How Does the Bible Understand Faith?
In Hebrews we read:
“Now faith is the assurance (hypostatis, ὑπόστασις) of things hoped for, the conviction (elenchos) ἔλεγχος) of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 RSVCE).
On the surface, this verse contrasts ‘realization’ (‘assurance’ RSVCE) from opinion, suspicion, and doubt. It also refers to ‘things not seen,’ which distinguishes it from those truths known through Science or the first principles of reason. The verse does not explicitly point to God as the object of divine faith, and to hope in him, but this is clearly implied. Attridge and Koester note that we see the hoped-for goals of reward, salvation and divine life in the verses, which follow. [i]
Attridge and Koester observe,
Faith, in other words, involves both affective-volitional and cognitive elements; it is obedient fidelity and trusting belief at the same time and both components are essential. The perception of reality that faith provides gives the basic motivation34 to endure trials and tribulations. [ii]
Craig R. Koester notes the translation “assurance” captures this more completely as both “a pledge or guarantee and subjectively it is a personal state of certainty”[iii]
While not denying the subjective element of faith, the objective nature of hypostasis is much more prominent in this verse. Yet Mitchell suggests, “It is not out of the question that the author may intend both senses.”[iv]
The “assurance of what is hoped for” finds its reality in the object of our hope, which is God and his promises. Hypostasis (“assurance”) in ancient philosophical literature pointed to the “reality” behind appearances [v] this is also suggested by suggested by “the parallel between hypostasis (“assurance”) and elenchos, which was the “proof” of something’s existence or truth.” [vi] Elenchos never has the subjective sense of “conviction.” The RSVCE is incorrect on this point.
Many modern commentators have distanced themselves from Luther’s purely subjective interpretation of hypostasis as “sure confidence.” The primary sense of the word seems to be objective but we need not deny a subjective element. The paradigmatic act of faith later in Hebrew 12:1-3 may point in this direction.
Pope Benedict XVI is willing to concede that faith has a subjective element, but does not think we see this in Hebrew 11:1. He notes, “Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are still unseen.” [vii]
The writings of St. Paul echo similar notions. The apostle writes, “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance” (Romans 8:24–25). In a similar manner, St. Paul writes, “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). And a few verse later, “So we are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:6).
Religious faith is directed at what is unseen, and what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:6).
Thinking More Deeply About Faith
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
According to the glossary to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Faith is “Both a gift of God and a human act by which the believer gives personal adherence to God who invites his response, and freely assents to the whole truth that God has revealed.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the characteristics of Christian faith, by noting that faith begins as a grace given by God. “Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him” (CCC 153). In order to attain faith, we must first be moved and assisted by God. The Holy Spirit moves the human heart to bring about conversion and illumination.
While it is true that faith is brought
about by the interior help of the Spirit, it is still an authentically human
act. “Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary
neither to human freedom nor to human reason” (CCC 154). The human intellect
and will cooperate with divine grace. We offer our assent to divine truth
by the free exercise of our will, which is nonetheless moved by God through
grace (CCC 155).
While the revealed truths of faith do not appear true and intelligible in the
light of our natural reason, we nevertheless believe ‘because of the authority
of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.’”
(CCC 156). Yet this is not blind faith but faith seeking understanding. Faith
is in accord with reason and strengthened by the external proofs of his
Revelation and be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit (CCC 156).
Because of this, faith is certain, in fact more certain than all human
knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. (CCC
157). The act of faith seeks deeper understanding and a more penetrating
knowledge it truth which will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly
set afire by love. (CCC 158). In the words of St. Augustine, “I believe, in
order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” [St. Augustine, Sermo 43, 7, 9]
There is no inherent conflict between faith and truthful science: “Though faith
is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and
reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed
the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth
ever contradict truth.” [Dei Filius
4: DS 3017] (CCC 159).
The act of faith is of its very nature a free act, which requires that no one be
forced to believe against their will (CCC 160). Faith is necessary for
salvation [Dei Filius 3: DS 3012; cf.
Mt 10:22; 24:13 and Heb 11:6; Council of Trent: DS 1532] (CCC 161). The
free gift of faith is precious and must be carefully preserved. We can lose
this gift (CCC 162).
Faith is the beginning of eternal life and a foretaste of the heavenly beatific
vision CCC 163). Yet the Catechism warns, “'we walk by faith, not by sight' [2
Cor 5:7]; we perceive God as 'in a mirror, dimly' and only 'in
part.' [1 Cor 13:12]. Even though enlightened by him in whom it
believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test” (CCC
164).
Faith in General
Today the word ‘faith’ is for the most part is a religious word. Although we might say we have faith in a friend or spouse. The word faith in the Bible, however, is a general category for the activity of knowing or believing. It means, “to believe to the extent of complete trust and reliance—‘to believe in, to have confidence in”. [viii]
This not generally how we use the word ‘faith’ today in English. We might say to someone, “I believe there is a gallon jug of milk in the fridge,” but unless we are joking, we would not say, “I have faith there is a gallon jug of milk in the fridge.”
The act of coming to know something can be of two types. [ix] The first would be a scientific demonstration or a logical idea that our mind
see as self-evident. We assent to this type of truth because we simply see that
it is true with our senses or with our mind. We assent or agree to the truth of
the idea, because we are the moved by the intrinsic evidence of truths. The
evidence in this case is something concrete.
| Scientific Demonstration | |
| Assents to things seen by the senses either: 1) empirically observed 2) or seen when the mind grasps that something is true by the first principles of reason as well as those truths logically deduced or inferred from evident principles. Assent by intrinsic reason which is moved by the intrinsic evidence of truths. |
In order to believe something in this category we must have some motive, and the motive is not concrete evidence. If the motive is strong and the assent is firm, we call this faith. If the motive for assent is weak or uncertain, then the resulting act is opinion.
Therefore, in a certain sense, faith stands between scientific or logical demonstration and opinion. It is an act of both the intellect and the will. When we make an act of faith, the intellect assents to a given truth (or falsehood) because the will chooses to do so motivated by the credibility afforded to the witness. The credible witness substitutes for the undeniable evidence of the first category. Yet this is not “blind faith” as some would characterize it. It is assent with thinking and the character of the witness weighed by our intellect.
Although we do not call this ‘faith’ in common speech, we frequently make acts of faith in everyday life. If my dog is sick, and I take him to the veterinarian and she tells me that feeding Fluffy grapes is the cause of his sickness, I am not going to spend eight years studying to receive my own DVM credentials, I instead make an act of faith and assent to the truth the veterinarian has shared with me. I believe in something, which to me is unseen, based on the credibility of the witness. If my neighbor or friend shares some other reason for Fluffy’s illness, which I consider doubtful, and I question his credibility, but I give weak assent to this idea, then it is opinion.
Religious Faith
The above example about natural faith, but we also knowledge based
on faith. We can distinguish two types of knowledge based on faith—human faith, when we rely on another
person’s witness (as in the case of pupil/teacher, child/parent), and “supernatural faith (when the testimony
comes from God himself, who is Supreme Truth). In this latter case the
knowledge provided is most certain.” [x]
- Assents to things unseen and does not directly see the intrinsic reason for the truth of a given proposition.
- The intellect moved by the will, assents to an unseen object only if there is some motive for giving assent. The motive is a witness who is either credible or not credible.
- If the motive is so strong that the assent is firm, than the resulting act is called faith.
- Faith is a firm impulse of the will, founded upon a sufficiently credible witness. The proposition merits firm assent because of the authority of those who teach it.
- If the motive for assent is uncertain, then the resulting act is opinion.
- Opinion is a weak impulse of the will which remains in doubt with fear.
- A firm assent of the mind to things unseen as supernatural virtue by which we believe the truths God has revealed, moved by God’s grace and motivated by God as Truth.
Supernatural faith is a firm assent of the mind to things unseen as supernatural virtue. We believe the truths God has revealed. By his grace, God’s own truth moves and motivates us to assent. The credible witness in this case is God himself. As a kind of preamble, we can determine philosophically that God exist, and historically we can see that it is reasonable to believe that God has spoken through the prophets and finally in the person of Jesus Christ. In addition to the work of the Holy Spirit are three concrete classes of witnesses.
Three Classes of Witnesses
1) The prophets who announced His
coming
2) The Apostles who witnessed His
Incarnation (preaching, Passion, and Resurrection)
3) The Church, which preserves and passes on the deposit of faith [xi].
Again it should be emphasized that this is faith seeking understanding, ad not some kind of unthinking obedience to authority. As St. Paul admonishes the Corinthians, “We destroy arguments and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4b–5). This is assent with thinking.
The Act of Faith
In the realm of grace, and moved interiorly by the Spirit, God calls for a specific human response to his witness. St. Paul writes to the Romans,
“Through him we have received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith, for the sake of his name, among all the Gentiles” (Romans 1:5).
“Now to him who can strengthen you, according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:25–26).
The proper response of man to God’s revelation, aided by the interior movement of the Sprit, is obedience of faith (cf. Acts 6:7, Romans 6:17).
The fathers of Second Vatican Council describe this obedience as involving two aspects. First, it is a commitment by which we offer the whole self freely to God, and by which we offer the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals. Secondly, we must acknowledge the work of the Spirit of God, whose interior help must precede and assist our will, moving the heart and turning it to God, and opening the eyes of the mind.
"The obedience of faith" (Rom. 16:26; see 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) "is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which man commits his whole self freely to God, offering the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals," (4) [xii] and freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him. To make this act of faith, the grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit must precede and assist, moving the heart and turning it to God, opening the eyes of the mind and giving "joy and ease to everyone in assenting to the truth and believing it." (5)[xiii] To bring about an ever deeper understanding of revelation the same Holy Spirit constantly brings faith to completion by His gifts. (Dei Verbum, 5)
Augustine Cardinal Bea comments on this passage and the notion of obedience of faith. He notes that while this obedience is an act of the intellect and will,
“ …we must not reduce it to a mere act of the intellect, or even to an act of the will. With faith ‘man entrusts his whole self to God’. It is not just a question of accepting doctrine as true, nor yet of simply accepting this or that religious practice. The purpose of God’s revelation is to make a man a son by adoption, and to admit him to fellowship with himself …To believe means to accept God’s plan, to allow one’s own life to be transformed and given a definite significance and direction.[xiv]
Cardinal Ratzinger in his earlier writings notes,
In other words, belief signifies the decision that at the very core of human existence there is a point that cannot be nourished and supported on the visible and tangible, that encounters and comes into contact with what cannot be seen and finds that it is a necessity for its own existence.
Such an attitude is certainly to be attained only by what the language of the Bible calls “turning back,” “con-version.” Man’s natural inclination draws him to the visible, to what he can take in his hand and hold as his own. He has to turn around inwardly in order to see how badly he is neglecting his own interests by letting himself be drawn along in this way by his natural inclination. He must turn around to recognize how blind he is if he trusts only what he sees with his eyes. Without this change of direction, without this resistance to the natural inclination, there can be no belief. Indeed belief is the conversion in which man discovers that he is following an illusion if he devotes himself only to the tangible. This is at the same time the fundamental reason why belief is not demonstrable: it is an about-turn; only he who turns about is receptive to it; and because our inclination does not cease to point us in another direction, it remains a turn that is new every day; only in a lifelong conversion can we become aware of what it means to say “I believe.”[xv]
While faith itself is an objective reality, the notion of the
obedience of faith involves the movement of the heart, and a decisive change to
our being as we cooperate with the graces of the Holy Spirit. Since faith involves both the intellect and the will it necessarily connect to our cooperation and subjective response, even though founded on an objective reality.
[i] Harold W. Attridge and Helmut Koester, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on
the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary
on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 308, n 31. ”Enoch (vs. 5)
attains immortality; Noah (vs. 7) salvation; Abraham (vss. 8–9) a place of
inheritance; Sarah (vss. 11, 12) promised offspring; Abraham (vs. 19) his son,
offered to God; Joseph (vs. 22) burial in Israel; Moses (vs. 26) a reward. In
the concluding passage (vss. 32–35) there is a lengthy list of the goods
attained through faith.”
[ii] Ibid., note 34 “Note the motivations ascribed to the various biblical
characters in vss. 11, 14–15, 19, 26.”
[iii] Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 36, Anchor
Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 472.
[iv]Alan
C. Mitchell, Hebrews, ed. Daniel J.
Harrington, vol. 13, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
2007), 228.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Benedict
XVI, Spe Salvi (Vatican City:
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2007).
[viii] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament:
Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996),
375–376.
[ix] St. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 1, a. 4. resp.
[x]The
Letter to the Hebrews, The Navarre Bible
(Dublin; New York: Four Courts Press; Scepter Publishers, 2005), 114.
[xi] Lawrence Feingold, Faith Comes from What Is Heard: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology
(Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2016), 31.
[xii] First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Catholic Faith, Chap. 3, "On Faith:" Denzinger 1789 (3008).
[xiii] Second Council of Orange, Canon 7: Denzinger 180
(377); First Vatican Council, loc. cit.: Denzinger 1791 (3010).
[xiv] Augustine Cardinal Bea, The Word of God and Mankind, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,
1967) 105.
[xv] Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction
to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 50–52.
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