On Faith
Faith is simple
On one level, faith appears to be a simple thing. According the writer of Hebrews, it is confidence in the reality of something we do not see, or something that we are looking forward to. Similarly, Mirriam-Webster’s definition includes the words “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.“ This seems plain enough. Isn’t such faith apart of our everyday existence? We have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. We can be fairly confident in this faith, because we’ve seen it happen thousands of times, and have been told that it’s happened thousands of more times (which we believe by faith), but it’s faith nonetheless because it hasn’t happened yet. We also show faith when our friend agrees to meet us at a certain time and place and we show up at the agreed upon time and expect him to be there. The level of confidence that we place in our friend may be slightly less than in the sun rising because we have not witnessed the consistency of our friend’s promises as much as the sun, and besides that, we can think of several excuses that would cause him to break his promise. In both of these situations, we place our trust in something that is not certain. This is faith at its simplest, most fundamental level.
Faith is risky
When it comes to faith in a god or as a basis for determining our worldview, faith doesn’t always show itself to be so simple. One reason for this is that faith is risky. By its very nature, it carries with it an element of risk. While the risks may not be all that apparent in small, everyday matters, they are more obvious in matters of beliefs about life. All faith involves placing our trust in something that is not certain. Whether we are trusting in the ability of the government to rule rightly or in the historicity of the Bible’s claims, we place our hope in something we cannot prove. We can be confident in the object of our faith but not certain. We always risk being wrong. We always risk being made the fool. When we are talking about our friend meeting us, the risks are nothing more than the time it takes to get there and feeling slightly foolish when he doesn’t show up. However, when it comes to a worldview, the risks are much greater. Here we are choosing to base our whole existence on faith. If we are wrong, we are living by a lie and it has eternal implications. We also leave ourselves open to ridicule and critique by those who don’t share our faith.
Faith is not emotions
Before we go any further, we must note two things that faith is not. First, faith is not a feeling or emotion. Faith of any value will be much deeper than our emotions. Emotions change unexpectedly and not necessarily due to a change in our knowledge of the facts. You may have a feeling that something bad is going to happen to you today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you believe that feeling. C.S. Lewis says, “Faith...is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods” (Mere Christianity 138-139). If we based our faith and beliefs on emotions or moods that can shift by the minute, we’d be exceedingly confusing creatures and would make little progress in life. There are times, and lots of them for certain types of people, when faith seems to be driven by the roller-coaster of emotions, but I think what we are looking at in these times is mostly emotion and hardly faith. We hold our faith beliefs at a deeper level; they are more consistent and not likely to be changed simply by an emotion. In fact, emotions are more likely to be changed by faith. Emotions may affect faith to a degree, but if they were the sole basis for faith, faith wouldn’t be anything worth talking about.
Faith is not illogical by nature
One other thing that must be stated is that faith is not by nature illogical or against reason. Faith is not necessarily logical or illogical. It may be either one of these terms, but it can be defined by neither. It is more logical for me to place my faith in the sun rising tomorrow than in it not rising because all the evidence suggests that it will rise. It is logic that leads me to believe that my wife loves me because I see signs of it in what she does for me. Reason can lead us to faith and it can lead us away from it. While reason can carry us only so far in matters of faith, faith rarely works without some degree of reason. Marxist scholar Terry Eagleton, in his review of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, writes, "Reason, to be sure, doesn't go all the way down for believers, but it doesn't for most sensitive, civilized, non-religious types either. Even Richard Dawkins lives more by faith than by reason. We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain" (Timothy Keller, The Reason For God, 120).
Faith is based on evidence
Faith is always by nature without certainty, but it is hardly ever without some evidence. It is a fool who chooses faith apart from any evidence. Everybody lives by faith in some aspects of their lives. In most cases where there is an opportunity for faith, it is usually a choice between faith in this or faith in that, or faith in an event happening or faith in it not happening. Rarely are we presented with faith as one option and complete certainty or fact as the other. We all use logic to compile the evidence and choose where to place our faith. When it comes to matters of faith, people may disagree on the weight to give certain evidence, but they can rarely argue that there is no evidence whatsoever.
Much evidence for faith is relational
If faith is almost always accompanied by evidence, then a look at the characteristics of that evidence will help shed some light on our understanding of faith. It seems to me that quite often the evidence we base our faith on is relational. What I mean is that it is affected by whether or not we deem another person, group, or entity trustworthy. We will take the risk of putting our faith in another if we trust their character. Our faith is a recognition of their faithfulness or goodness. When I open a history or science book to learn something about the subject, I am showing that I trust the character of it’s authors, or maybe the publishers of the book. When a little boy obeys his parents when they tell him not to play in the road, he is trusting in the goodness of his parents. The faithfulness of the parents is the evidence for the faith of the child. There may be other evidence that influences the child not to play in the road, but his confidence in his parents’ goodness certainly plays a major role. When faith is affected by the character of its object in this way, there exists a relationship between the possessor of the faith and its object. In such instances, faith is not simply an intellectual, cognitive belief but becomes synonymous with trust. Not trust that a certain belief is true, but trust in a person. It is a decision to trust a source. Furthermore, when faith is embedded in trust in another individual our source, when it has this relational component, it is hardly ever a one time decision to have faith, but is usually part of an enduring confidence in the faithfulness of that particular individual or source. We see this in most cases of learning.
A faithful source leads to confident faith
Much of what we “know” we learned from teachers or reading up on a subject. In both cases, for any learning to happen, we must make a decision to trust in the source. Lesslie Newbigin, in his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, has the following observation: “If we consider what is involved in learning to know anything, we will see that knowing has to begin with an act of faith. We have to trust the evidence of our eyes and ears, or, if we are learning a language, or learning science or history or any other branch of knowledge, we have to begin by trusting those who undertake to teach us” (19). Learning in this sense is rarely a matter of trusting individual bits of information, again and again, at each and every point, but is most often an enduring decision about the trustworthiness, or faithfulness, of the source. In fact, Mirriam-Webster’s definition of faith also includes the words: “steadfast in affection or allegiance.” It is in this understanding of faith that we say things like, “I have faith in my friends,” or “I have faith in the government.” In saying these things we profess something of an obedience or allegiance on our part. Such statements reveal the relational aspect of faith, and how the faithfulness, trustworthiness, or goodness of an individual or source leads to confident faith.
Faith according to Christianity
We now turn to faith as it relates to Christianity in particular. That faith is central to Christianity and the Bible is clear. The Bible says things such as, “The righteous will live by faith” (Rom. 1:17), faith “is of greater worth than gold” (1 Pet. 1:7), and even “everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Jesus commands and commends faith. “Have faith in God,” (Mark 11:22) he tells his disciples, and to the crowds, “Repent and believe” (Mark 1:15). To some degree, faith of the Christian kind is just like the faith we find in everyday situations. As with any faith, faith in the Christian God is faith in something we do not see and that cannot be proved. Because of this, faith in the Christian God is risky. A Christian can be confident in his/her beliefs and hopes but not certain. But just like most faiths that people hold, Christian faith is not necessarily illogical, and is usually accompanied by much evidence. The nature of the evidence, and the weight given to each piece of evidence, varies from person to person, but no one makes a decision of this magnitude, no one chooses their worldview, without some evidence. Finally, Christian faith shares a likeness with many other types of faith in that much of its evidence is relational. Faith in the Christian God means trust in the goodness, faithfulness, and dependability of God Himself. And it is with this idea that we shall spend the rest of this paper.
Christian faith has a relational component
Faith, as presented in Christianity, is relational. The ideas and claims of Christianity are presented within a relational dynamic. They pertain not just to morality or a way of life, but speak of how one can have a relationship with God. Jesus, in addition to commanding faith, preached a message of obedience, trust, love and worship. “Trust in God, trust also in me,” he tells his disciples in John 14:1. And later on, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23). The claims of Christianity are inextricably linked with the ultimate source of those claims. Biblical faith is much more than a cognitive, intellectual decision to agree with certain beliefs. If that was all it was, the Bible’s commands for faith and belief would be empty. Apart from a relational component, apart from the existence of a trustworthy source, a command for belief and faith is utterly ridiculous. Unless their exists a trustworthy being or source, we arrive at faith by a weighing of the evidence and reason, not because of a command. A command only makes sense in a relational dynamic.
Faith in God as revealed in the Bible
Now, there may be debate about whether or not the God of the Bible exists in the first place. If the participants in this debate do not permit the claims of the Bible to carry any weight or truthfulness-in other words, if faith in the Bible is not accepted into the debate-then the relational dynamic of Christian faith can hardly be spoken of. In fact, I’m not sure if any significant aspect of Christian faith can be spoken of at this point. Not because Christian faith is dependent on the Bible alone, but because Christian faith is dependent on the God who is revealed in the Bible. Christian faith involves both believing in the Bible’s revelation of God and trusting in the God of the Bible. Much could be said about this dual nature of Christian faith, but all I will say here is that the two work together and are less distinct then they seem.
Trust in God is the goal of the Christian faith
Once one comes to belief in the Biblical God, he is carried along not so much by his weighing of the evidence and reasoning at each and every point, but by his trust in the faithfulness of God. Not that the weighing and reasoning don’t play a part, they’re just not the driving force. Donald Miller, in his book Searching for God Knows What, says, “I realized the gospel of Jesus, I mean the essence of God’s message to mankind...wasn’t a series of ideas we had to agree with either; rather, it was an invitation, an invitation to know God” (14). The journey towards Christian faith may begin by agreeing to certain beliefs about the world, its beginnings and purpose, but if it never gets beyond these cognitive assertions to a trust in God Himself, it never reaches Christian faith. A true Christian must move past the point of agreeing to certain truths, and begin submitting to the Being behind those truths. In conclusion, while firm belief in the validity of the objective truths of Christianity is critical, it is not the main concern or focus for the Christian. The believer is more concerned with trust, obedience, and worship. This is the nature of Christian faith. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (12:2).
“There’s no arrival, but no denying
There’s something in you that is worth finding
There’s no completion with only reason
There’s no movement without believing
There’s more than these two eyes are seeing
By faith it’s finished, by faith we raise
By faith is every step alive…and this is how we rise
So a risk I will take and I’m letting it go
My need to be right and my fear of unknown
With a chance I’ll be wrong and a chance that I’ll fall
I’ll collapse in your arms, cause this is how we rise.”
