Faith is the Substance

Details: 03 February 2012

Faith Words

It is expected that during the coming "Year of Faith", which was proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI and which is scheduled to begin next October 11th, that our Holy Father himself will be speaking and writing extensively about faith. We are fortunate, however, that he already has done this in large measure during the course of his pontificate and had done so even before his election as Pope, and so we can more or less anticipate his expected words about faith even now by recalling some of his already eloquent treatment of that vitally important matter.

He says, "Faith in God is not a form of knowledge that can be learned like chemistry or mathematics, but remains a belief. Since faith demands our whole existence, our will, our love, and since it requires letting go of ourselves, it necessarily goes beyond a mere knowledge, beyond what is demonstrable. And, because this is so, I can always turn my life away from faith and find arguments that seem to refute it. We must have the courage not to lose hold of the truth, but to stretch toward it and to accept it humbly and thankfully whenever it is given to us. Belief is never simply there in a way that would enable me to say at a certain point in time that I have it, and others do not have it. It is something living, which is inclusive of the whole person in all his dimensions, understanding, will, and feelings. It can then fasten its roots ever deeper into my life, so that my life becomes more or less identical with my faith. But, for all that, it is never just a possession. A man can always still give way to other tendencies within himself and thus fall away. Faith is always a path. As long as we live we are on the way, and on that account faith is always under pressure and under threat. It is healthy that faith can never turn into a convenient ideology and that is does not make me hardened and unable to follow the thoughts of my doubting brother and to sympathize with him. Faith can only mature by suffering anew at every stage in life the oppression and power of unbelief, by admitting its reality out there, and then finally by going right through it, so that faith again finds the path for a man opening ahead...."

The Holy Father remarks, "The Christian Faith is not a pastime, and the Church is not one club among others of a similar or different sort. Rather faith responds to the primordial questions of mankind regarding his origin and goal. It bears on those basic problems which Kant characterized as the essential core of philosophy: What can I know? What may I hope for? What is man? In other words, faith has to do with truth, and only if man is capable of truth can it also be said that he is called to freedom."

To Theology

The Pope writes, "The first item in the alphabet of faith is the statement: ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (John 1:1). Faith reveals to us that the eternal Reason is the Ground of all things, or, put in other terms, that things are reasonable from the ground up. Faith does not aim to offer man some sort of psychotherapy. Its psychotherapy is the truth. This is what makes it universal and by its nature missionary. It is also the reason why faith is intrinsically seeking understanding, as the Fathers of the Church say. Understanding, hence, rational engagement with the prior given Word is a constitutive principle of the Christian Faith, which of necessity spawns theology. This trait, moreover, distinguishes the Christian Faith from all other religions, even from a purely historical point of view. Theology is a specifically Christian phenomenon which follows from the structure of this faith."

The Supreme Pontiff says, "Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself ‘be tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’ (Ephesians 4:14), seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires. We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God and true Man. He is the measure of true humanism. A mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false and deceit from the truth."

"One element Jesus uses to define friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans ‘idem velle, idem nolle’ (‘having the same likes and the same dislikes’) was also the definition of friendship. Friendship with Christ coincides with the third request of the ‘Our Father’, which is, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. At His hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will into a will conformed and united with the divine will. He suffered the whole drama of our autonomy, and precisely by placing our will in God’s hands, He gives us true freedom. ‘Not as I will but as You will’ (Matthew 26:39). Our redemption is brought about in this communion of wills. Being friends of Jesus is to become friends of God. The more we love Jesus and the more we know Him, the more our true freedom develops and the more our joy in being redeemed flourishes."

Faith Thoughts

Father Walter Farrell says about faith, "Faith is a view, a superior view, opening up truths that only God could know. In itself faith perfects the mind of man far beyond anything else that can come to it in the universe. Yet, for all that, faith is an imperfect thing. Although the vision should be spread before us, we have not the eyes of God. We are looking at truths too bright for our eyes, so we move in obscurity. Faith is obscure. By faith a man moves through darkness, but he moves securely because his hand is in the hand of God. He is literally seeing through the eyes of God, as a blind person sees through the eyes of a friend, because all that he believes, he believes precisely by reason of the word of the First Truth. The darkness of faith is not a discouragement or a ground for mistrust. It is a promise of that time when we shall no longer see ‘as in a mirror obscurely, but face to face’ (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is a challenge that can be met only by bending the stiff neck of pride while we listen again to the wise words of a Father as He tells us things which our puny experience can never reach."

Rosalind Murray says, "The light of faith confers upon us an undreamed enhancement of our vision... but it is only to be bought at a price, the price of our submission and surrender, the giving up of what we ourselves are or claim to be."