What is Faith?

What is Faith?

Examples of Faith in Our Popular Culture:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: starring Harrison Ford & Sean Connery as Indy’s father) – At the end of the story, Indy must retrieve the Holy Grail to save his father’s life. He makes it through a long corridor of obstacles; only to find he is standing on the edge of a deep chasm he must cross. He steps out “in faith” and finds he is actually walking on a camouflaged footbridge. Therefore, we see that FAITH = BELIEVING IN THE FACE OF CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE.
Revolutions: the third movie in The Matrix trilogy. In the final scene the Oracle is asked if she always knew that Neo was “The One”? She replies, “Oh no. But I believed. I believed.”Therefore, we see that FAITH = BELIEVING WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING.
Polar Express: The boy, who is skeptical about whether Santa Clause is real, finally is lead to say, "I believe, I believe." Just then, Santa appears to him. Therefore, we see that FAITH = BELIEVING MAKES IT REAL. (1) For that matter, can one's faith make God exist? Can one's faith make the Bible true, or make Jesus rise from the dead? Hopefully you answered NO to these questions.

The Leap of Faith
As seen above, is it any wonder why our culture does not have a clear understanding of the nature of biblical faith? Furthermore, one of the most common assertions about faith in God or Jesus as the Messiah is nothing more than a "leap of faith." But is this really what the Bible teaches? Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), became one of the foremost contributors to existential philosophy because of a reaction to one of the largest influences on his life, that being George Hegel, who believed the only way to discover reality was through rationalism. Another contributing factor to Kierkegaard’s existentialism was the experience he had in his formal church that was located in Denmark. It was there that practicing faith with passion was discounted. Out of his reaction to the cold formalism, Kierkegaard discovered what was important was to have an existential encounter with God. (2)

The phrase itself “leap of faith” finds its origins in the writings of Kierkegaard. For him, since man finds his authentic existence in a relationship with the Creator, the decision to believe must involve a criterionless choice, a leap of faith into the dark. Even though Kierkegaard says there are no rational grounds to take the “leap of faith,” the individual must do so or he will forever remain in an inauthentic existence. (3) Kierkegaard was correct in calling people to a passionate experience with God. After all, faith is not simply about adhering to a set of objective, historical propositions. However, the subjective nature of existentialism leads to one of the most important questions in religious dialogue- what god is the individual encountering? Do not all religious experiences require an external test for truth? After all, while there are some similarities in faiths such as truth, a God, right and wrong, spiritual purpose in life, and communion with God, they all also have some glaring differences such as the nature of God, the afterlife, the nature of man, sin, salvation, and creation. In their book Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli give a summary of faith. It is very helpful.

Kreeft and Tacelli say we must distinguish between the act of faith from the object of faith- believing from what is believed. The object of faith means all things believed. For the Christian, this means everything God has revealed in the Bible. This faith (the object, not the act), is expressed in propositions. Propositions are many, but the ultimate object of faith is one. The ultimate object of faith is not words, but God’s Words (singular), indeed-Himself. Without a relationship with the living God, propositions are pointless, for their point is to point beyond themselves to God. But without propositions, we cannot know or tell others what God we believe in and what we believe about God.

The act of faith is more than merely an act of belief. We believe many things-for example that the Chicago White Sox will win this years world series and that New Zealand is beautiful but we are not willing to die for those beliefs, nor can we live them every moment. But religious faith can be something to live every moment. It is much more than belief and much stronger, though belief is one of its parts or aspects. There are four aspects of faith:
Emotional faith: is feeling assurance or trust or confidence in a person. This includes hope (which is much stronger than a wish and peace (which is much stronger then mere calm.).
Intellectual faith: is belief. It is this aspect of faith that is formulated in propositions and summarized in creeds.
Volitional faith: is an act of the will, a commitment to obey God’s will. This faith is faithfulness, or fidelity. It manifests itself in behavior, that is, in good works.
Faith: begins in that obscure mysterious center of our being that Scripture calls the ‘heart.” Heart in Scripture does not mean feeling, or sentiment, or emotion, but the absolute center of the soul, as the physical heart is at the center of the body. “Keep your heart with all viligence” advised Solomon, “for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23).

Biblical Faith/The Faith of the Apostles
The first followers of Jesus were exclusively Jews.The book of Acts gives a reference to the early followers of Jesus as "the sect of Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5).This sect of Judaism had to spread the message of Jesus in a culture that was Jewish but had also been impacted by Hellenism. The word “Hellenistic” was given to describe the period of history that started with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. and ended when Rome conquered Alexander’s empire in 30 B.C.(4) Could the early messianic community reach their fellow countrymen or a Greek audience by asking their audiences to take a "leap of faith?" Let's look at a few passages to see how they went about spreading the message of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Acts 1:3: Luke describes Jesus as showing Himself by many “infallible proofs.” The Greek term tekmerion,—decisive proof, “demonstrative proof”—Aristotle designated evidence of this kind as irrefutable, proven and conclusive (Rhetoric 1.12.16-17 [1357b]
Acts 2:22-38: Summary of Peter’s sermon: (1) Jesus is the Messiah- miracles help support this claim;(2) The ultimate proof of Jesus as the Messiah is the resurrection; (3) Jesus fulfills the predictions of the prophets; (4) Jesus completes the promises of the covenants; (5) Jesus is presently in heaven; (6) The audience is expected to turn from their sins to God.
Mars Hill Sermon: Acts 17: 23-30: Paul also appealed to the resurrection as the “proof” that God has given to Jesus as the divine agent whereby God will judge the entire world.
Empirical Observation:
1 John 1:1: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of life.
Acts 10:39: We are witnesses of all that he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross.
Acts 4:19-20: Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
1 Peter 5:1: So I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed.
2 Peter 1:19: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
1 Corinthians 15:1-17: Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Paul's lists the elements of the Gospel:
The Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
He was buried.
He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
He then appeared to all the apostles.
He then appeared to 500 brethren at one time.
He appeared to James.
He appeared to Paul.
If the Messiah is not risen, their faith is in vain and they are false witnesses of God

Jesus and Evidence:
Did Jesus think there was a relationship between faith and evidence? Or did Jesus just want people to have "faith"?
One passage that is misunderstood is Matthew 18:3-5 when Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.” In interpreting this passage, it is important to note that Jesus challenged his followers to be like children morally, not intellectually. Christians are called to exhibit childlikeness in being sensitive to evil and sin, in being humble and contrite in spirit. Jesus contrasts the need for humility with tough-mindness in Matt. 10:16, when He says, " Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." (5)

Dr. Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary carefully looked at the variety of approaches that were utilized by Jesus in talking to His audience. He notes that one passage that is quite helpful to this issue is Matthew 11:13. John the Baptist, who was languishing in prison after challenging Herod, sent messengers to ask Jesus the question: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” In response to John, Jesus did not rebuke John’s question. He did not say, “You must have faith; suppress your doubts.” Nor did He scold, “If you don’t believe, you’ll go to hell and miss heaven.” Instead, Jesus recounted the distinctive features of His ministry:Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me. (Matt. 11:4–6; see also Luke 7:22). Jesus’ works of healing and teaching are meant to serve as positive evidence of His messianic identity, because they fulfill the messianic predictions of the Hebrew Scriptures. What Jesus claimed is this:

1. If one does certain kinds of actions (the acts cited above), then one is the Messiah.2. I am doing those kinds of actions.3. Therefore, I am the Messiah. (6)

Faith and the resurrection: In 1 Cor 15: 1-17, Paul discusses the truth of Jesus' resurrection. It is important to note that a Christian's faith in the resurrection of Jesus will not change whether Jesus objectively rose from the dead in the context of time, space, and history. In other words, one's faith cannot change the history of the past. The first followers of Jesus had a clear understanding about the relationship between faith and history.

As New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III says:

Any position in which claims about Jesus or the resurrection are removed from the realm of historical reality and placed in a subjective realm of personal belief or some realm that is immune to human scrutiny does Jesus and the resurrection no service and no justice. It is a ploy of desperation to suggest that the Christian faith would be little affected if Jesus was not actually raised from the dead in space and time. A person who gives up on the historical foundations of our faith has in fact given up on the possibility of any real continuity between his or her own faith and that of a Peter, Paul, James, John, Mary Magdalene, or Priscilla. The first Christian community had a strong interest in historical reality, especially the historical reality of Jesus and his resurrection, because they believed their faith, for better or for worse, was grounded in it. (7)
Biblical faith involves an objective element (the existence of God, Jesus' resurrection), and the subjective appropriation, moved by the grace of God, of those truths. (8) For example, in James 2:19, it says that the demons believe that God exists. Objectively speaking, the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with the evidence for the truthfulness of the Christian faith to enable us to understand that God exists. However, from a subjective perspective, we also must place our trust in God, which can only happen with the help of the Holy Spirit (John 16: 12-15). A good example of this is seen in Acts 17:1-4, “And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women."

In this passage, we see that the Holy Spirit worked through the objective evidence of the Tanakh (the acronym that is formed from the first three parts of the Hebrew Bible: Torah (the first five books of the Bible), Nevi’ im (the Prophets), and K’ tuvim (the Writings) which caused some of Paul's audience to understand that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. However, the Holy Spirit also caused Paul's audience to place their trust in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Biblical faith also involves a commitment of the whole person. In the Tanakh, the Hebrew word for heart is "leb," or "lebad." While the word "heart" is used as a metaphor to describe the physical organ, it is also the center or defining element of the entire person. It can be seen as the seat of the person's intellectual, emotional, affective, and volitional life. In the New Testament, the word “heart” (Gr.kardia) came to stand for man’s entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional elements.

Sources:
1. Courtesy of Summit Ministries. Available at http://www.summit.org/resources/tc/2008/05/is-faith-blind.php
2. Erickson, M. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 1998, 40-47.
3. Craig, W.L. Reasonable Faith. Wheaten, ILL: Crossway Books. 1984, 56.
4. Nash, R.The Gospel and the Greeks. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing. 1992, 10.
5. Clark, D.J. Dialogical Apologetics: A Person Centered Approach to Christian Defense. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books. 1993, 20-21.
6. Groothuis, D. Jesus: Philosopher and Apologist: Available at http://www.theapologiaproject.org/JesusPhil.pdf
7. Ben Witherington III. New Testament History. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2001, 167.
8. Clark, K.J., Lints, R., and James K.A. Smith. 101 Key Terms In Philosophy And Their Importance For Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. 2004, 26.