because of the authority of God Himself, the Revealer, who can neither deceive or be deceived. (Session 3, Chapter 3).
(7) Existential faith, much discussed in our time, stresses the “leap of faith” or act of trust in God. It is not unlike Luther’s idea of faith, but without his certainty in the infallibility of the Bible and with a strong emphasis on a commitment to human betterment that is not so evident from complete reliance on “grace alone.”
Since the time of World War II, the lived experience of faith, even for Catholics, has shifted more and more in this existentialist” direction. Vatican II, although endorsing the definition of faith given at Vatican I, has taken a more favorable view of the non-rational “fideism” that Vatican I so feared. This “religious sense” or impulse has, to some extent, been recognized and re-understood more positively by the theologians and bishops of Vatican II as being at the core of the human quest. This quest is, even in the atheistic dreams of a materialistic paradise, a testimony to the unseen work of the Holy Spirit drawing the human soul to God (see The Church in the Modern World,” especially sections 10 and 22). If such existential longings are not “faith” in any actual sense of the word, they are the soil in which the seeds of faith can be planted, take root, and grow. To the precisely nuanced definition of Vatican I, the fathers of Vatican II an additional emphasis, not so much on an obedience
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to the teaching of the church, but on an obedience to the impulse or grace of faith itself, “the obedience of faith . . . by which a man commits his whole self freely to God” (Vatican II, “Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Section 5).
Before passing on from this historical overview of the various meanings of faith, I think we should also have a look at the one spot in the New Testament where something of a definition of faith is given. “Faith,” says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews (11:1), “is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, the conviction about things we do not see” (The New American Bible translation). The New Jerusalem Bible, on the other hand, translates this passage as: “Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of the realities that remain unseen.”
If the basic meaning of these two versions may seem close, the precise translation of the key words, hypostasis and elegchos, are the subject of much debate. If some, like The Jerusalem Bible translators, see them better translated as “guarantee” and “proof,” others, as in the New American translation, understand them in less objective terms and more descriptive of the believer’s state of mind. In terms of the models of faith given above, what we have here is a clash between what seems to be a Catholic emphasis on objective content (what is believed) and a Protestant emphasis on confidence (or how we believe). Yet both are Catholic translations of the Bible. But given the general context of the rest of the chapter (the ancient Hebrew patriarchs as examples of faith) it is clear that the author sees faith and hope as a single piece unfolding in time: past promise as leading to future fulfillment, faith as the ground of hope. (See Myles M. Bourke on “The Epistle to the Hebrews” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 61:62.)
It is obvious from all the above that the term “faith” can mean a multitude of things to many different people. If you doubt this, just look up the word in a modern dictionary. But
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part of the confusion also comes from the similar uses of another word, “belief.” Wilfred Cantwell Smith, in his scholarly study Faith and Belief, has shown how the original English meaning of the word “believe” meant to “give one’s love” to someone or something, particularly in the sense of pledging one’s allegiance to the object of that love. This original meaning of “believe” can be traced to a common Germanic root word from which the modern German lieb or “love” takes its same origin. So in English, at least, “believe” should mean something very sacred and powerful. Unfortunately, the modern use of the word often means just the opposite, and we often end up using the word to describe any opinion regarding any matter that suits our fancy, even going so far as to say which team we “believe” will win the next world series.
As a practical note, I should say at this point that in this book I will try to restrict my use of the word “belief” to the contents or convictions that we hold in faith, even while occasionally using the verb “believe” to describe the act of faith, hoping that some of the ancient power of this word will sink in with its emphasis on a loving trust in and faithfulness to God. But on the whole, I think the time has come to try to gather in all these approaches to the meaning of faith into one basic understanding that takes in all these points of view. To do so would help us to arrive at a dynamic understanding of faith.
The Anatomy of Faith
Looking at the dictionary definitions as well as the various understandings of faith down through history, and even recent opinion polls, it is possible to see three basic meanings.
First, faith can mean commitment, fidelity, or allegiance; this is what the polls indicate that most people today mean
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by “faith.” This meaning centers on the act of believing or having faith. Dulles calls this the “subjective” aspect or pole of faith, the personal element that we as responsible, deciding individuals bring into this relationship with God and ultimate truth.
Second, faith can also mean the contents or the system of beliefs that we speak of as a “religion.” Dulles calls this the “objective” aspect or the pole that centers on what we believe. This is the part that Catholics and other Christians who lay great stress on doctrine sometimes speak of as “the faith.” I will generally call this aspect the conviction of faith or “faith convictions” — that is, the things that we are convinced are the ultimate truth.
Finally, by “faith” people also mean a certain quality in their lives that involves a sense of optimism, or trust, or, if I may use a word based on the Latin word for faith ( fides) , a certain kind of confidence. It is also the meaning that has caused the greatest amount of confusion and misunderstanding about the nature of faith.
But I think I see something else. Recall the diagram that we saw in the last chapter, the one based on Viktor Frankl’s. There we saw an upside down right-angled triangle with the agent-self at the bottom, and at the top-left corner, where the right-angle is formed, “meaning.” Then off to the right side, “happiness” or “fulfillment.” But we also learned, from elsewhere in Frankl’s writings, that “religion is the search for ultimate meaning” and that “faith is trust in ultimate meaning.”
Now, if we think of “ultimate meaning” as referring to the objective aspect of faith (which I prefer to call “ conviction”), while the “search” part refers to our subjective “commitment” to truth, then I think we can take Frankl’s description of faith as “trust” (or as I would term it, “confidence”), fit it into the third slot, and come up with this picture: Page 27
FIGURE 2
Just from comparing this diagram with the earlier one in the previous chapter, I think it is obvious why there is so much confusion about “faith” and why this third understanding of the word as “trust” or “confidence” has caused so many problems. As soon as we think of faith in terms of trust or confidence (the upper right of the diagram) we must also be led to the conclusion that this type of “faith” cannot be directly sought or achieved, or produced on command. It is, like “happiness” or “fulfillment” in Frankl’s basic scheme, something that cannot be successfully “pursued” but can
