on the assumption that physical processes are always and everywhere consistent. It can never prove that assumption, because it can’t test all processes at all places and times.
Consequently, I submit that we can legitimately apply the word “faith” to this kind of attitude of belief and commitment. It seems to me that everybody’s life involves taking steps, of one size or another, on the assumption that future events will bear a significant resemblance to our past experience. Further, our worldviews all have gaps in them that we fill, not with actual proof, but by trusting someone else’s claim to have proved it, or by assuming that the connection across the gap is at least provable in theory. If the worldview explains the gap, we feel no need to investigate further. Nor should we.
John Calvin on Christian Faith
But can we understand Christian faith entirely in terms of this definition? One of my favorite theologians, John Calvin, claims that we can’t, and I agree. Briefly stated, Christian faith is not only a label for actions of belief and trust internal to the Christian, it is also a gift given by God and a mode of interaction with God. Further, even orthodox affirmations of doctrine do not constitute faith if they do not include this interaction with God.
Before we proceed, I wanted to be able claim that this implies that materialist atheism fits the dictionary definition of faith better than Christian faith does. The motivation was, of course, to throw some firecrackers into the flame of debate. But, clearly, the cited definition says nothing about the source of faith and only refers to its nature as belief and trust.
A word about John Calvin: He and Martin Luther are the two theological giants of the Reformation. Calvin was 24 years younger that Luther, and this year marks his 500th birthday. He was French, studied in Paris, and ministered in Strasburg and Geneva, where he settled. His sermons and commentaries are available in English translation, and his central work is titled Institutes of the Christian Religion. John Knox, who helped lead the reformation in Scotland, was one of his students. Calvin died in 1564.
The Institutes runs a little longer than 1500 pages, of which Book Three, Chapter II is titled, “Faith: Its Definition Set Forth, and Its Properties Explained.” To give you a taste of Calvin’s thought, I will read some section titles and a few extracts of his writing in those sections.
§ 2. Faith rests upon knowledge, no upon pious ignorance
p. 545, “Faith rests not on ignorance, but on knowledge. ... [We obtain salvation] when we know that God is our merciful Father, because of reconciliation effected through Christ [II Cor. 5:18-19], and that Christ has been given to us as righteousness, sanctification, and life. By this knowledge, I say, not by submission of our feeling, do we obtain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
§ 4. Even right faith is always surrounded by error and unbelief
§ 6. Faith rests upon God’s Word
p. 549, “But we say that the Word itself, however it be imparted to us, is like a mirror in which faith may contemplate God. ... In understanding faith it is not merely a question of knowing that God exists, but also—and this especially—of knowing what is his will toward us. For it is not so much our concern to know who he is in himself, as what he wills to be toward us.
“Now, therefore, we hold faith to be a knowledge of God’s will toward us, perceived from His Word. But the foundation of this is a preconceived conviction of God’s truth.”
§ 7. Faith arises from God’s promise of grace in Christ
p. 551, “Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”
[The remainder of this chapter is an exposition of this definition of faith.]
§ 8. “Formed” and “unformed” faith
p. 552, “... assent itself ... is more of the heart than of the brain, and more of the disposition than of the understanding.”
§ 13. Different meanings of the word “faith” in Scripture
Pp. 558 f.: sound doctrine; sometimes confined to a particular object, e.g., healings; etc.
“But now we ask, of what sort is that faith which distinguishes the children of God from the unbelievers, by which we call upon God as Father, by which we cross over from death into life, and by which Christ, eternal salvation and life, dwells in us? I believe that I have briefly and clearly explained the force and nature of faith.”
§ 14. Faith as higher knowledge
p. 560, after quoting St. Paul, Calvin says, “By these words he shows that those things which we know through faith are nonetheless absent from us and go unseen. From this we conclude that the knowledge of faith consists in assurance rather than in comprehension.”
§ 15. Faith implies certainty
p. 560, “We add the words ‘sure and firm’ in order to express a more solid constancy of persuasion. For, as faith is not content with a doubtful and changeable opinion, so it is not content with an obscure and confused conception; but requires full and fixed certainty, such as men are wont to have from things experienced and proved.”
p. 561, after quoting Eph. 3:12, “By these words [St. Paul] obviously shows that there is no right faith except when we dare with tranquil hearts to stand in God’s sight. This boldness arises only out of a sure confidence in divine benevolence and salvation. This is so true that the word ‘faith’ is very often used for confidence.”
§ 16. Certainty of faith
p. 561, “Here, indeed, is the chief hinge on which faith turns: that we do not regard the promises of mercy that God offers as true only outside ourselves, but not at all in us; rather that we make them ours by inwardly embracing them.”
§ 29. God’s promise the support of faith
p. 575, “We make the freely given promise of God the foundation of faith because upon i t faith properly rests. ... For in God faith seeks life: a life that is not found in commandments of declarations of penalties, but in the promise of mercy, and only in a freely given promise.
§ 33. The Word becomes efficacious for our faith through the Holy Spirit
p. 580, “our mind has such an inclination to vanity that it can never cleave fast to the truth of God and it has such a dullness that it is always blind to the light of God’s truth. Accordingly, without the illumination of the Spirit, the Word can do nothing. From this, also, it is clear that faith is much higher than human understanding. And it will not be enough for the mind to be illumined by the Spirit of God unless the heart is also strengthened and supported by his power. ... For the Spirit is not only the initiator of faith, but increases it by degrees, until by it he leads us to the Kingdom of Heaven.” See also his references to II Tim. 1:14, Gal. 3:2, and John 6:65.
§ 34. Only the Holy Spirit leads us to Christ
p. 582, “Therefore, as we cannot come to Christ unless we be drawn by the Spirit of God, so when we are drawn we are lifted up in mind and heart above our understanding. For the soul, illumined by him, takes on a new keenness, as it were, to contemplate the heavenly mysteries, whose splendor had previously blinded it. And man’s understanding, thus beamed by the light of the Holy Spirit, then at last truly begins to taste those things which belong to the Kingdom of God, having formerly been quite foolish and dull in tasting them.”
§ 35. Without the Sprit man is incapable of faith
§ 36. Faith as a matter of the heart
pp. 583 f., “For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart that it may be an invincible defense to withstand and drive off all the stratagems of temptation. ... the heart’s distrust is greater than the mind’s blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance than for the mind to be endowed with thought. The Spirit accordingly serves as a seal, to seal up in our hearts those very promises the certainty of which it has previously impressed upon our minds; and takes the place of a guarantee to confirm and establish them.”
§ 41. Faith according to Heb. 11:1
(Faith and love)
p. 588, “The nature of faith could, seemingly, not be better or more plainly declared than by the substance of the promise upon which it rests as its proper foundation.”
p. 589, “But how can the mind be aroused to taste the divine goodness without at the same time being wholly kindled to love God in return? For truly, that abundant sweetness which God has stored up for those who fear him cannot be known without at the same time powerfully moving us. And once anyone has been moved by it, it utterly ravishes him and draws him to itself.”
§ 42. Faith and hope belong together
p. 590, “Yet, wherever this faith is alive, it must have along with it the hope of eternal salvation as its inseparable companion.”
§ 43 Faith and hope have the same foundation: God’s mercy
Let me comment here on Calvin’s concept of faith. According to Calvin, faith “rests upon” knowledge, specifically the knowledge of the promise of God’s mercy. This knowledge consists in apprehending, by heart and mind, the things of the Kingdom of God. That apprehension, in turn, is a gift of God’s Holy Spirit, who initiates, empowers, and upholds the Christian in this knowledge.
Thus, for Calvin, Christian faith is a kind of knowledge as well as a mode of knowing, and specific content. Although believers are the subjects, i.e., they are the ones doing the believing, they are not alone inside their skulls in this activity. God actively condescends to be the object of their knowledge, and, without God’s activity, the believers could not sustain their own faith in God. For this faith involves grasping the ungraspable and peering beyond our natural abilities to behold Him who holds all of nature together.
Also, we should note that Calvin’s views do not, at least in detail, represent those of all Christians. Many, perhaps most, Christians believe that faith in God is well within the abilities of all people, and that no special intervention on the part of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Further, even those who belong to the same strand of Christian theology as Calvin may disagree on a small point here or there. For example, where Calvin emphasizes God’s promises or his benevolence as the object of our faith, I would emphasize God himself as the object of our faith. But where Calvin and I disagree, chances are about 90% that he is right.
Some Preliminary Conclusions about Faith
We are all pattern makers. We try to make sense of the world. In doing so, we come up with explanations, we draw connections, we make distinctions. But, to paraphrase the mathematician John von Neumann, we don’t really understand anything, we just get used to stuff. And then along comes some stuff that we’re not used to, and we have to re-make the patterns, explanations, connections, and distinctions. This is good.
The fact of the re-making should lead us to expect that our world-views are not complete, however effective they are most of the time from day to day. On the other hand, this incompleteness shouldn’t worry us too much, either. We don’t have the time or energy for continual self-review. But it does show us that most of our life, thought, and action is based on a world-view that we trust and believe without proving it at every step of the way. These are steps of faith—not leaps, but steps. And this worldview both shapes and is shaped by our perceptions and knowledge of the world. We have used logic, knowledge, and perception, as well as hearsay, fears, hopes, and a desire for convenience, to shape that worldview. Faith is the action of living inside that worldview.
Christians say that something else has shaped them, or, to be more specific, that some One else has shaped them.
And finally, some practical applications:
• We are not alone in our faith. Someone else is at work in us and in our working, so that we can have confidence in his ability to overcome our inability.
• We don’t have to depend on our understanding, but we can depend on the one who understands us.
• Our faith now is less full, less mature, less perceptive, and less insightful than it will be, because God is causing us to grow.
• Growth is a challenge and often painful. Sometimes it stretches our hearts and minds, and sometimes it breaks them. Thus, trusting the God who loves us and leads us through growth will not keep us out of pain, but he will lead us through it and out of it again.
• When we articulate what we believe to someone else, we need to be aware of where our understanding can’t keep up with the one that we trust. We all have these gaps in our understanding. When we find them, we have an opportunity to learn.
• We are not responsible for converting other people to Christianity. Only God himself can do that. We are responsible for telling other people who Jesus is and what he has done. We can, however, have confidence that the God who is in us also confronts others in our speech with them. So we need to learn how to be stepping stones and not stumbling blocks for them.
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