Faith

Faith is something I seem to write about a lot, but it's something I find it quite hard to define or to explain. So I thought writing a post might help me think about these things and perhaps explain to readers what I mean when I talk about it.

The first thing that comes to mind when I try to think about what faith means is this verse: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." The passage then goes on to give many examples of Old Testament characters who, because of their faith, their trust in God, were able to do difficult things and endure terrible times. The passage was written to encourage Jewish Christians who were facing persecution for their faith, and to encourage them to keep trusting in the God who could sustain them through those hardships.

I've heard faith described as a verb, that it's "not about how much you know, it is about acting on what you know. If you have the tiniest inkling – a mustard seed’s worth of understanding – of God’s power and goodness, act on it, for then everything becomes possible" (from my favourite website, the ever-popular WordLive.)

I like the idea of that. The idea that through trying to believe what we are beginning to understand is true, it becomes possible for us to truly believe it. It sounds so simple. But it isn't. Nor is it the start of the process- it still leaves the question of how we get to the point of recognising and accepting God's power and goodness in the first place.

We can see God at work in others, changing their lives. We can see him, maybe, at work through others involved in helping change the world. We may have an experience- of overwhelming love, of being cared for- which convinces us that God is real. We can study the Bible and become convinced that this God is real. All these things involve us taking the first steps- to look with an open mind, to be willing to see. But they also involve God working in us, drawing our attention to things, showing us himself. Evidence alone is not enough. We need God to step into our world and draw us to himself.

That's the problem, really. We can only conceive of things within our experience. God, a being who is outside human knowledge, outside the universe, outside time, is completely beyond anything we understand. Unless God reaches into our world and touches our lives we cannot know him. Without that knowledge, that breaking-in, the very idea of a God seems ridiculous or meaningless. We can't judge something so far outside our knowledge by our usual standards and tests of what is possible or likely or true. But God loves us. If we want to know him, he reaches into our world and shows himself to us. Then we can begin to know him.

I think the only conclusion I've come to is that I can't fully explain what faith is or how a person acquires it. I wish I could. Saint Augustine comes close when he (according to the internet) says that "Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." I don't think that fully explains it, though. It's still something of a mystery.