The Creeds for Today: Chapter 2. The Question of Faith.
________________________________________________________________
Nicene & Apostles Creed: "We believe in...”
What is Faith?
With the opening words of the Creeds we are confronted with the idea of belief, of faith. What is meant by faith?
There are many kinds of faith.
We all believe in many things, e.g. the solar system. We believe it is vast. We believe it covers millions of miles. To say: “I believe in the solar system” means, “I accept as a fact it exists.” But our belief in the solar system makes no difference to our life in day to day terms.
All this is exactly what we do not mean when we say: “I believe in God.”
The sort of faith we are talking about in the Creeds is quite different. It is the commitment of the whole life to another person.
How the Church understood Faith at
(A summary of ideas from: T.F.Torrance: Trinitarian Faith.)
The council at
1. "We believe" makes it clear that the Council was concerned to confess the fundamental truths of the gospel calling for the commitment of faith, rather than laying down decrees requiring compliance. Faith is thus a confession.
2. An outstanding mark of the Nicene approach was its association of faith with piety or godliness; a mode of worship, behaviour and thought that was devout and worthy of God. Godliness and theology, worship and faith went inseparably together with constant attention and reverent interpretation of Scripture, reverent use of reason and argument. Faith is thus a lifestyle.
3. It reflected the settled patristic view of faith, not as a subjectively grounded (i.e. in our own opinion) but as an objectively grounded (i.e. in the finished work of Christ) persuasion of the mind, supported beyond itself by the objective reality of God himself as made known in Christ. Christ is the rock of faith on which the Church is built - in an objective sense. Thus faith is an objective reality, not a subjective response.
4. Faith arises from the self-witness and self-interpretation of God in his word. It takes the form of obedience to the call of God's word. Faith is obedience.
5. Faith is knowledge. (See below).
6. The primacy the Nicene Council accorded to faith is of immense significance. It represents the radical shift in peoples understanding in the Church as they were freed from the imprisonment of their own prejudices and fears.
Through faith our minds are put in direct touch with reality independent of ourselves, for it is through faith that our minds assent to the inherent intelligibility of things. It is upon that kind of basic contact with reality that all sure knowledge rests and all genuine understanding is established. This relation between faith and understanding applies to all scientific knowledge. Faith is thus the Basis of all knowing.
Thus faith has epistemological implications.
Let us look at some of these ideas in more detail.
1. Faith is trust in a Person.
To say, "I believe in God", means not only that “I accept the existence of God as a fact”, but also that “I trust in him wholly, I have faith in him.” There is all the difference then the world between these two types of belief or, if you like, between belief in the broad sense, and faith in the deep sense of the word. One may be academic only; the other is nothing if it is not personal.
Belief in God makes all the difference to everything in life. In one sense we could exist whether God were near or far. But we could not exist if there were no God at all.
Karl Barth:
Christian faith is the gift of the meeting in which men become free to hear the word of grace, which God has spoken in Jesus Christ, in such a way that in spite of all that contradicts it, they may once for all, exclusively and entirely, hold to his promise and guidance.
This is to say, “Faith is an encounter”. It involves a conscious reliance, a complete and utter trust.
Faith such as this is essential; it is the very essence of Christianity.
Two illustrations:
1. We all know the trust of a little child. A child takes a positive delight in trusting you. It is a thing of great joy.
2. It is good to have been happily married for one week, but it is better to have been happily married for many years. Trust grows with relationship. A happy home is one in which there is complete trust.
These two illustrations point towards faith in God.
Where such faith exists there is an assurance of being right with God. A man can trust God wholly now, and that trust can grow deeper and firmer with the years. The whole emphasis is personal. If one asks what is the centre and core of Christianity, then the answer is that it is at root a matter of relationship with God, and that relationship is one of faith.
I.e. Faith is a relationship.
2. Faith is a Gift.
Barth:
"In Christian faith we are concerned quite decisively with a meeting… I am not alone. God comes to meet me. This meeting is a gift. The gift is the gift of freedom. It is God's gift. We do nothing to initiate it. That which I do in believing/receiving is the only thing left me. This gift is Christ. So faith means trust. Trust is the act in which a man may rely on the faithfulness of another, that his promise holds, and that what he demands he demands of necessity. I believe means I trust. No more must I trust in myself. Trust in any other authority, god, etc., is superfluous…
“Faith is a freedom, a permission. We are allowed to take hold of this Word in spite of everything that contradicts it. We never believe "On account of," nor" because of", we come to faith in spite of everything.”
3. Faith is Knowledge.
Emil Brunner:
“By faith alone.” This slogan has produced among Christians the false idea that it depends only on the correctness of one’s faith, and minimises the correctness of one’s life. Faith in this understanding is seen to be taking for granted certain dogmas. If this is really what it means then there is no more fatal error in Christianity than saying "By faith alone"…
“Faith is a certain viewpoint, a worldview, alongside other theories and ideas. But this is not the essential idea.
What faith means is, “Whom do you trust, and to whom have you pledged your loyalty?”
Thus it is wrong to suppose faith is acceptance of certain dogmas…
“However, nor is it only a vague trust in God that everyone has - Why then would we need the Bible, Christ, the cross and resurrection?
Thus there must be maintained a correct balance between the relationship of faith and the knowledge that grows out of that relationship. The relationship must always remain prior to the knowledge, and the knowledge is to be understood in the light of the relationship. However, to say in the Creed: “I believe in…” means: “I accept what follows as being the statement of the Christian faith. This is what Christians believe.
In other words, to be Christian I must believe this. In a free country a man may believe what he likes. But a man cannot believe what he likes and be a Christian. There is a minimum, and that minimum of belief is embodied in the historic Creeds of the Church…
“The Creed of Christian faith rests upon knowledge. Where the Creed is uttered and confessed knowledge should be, and is meant to be, created. Christian faith is not irrational, but rational in the proper sense. Faith rightly understood is knowledge.”
Barth:
“Christian faith is concerned with the illumination of the reason. God cannot be known by the powers of human knowledge, but is known only by His own freedom, decision and action.
Man can conceive of a Supreme Being, but he has not thereby thought God.
God is thought and known only when he makes himself apprehensible. Knowledge of God is not a possibility that is open for discussion. Knowledge of God takes place (only) where there is actual experience where God speaks.”
Such faith has two characteristics:
a. It appears limited. It is limited by God's word. Faith is characterised by a certainty of conviction derived from the truth of God given to us. To believe in the One God of the Nicene Creed is necessarily exclusive of any belief in any other God. This God is revealed in Christ. The Nicene Creed expresses the fundamental beliefs of the evangelical Christian faith, and which by its intrinsic structure excludes alternative doctrines. Such alternatives are heretical deviation from the truth.
b. It appears limitless. It is infinite, as God is its content. Faith is characterised by an open, ever expanding focus that is always growing. It is open to whatever may yet be known through the Spirit of Christ. By its very nature Christian faith is locked into an inexhaustible depth of truth in God which always exceeds what we may grasp of its disclosure to us.
Faith is thus certain exclusive beliefs but these beliefs have the character of unfathomable depth.
The open range of faith leaves a danger - an opening to all manner of theorising.
For this reason the theologians of the Church cannot keep silent. They must attempt to speak the truth clearly and refute error.
The Nicene Council agreed that the decisions in one Synod should be examined by another. One of the roles of the teacher in the Church is to examine and critique ideas and teachings in the Church.
The Credal formulations were not seen as doctrinal propositions, but as assertions of belief. They do not have their truth in themselves but in what, or who, they point to. Hence the Credal formulations are not final but partial, not closed but open, - confessional statements which are revisable in the light of deeper and fuller understanding of the gospel, i.e. of God in Christ.
However there were limitations set on how far one could deviate, in that some of the major clauses were given a precise definition.
4. Faith is Confession.
Barth:
Faith is confession. Christian faith is a decision in which men have the freedom to be publicly responsible for their trust in God's word… Faith means choosing between faith and unbelief, wrong belief and superstition. Because of this faith must become public. To the freedom of trust and the freedom of knowledge we must add the freedom of responsibility. Faith thus means confession.
Two forms of confession:
1. Where men do confess there grows a historical form, a community. In faith we have the freedom to be publicly responsible in the language of the Church for our trust and our knowledge. There is a specifically "Church language". We cannot avoid speaking in this language. Where the Christian Church does not confess in its own language it usually does not confess at all.
2. The Church exists for the sake of the world. Thus where confession is clear and serious it must be translated into the speech of Mr. Everyman, the ordinary person who possesses quite a different vocabulary and quite different spheres of interest. We are not only Christians, we are also parts of the world. If our faith is real it must encroach on our life. We have only one task, to make the confession heard in the sphere of the world as well. It must be translated into the sober, basic language spoken out there. The common language of the world. The Christian must not be afraid of having to speak such.
Faith as a Missionary Challenge.
1. Faith or despair.
In the Western World the greatest loss of the last 50 years is the disappearance of Hope. Science and technology are seen more as threats than as a ground of hope. Science - even in its most benign form of medicine - is now seen with scepticism. The most rapidly growing sicknesses - classified broadly as mental - are related to the loss of meaning.
In the space of one lifetime our civilisation has completely lost confidence in its own validity. Loss of confidence in the future is expressed in vandalism.
The Question now is whether our self-criticism is the normal self-questioning of a healthy culture or we are at the point where our society is approaching death?
Is there a future for civilisation as we know it?
There are people who are constantly locked into a feeling of despair. We are driven to despair when there is apparently no way out, no goal in view. One goal we certainly see - death. We must all go there, is it not enough to drive us to despair? If death ends all can there be anything more desperate than that. Everything is in vain if the end of everything is the one vast empty nothing.
There is only one thing more fearful than the thought that death ends all: that a man is in such dreadful condition that he hopes that death ends all, because he is fearful of what might come afterwards.
There is one word strong enough to conquer despair--and that is faith. Either we despair or we believe. There is no other alternative.
2. How did we get to this point of despair?
Many theories abound but one demands our attention - a secular philosopher by the name of Michael Polanyi in the middle of this century. This question vexed Polanyi and he came up with some compelling answers.
Polanyi began his life in
1916 - PhD thesis on absorption of gases. It was rejected even though later on it was proved right. Challenged on his methodology, he argued: "One first draws one's conclusions and then puts their derivation right.". The rejection of his PhD paper showed him that:
(1) Science does not grow by assimilation of facts but by intuitive discovery.
(2) Scientific practice is ruled by orthodoxy, tradition, and this limits dissent.
Age 23 - wrote a paper of third law of thermodynamics. Wrote many other original articles.
Not a Christian.
The rise of Hitler led him to flee to
1933 Chair of Physical Chemistry at
The rise of Hitler and Marxism troubled him, they showed up philosophical problems, i.e. the conflict of ideas/values and power. He became concerned about how science relates to life, a free society and the true practice of science and the evils issuing from a false view of science.
Not by training a philosopher. Wrote several books on this subject.
1948
Polanyi:
The main influence of science on modern man has not been in the advance of technology but through the effect of science on our worldview - a scientific image of the world which brought about ideologies which brought forth the disasters of the 20thC.
Therefore to grapple with the problems we need to look at the underlying ideas. These ideas:
(i) Generated destruction.
(ii) Falsified the foundations of knowledge.
For Polanyi the answer to the problem was to be found in a whole new understanding of Knowledge, a new epistemology.
A reconsideration of knowledge will be effective today as more people are becoming disillusioned with the ideas that have lead to our present state.
This reorientation of knowledge will be found in the nature of scientific discovery.
3. The Course that brought us to this Point.
Until the Renaissance the Western World was built on a Christian worldview. With the Renaissance philosophers rejected this worldview and began to search for another.
Descartes was the first real break.
Descartes used a hermeneutic of doubt. He began with the assumption that all that he had previously known was false, and that he had to begin again to find a solid basis for knowledge. Through his “Meditations” he came to a point of certainty: "I think, therefore I am". This became the basis of his epistemology, his theory of knowledge. His own experience of thinking became what he based his understanding of truth upon.
Consequences:
1. It makes personal experience a basis of knowledge. Thus we are given the scientific method, what is truth is that which is discovered through the senses.
2. It makes thinking, i.e. reason, a basis of knowledge. Thus knowledge is that which is obtained by logical deduction.
Thus knowledge, truth, is that which is obtained by scientific observation and experimentation, and by logical reasoning on this data. This became the operating definition of truth in the Western World.
3. That which cannot be scientifically tested or demonstrated, or which is not provable by logic is disregarded as being inferior. It is not knowledge, it is untruth. Such things become a matter of opinion and are relegated to the private domain, they are personal opinion.
Thus whole areas of human thought are disposed of into the waste bin of irrelevancy. Examples of this are religion, morals, metaphysics, traditional knowledge, faith.
Truth is only that which can be tested in the public domain by scientific methods and logic.
4. It implies true knowledge only came with science. Consequently nobody knew anything important before the advent of the scientific age. Thus traditional knowledge is rejected. Traditional skills, traditional lore, dogma are thus rejected.
The challenge is to prove everything for yourself, reject all authority and tradition. The slogan of the Enlightenment was, "Dare to know!"
5. This way of understanding the world leads to materialism. Only that which can be scientifically manipulated really exists.
Thus there is implicit in this epistemology a rejection of any supernatural elements - non physical concepts such as "soul" and "spirit" are not scientifically testable so are relegated to the basket of "non truth".
6. This materialism in the name of science inevitably leaves to a reductionism. Everything must be reduced to the basics of science, i.e. physics and maths, and explained thereby.
7. Descartes' philosophy led to the scientific philosophy of Bertrand Russell. This is summarised simply as:
Scientific discovery is the result of:
(a) Observation of significant facts followed by…
(b) The framing of an hypothesis based on those facts then…
(c) The testing of this theory by experiment and further observation.
8. Because science is “all that is true”, it becomes imperative that any field of human understanding must be seen as a science. Thus arises the whole field of the social sciences. Science must be the tool to govern social philosophy and practice.
In reality the Christian vision of the
Two theories emerged: capitalism and communism, both of which share the same Enlightenment presuppositions and both share the humanised concept of an ideal society borrowed from the Church.
9. The concept of individual rights was added. But who guarantees the rights? Without God there is no option but to vest these rights in the government. Hence the government becomes the guarantee for all needs. The government becomes God.
10. Descartes' philosophy results in a fundamental division between the mind and matter. This is a dualism that has had deep consequences.
This “Scientific World-view” is the dominating metaphysic of the Western World. It is assumed to be true by all of us, after all “Everybody knows this is true”.
Into this philosophical (metaphysical) worldview stepped Polanyi.
Two facts of the modern world were important to Polanyi:
(1) Creative development of modern science.
(2) Drive for moral and social progress.
These are twins - scientific and social reform. They are born out of a new outlook - promising in adolescence but became, in adulthood, enemies of their own family and heritage. These two factors provide definition and focus for understanding the modern mind. Why did these two worthy movements bring about such destruction? What latent flaw was there? Two World Wars and communism gave Polanyi the data. Both programmes were based on science and justified atrocities for the protection of the state.
Polanyi:
"Given the right conditions these two (scientific theory and politics) could combine to form a dynamic- objective coupling. The fusion of the two produces a relentless drive for social amelioration that brooks no dissent or opposition. Convinced of its own rightness it is blind to its own weakness it produces a moral inversion. A "scientifically" determined view repels all criticism because of its assumed certainty of its "truth". Motivated by moral passions the position was immune to moral criticism. The only way to cope with critics is to eliminate them, as was seen in
It is becoming plain that the scientific worldview applied to the whole of life is devastatingly inadequate. The effects are felt disastrously in education.
Question: Can philosophy, which most people don't read, have such affect?
Polanyi answers that it is not necessary for the books to be read by many for the ideas to prevail. They flow down the streams of education, literature, etc.
If you are unconvinced about the power of ideas, watch for the scientific assumptions made in what you hear and read every day, e.g. "Statistics tell us...More research is needed..." Any judgement of value is banished to the realm of fantasy and any statistical or scientific statement gets automatic endorsement.
To say, "We believe", and to say, "What we believe is truth" in this context can only be one of two things:
1. An absurdity, an irrelevancy, showing that we are, in fact, quite stupid, or,
2. A missionary challenge, an attack on the whole basis of epistemology in the Western world.
Question: Was Descartes right?
Can you arrive at truth using only doubt? Can you, in fact, doubt everything as Descartes attempted?
Descartes was fundamentally inconsistent in that he assumed to be true the idea that doubt would lead to truth.
Polanyi asked the question: is the philosophy of science of Bertrand Russell correct?
Because he was acknowledged as a brilliant creative scientist he was in a unique position to ask this question. Polanyi went back to the whole process of scientific discovery. As a discoverer he was convinced that Russell was fundamentally wrong. Scientific discovery did not come by scientific observation and logical deduction. Rather, in his own experience and the recorded experiences of other scientific discoverers, scientific advance was made by a leap of faith in the face of contrary evidence. Scientific discovery is intuitive, a new way of "Seeing" the facts even when not provable.
This led to Polanyi developing a whole new epistemology:
1. Knowledge and "seeing" occur in the context of other ideas and concepts which are themselves not seen. Often we are not even aware of their existence, they are assumed.
2. These fundamental ideas and concepts are assumed by the individual, largely from the culture & society in which one grows up. These ideas are assumed to be "right", but are largely hidden and unexamined.
3. This morass of assumptions has being given several names, but is commonly now called a fiduciary framework. It is a set of beliefs, values, metaphysics, prejudices, emotional biases, etc, which the knower is largely unaware of. They are untested, unproven, assumed. They are the foundation of all conscious knowledge. They are, in fact, a set of faith beliefs. In the main day are totally unproven, totally unscientific.
This idea of knowledge has certain implications:
1. It means all knowledge--Scientific, religious, moral, traditional, etc--is put on the same footing. There has to be a recognition that even scientific knowledge is born in the context of faith beliefs. Science has no special claim to a higher standing as "Truth".
2. It means that we are forced to recognise the existence of this fiduciary framework. Because we know these faith assumptions exist behind knowledge, we can then bring them out into the open and examine them. It may be that these assumptions are false, and thus the knowledge built upon them is false. This may be true even for science.
3. It means that religious and moral truth stand alongside scientific truth, and can thus be recovered from being considered to be a "Matter of personal opinion".
We can reasonably take the various religious claims on offer and evaluate them to see if they stand up in the Court of truth. This is an epistemologically valid thing to do.
Nor do we have to accept the cries for pluralism in religion and morals made by those who insist we be "Politically correct". It is only offensive to call another religion wrong if you assume the Western epistemology that makes religion a matter of opinion. The same holds for moral opinions. If Western epistemology is wrong, and Polanyi is right, then religion and morals stand alongside science and maths as matters of knowledge and truth, and thus it is a valid exercise to critique them.
(Actually this is already assumed by the "Politically correct", they feel it is perfectly valid to critique Christianity and call it narrow minded and bigoted, their objection only arises when Christians critique others.)
4. It means that we, as Christians, have a valid basis for a missionary attack on the world's epistemology. This epistemology has systematically attacked Christian belief and ridiculed it for 300 years, but if the epistemology itself is fundamentally flawed then we have no reason to bow before its criticisms.
It is here we must start, as our epistemology determines beliefs, social structures, educational programmes, etc. Western epistemology has sapped the faith and power of the Christian Church, so we have an obligation to root it out and destroy it. We will not change social structures, beliefs, etc if we do not change the fundamental philosophy driving them. We cannot change that philosophy unless we examine it and abandon it for ourselves.
The creeds were devised by the
This framework is, surprisingly enough, the same one we have in our "Modern Age". The reason for this is that the Enlightenment was actually a return to the principles of Greek philosophy. Thus the Creeds have important claims implicit in them that speak to our society.
Books to Read:
Polanyi: Personal Knowledge - outlines his view of knowledge.
If you find him a bit heavy going then try one of these introductions to his thought:
R. Gelwick: The Way of Discovery: Introduction to the thought of Michael Polanyi.
Scott, Drusilla:- Everyman Revived, the Commonsense Philosophy of Michael Polanyi.
