This is one of those amazing things. I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what Biblical “faith” means, how it contrasts with “doubt,” and how these concepts tie together in connection with the way we understand the Bible. Literally moments after praying for some wisdom about this, I thought of checking the Conn-versation blog, and lo and behold — there is a post from a week ago on this very topic. I reproduce that post below, to be chewed on when I have more time:
Over the past year, as I have been posting, lurking, and chiming in here at Conn-versation, and reading and occasionally commenting on Art Boulet’s personal blog, I have continually found myself brought back to the question of what Christian faith really is.
The Bible has a good bit to say on the subject, but it’s really a New Testament concept. The OT explicitly addresses faithfulness, but it’s usually in the context of a quality of Yahweh and the desired quality of his people. The aspect of belief and trust that we typically mean when we talk about faith makes its first appearance in the gospels. Jesus observes faith in the people he encounters, and tends to evaluate it on a quantitative scale: little or great. He seems to be addressing their specific willingness to trust in him personally to accomplish in-real-time salvific acts, manifest most often in healing and life-restoration miracles, which then serve as object lessons pointing to his greater purpose. For the most part, it’s not until the epistles that we get a fuller-blown explication of faith as belief and trust in the person and work of Christ for salvation and eternal life.
In light of this, what does it then mean when we talk about hanging on to faith or losing faith as we ask questions of the Bible? It has occurred to me that conservative reformed Christians have worked hard to ensure that faith is so underpinned by certainties that – well – it doesn’t require all that much faith. To be one of the people of Yahweh requires faith in Jesus, which requires faith in the Bible, which believers can trust completely because the church has doctrinally declared to be inerrant, wholly trustworthy, and perfect down to its very words. Start asking too many untidy questions of the Conn-versation sort, and the whole system, it would seem, is at risk of collapsing, bringing the faith of the faithful along with it.
This is where I’ve had difficulty. Does my faith in the Jesus of the gospels really hinge on Genesis 5 being literally true, as opposed to an Israelite retooling and repurposing of the Sumerian kings list? On insisting as true that Samson was a historic figure and his deeds were accomplished as recorded or that David wrote the Psalms bearing his name? On intentionally burying my understanding of the very different looks of Jeremiah in the MT and the LXX in favor of one Jeremiah only? If these things are equivocal, must it follow that Jesus is equivocal?
Faith requires an element of trust in the absence of concrete proof. It is, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “the conviction of things not seen.” Given that, to what extent does the church’s admittedly well-intended insistence on the perfection of Scripture as a bedrock of faith begin to work at cross-purposes with trusting in things not seen? It strikes me as requiring a greater measure of faith to go with the kind of Bible we’ve actually got than the kind of Bible we may have at one time thought we had, or the kind that arch-conservatives continue to insist we must have. Is there room for the Holy Spirit to infuse the believer’s soul with the truth of the gospel resulting in faith even when Genesis 1-11 is understood to be literature rather than history?
I think it’s time for some reflections on exactly what we as Christian believers mean when we say we have faith. Is the Bible we have, the one that God in some mysterious way caused to be written, assembled, translated, and passed down by generation after generation of Christians, robust enough to withstand detailed secular and academic scrutiny and still contribute to the creation and growth of faithful believers in the person and work of Jesus to salvation? If it’s not, what are we really saying? Is it, as the conservatives would argue, that God is less than fully God? Or, is it, as I have begun to think, that our faith is less than the faith that Jesus himself commended? Or, is it something else? What do you think?
9 replies on “What is Biblical "Faith"”
I’m so glad you have posted this and that I have read it. This is EXACTLY the issue I am struggling with, namely what is this thing we call faith, and how does it relate to the “inneracy” of scripture. He/she also put into words what has been on the back of my mind but have not been able to express, how faith seems to change moving from OT to gospels to epistles. I look forward to following this thread (and the original) in the future.
Hi Pete. Recently I began reading Os Guiness’ book “God in the Dark,” which is very helpful on some of these questions. To me, it seems important to keep two things in mind: (1) the ultimate object of our faith is the triune God; and (2) faith and doubt are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I think it helps to remember that scripture is not there for its own sake; it’s there to reveal the triune God and particularly to point us to Christ. It seems odd, when I think of it this way, to speak of “doubting” scripture. I may have questions, or even doubts, about what God is or isn’t revealing about himself in scripture, but these can prompt me to study more carefully what the scriptures mean and how to understand them. I don’t think God expects us to put reason on the shelf and to believe things that can be shown not to be true (e.g., that the earth was created 6,000 years ago). I think he providentially gives us access to information, and situates us within communities and traditions of interpretation, that allow us to make use of all the resources available to us to understand Truth. Faith, reason, historical / text criticism, scholarship, and even doubt can be complementary aspects of a proper approach to scripture. “Inerrancy” properly understood might be a useful theological affirmation based on the character of God, but it can’t require us to ignore Truth or else it is itself deceptive.
I second admin’s thoughts. Relegating the historicity of the OT to speculation is a slippery slope. Concession on historical matters and such in the face of criticism is to show a *lack* of faith, IMO.
Laughing boy — I’m not sure I would say exactly what you said. I think criticism has an important role to play in helping us understand what sort of “historical matters” we have in the Biblical text. I think Pete Enns is basically right about this. But — talking about what “sort” of historical matters perhaps is different than saying the text has no contact with “history” at all. I don’t believe it is a lack of faith to take criticism seriously and to adjust our understanding when the criticism seems essentially correct and reasonable. This can be an exercise of faith, but it is, I think, at the same time, sometimes a delicate exercise that also can lead to doubt. Even this, I think, is “ok” so long as the matter is continually put before the Lord as a desire to understand more fully all of His truth.
Laughing Boy’s comment simply stresses my point. What is faith? Is the faith God desires the personal conviction that every statement made in the Bible historical fact? Or is faith the trusting of Jesus to forgive us via His work on the cross. One is a statement of affirming propositional statements, the other is a question of repentance, realizing you are a sinner, and the desire and therefor acceptance of that free gift offered. Now, I spent the first 30 years of my life affirming both of these realities, and I could come up with plenty of reasons why the second is somehow impossible without the first. And then I made the mistake of learning.
Now, I realize that common descent is true, and indeed the many other reasons why Genesis 1-11 is not a historical description. I will go ahead and drop the term inneracy as using it would just annoy my more conservative brothers as my definition must be different. But all the rest is true, right? Some sharp line at Genesis 12+ that brings everything into good old fashion innerant history. Well now I’m afraid I question the details of things further along, most prominently pushed into doubt by an honest exploration of source criticism where multiple interwoven stories are often mutually exclusive on several details, not to mention that wide sweeping declarations of pretty much all of modern archeology (save the select few apologists, though I must admit a bit of skepticism given my experience with YEC sites on creation issues).
So here I continue to TRUST in Jesus for salvation but at the same time I know I don’t have as much FAITH that every narration in the Bible is actual history. And in Laughing Boy opinion, this simply is a lack of faith. And to a certain degree he is right, it is a lack of faith in the simple proposition that every statement is factual history. But be that as it may, as some point I have to have faith that I am not being tricked by Satan when photons hit my eyes are register an image, namely that we can evaluate the evidence and if it becomes overwhelming obvious (such as that the earth revolves around the sun or that we share a common ancestor with primates) then it must be accepted. Even Laughing Boy did this, when he didn’t storm out of 2nd grade when they told him the earth revolves around the sun, despite the strong denial on Biblical innerarcy grounds of John Calvin and Martin Luther. Sometimes I “decide” to simply believe in the historical nature of the garden of eden, to put my stamp of authenticity in such historical narration but it never really works. It is making Mark Twain’s taunt of our faith a reality, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”. Or to put it another way, the more modern attack, questioning whether Christians check their brains at the door. To fully pull the OT into innerant history my honest answer would have to be yes, I did.
The obvious objections are thus 1) if everyone of Moses’s actions were not purely historical, why would I assume everyone of Jesus’s were (IE HIS RESSURECTION!) and 2) Jesus seems to treat them as historical. Indeed, Moses himself shows up at the transfiguration!!! I must admit, I have no good answers for this and it has thrown me into a world wind of excessive inner turmoil. I’m holding on the affirmation of several points 1) I KNOW Jesus, and certainly in the past I was CONVINCED I knew him and 2) while I don’t try to harmonize the gospels any more there sure do seem to be reported as journalistic history and 3) the epistle writers were very passionate
When I tell people my struggles (most of which I keep hidden which doesn’t help but is necessary for my family situation and the community I live in) I get two basic answers. 1) Take it to God and pray and 2) stop reading that stuff, just believe. To the first I can assure you if the Truine God ever got sick of our voice He would do so hearing my whine over this issue. Alas I feel I am getting no clear answer, indeed I’m afraid my experience is somewhat parallel to those described by the contributers to the de-conversion.com blog, which scares me a great deal. As for the second, I can’t imagine our faith is worth anything it only appears true if you simply ignore all other evidence. I understand you limit a child on what they are exposed regarding the world, I don’t think the same holds true for an adult. If it is false, then honest objectors should show it to be false and I should be able to discern that. Instead, I find that what basically all the biologists were affirming was not a huge conspiracy or satanic trick, it was actually a reality. I won’t say that with nearly as much confidence concerning some of my other lines of evidence questioning OT history, given I have not explored them as much. But if the best way to deny them is to simply refuse to explore them at all, how can we with any integrity try to address a non believing world who isn’t afraid to explore the evidence and finds themselves convinced otherwise. Is this our new apologetic, the “I got my fingers in my ears, now put yours in your ears so you can believe in Jesus”. If I’m going to assert the innerancy of the Bible and hang that in part of OT history, should not any reasonably objective study of history make clear that very history.
Pete — I can relate in a very direct way to the turmoil you are feeling. Can I offer a few thoughts?
— On the question of the historicity of various events in the Old Testament and the historicity of Jesus, it’s a shame that this has become a common equation in some circles, I think. There is excellent evidence for the historicity of Jesus — nobody really disputes that Jesus is a historical figure even if the details of his life are disputed — and there are very good warrants for believing in his resurrection, though of course this can’t be proven (see, e.g., NT Wright’s “The Resurrection of the Son of God’). This historical / critical problems surrounding, say, the Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis simply are not really comparable to whatever historical / critical problems surround the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
— In my view, a significant part of the problem we’re wrestling with is the distance between academic / theological and popular notions of inerrancy. Even many faculty at very conservative evangelical seminaries acknowledge some significant qualifications on what “error” may mean, in particular in the genre of different documents. Just about everyone, except maybe groups like Answers in Genesis, recognizes that Gen. 1-11 is a unique genre and that it is even further from journalistic reporting than the Gospels. There ARE many evangelicals who are not blind to these tensions and who are working with more nuanced understandings of scripture and authority. I’ve mentioned Pete Enns’ “Inspiration and Incarnation” several times, and he also fleshes out some of these themes on his website. Telford Work, NT Wright, and others also have helpful books out there.
— I’d really encourage you to read some good books on faith, certainty and doubt — the Os Guiness book I mentioned, Alister McGrath’s “Doubting,” John Stackhouse’s “Humble Apologetics,” Leslie Newbiggin’s “Proper Confidence,” Donald Bloesch’s “The Ground of Certainty” — these are a few that have offered perspectives I’ve found helpful.
— don’t stop reading – -but maybe take a break from the skeptic blogs. They tend to be as bombastic and lacking in nuance as the worst Christian fundamentalists.
Thank you for your book recommendations. I will indeed look into to them. I have already read Peter Enn’s book. I’m afraid I didn’t find it as helpful as other members of this “evolutionary creationism” blog ring (haven’t said that I don’t know what your stance is on these matters, but you were linked to on Gordon Glover’s site). Enns actually added fuel to my doubt by pointing out how very common the literature of the Bible was at the time, with similar uses of myths and even worse, the similar type of Laws that predate Mount Sinai. Enns was careful to offer an explanation but I found it less convincing then that which would seem to be the more obvious conclusion. And one thing that frustrates me with this talk of different genre is that no one goes so far do say that the genre could be not historical. Indeed, Enns never said this, and I seemed as frustrated as his conservative critics that waited on every page for him to finally make that statement. I’m so glad my livelihood does not depend on affirming such and such doctrines. Even for what Enns did say it has ended his relationship with Westminster. Not that I know what his true thoughts are, maybe they are exactly as described in the book.
I recognize that not all academics have the same definition of innerant as the lay person. Yet still still it seems few who have come out claiming a non historical stance (or maybe some have, and they either leave or we push them out of evangelicalism). It seems most of the prominent conservative believers entertaining such usually are scientists, not theologians. I know (and am very happy) that Waltke endorsed theistic evolution in his latest OT theology, though I think he still affirms all history perhaps in a manner akin to CS Lewis. Either way, I am not in academics, I am in the local church, and the definition of innerarcy stands. I have stepped down from leadership do to these reasons. Both the elders and myself seem motivated to keep the reason why under wraps but it might just be a matter of time.
I certainly wouldn’t put the same level of confidence on Jesus events as the tower of babel. Indeed, that ALWAYS seemed like a made up story, a good decade before I ever thought about evolution. And at first past I wasn’t much threatened by perhaps a non existent first couple. This was probably premature, as Paul calls Adam out several times, and also only a bit of thought runs into trouble quickly on the origin of sin etc. But lets let that pass for a moment. Questioning the exact historical events around the exodus (promted mostly by inconsitent internal evidence from several sources) really gives me pause. And maybe indeed that was also commonplace writing and their concept of “history” for 700bc, but it strains my brain (and that of all my conservative brothers who might catch me writing this), that the true Son of God would attach himself to this history. As I mentioned before, Moses showed up at the Transfiguration. Okay, you might argue that at best this confirms his existence but the whole thing doesn’t sit well with me. Or lets take an example from Genesis 1-11 and its ever shifting undefined “genre”. I am convicted through genetics, alle frequency, disease patterns, and most importantly population distribution both present and evidence from antiquity that the human race was not bottlenecked down to 8 (closely related mind you) people and mere 4 thousand years ago. Forgot discussions of local vs global flood, I know of the interpretations of the old earth guys, I’m talking about the reality of everyone else dying however large the flood. It seems it would go against about everything we know about modern genetics, archeology, paleoantropology, etc to confirm this history. Well packaged within Genesis 1-11, (and quite clearly two sources coupled together), I want to just let this stand as mythology and a lesson on God’s actions in the world. But then I’m back in the NT, happily reading along 2 Peter, and there he goes and brings in Noah as an example from ancient history. I had an anthropology teacher who told me this is the same as someone referencing George Washington and the Cherry tree, which serves its purpose even if it does not necessarily have a historical base. I’m chewing on that now.
I have NT Wright’s book. I have never felt the need to read it given I have never questioned this resurrection, though it might be a good starting place to rebuild my confidence. I did start the first few chapters that were a bit hard to follow. Funny, a mere 4 years ago when I was a good Reformed Baptist NT Wright was the bad guy, endorsing NPP. I now I look to him righten my ship.
You’ll be happy to know I don’t visit de-conversion anymore. A few short days and I had pretty much read any relevant content being produced. The rest is just minor variations of the same material, and indeed the same back and fourth between the commenting believers and de-converts.
Hey Pete. Yes I understand. All those questions trouble me as well. This is not easy for me to do, believe me, I’ve struggled with it greatly, but I’m starting to get more comfortable not knowing how all of those things work out. Saying “I’m not sure now how to put this piece and that piece together but nevertheless I believe all truth is God’s truth,” after honest inquiry and prayer, is an act of faith, I think.
I do understand very well these concerns about Jesus and the apostles referring to the protohistory. Yet, we forget that the apostles and Jesus were real human beings. A balanced Christology affirms that Jesus was fully man as well as fully God; and in that, Jesus became incarnate in a particular place and time. We would not expect Jesus to have practiced carpentry techniques from the 21st Century; perhaps we also can’t expect so much more of the hermeneutical perspectives he evidenced.
George Washington and the cherry tree might be a helpful way to look at this, or maybe we can contextualize this in terms of time and culture without making it entirely “myth” — in their time and place, as human beings, they understood something as literally universal that we now understand as probably literally local. Peter didn’t know anything of the aborigines in Australia, and we have no reason to expect that God would have given him that knowledge when the Petrine epistles were written – -that simply is not the purpose of those epistles — and we can’t just ignore or waive our hands at the data you mention. But that doesn’t have to mean there was never a real “Noah” or a real “Adam” of some sort underlying the literary ways in which they’re presented to us. I’ve found Karl Barth’s idea of “saga” to be somewhat helpful here, though I don’t claim any great expertise on Barth. I don’t think this would be an “error” or “mistake” in the theological sense — it simply reflects the fact that God gave us the scriptures through human authors (a really interesting passage for this is 1 Cor. 1:16, in which Paul explicity acknowledges that his memory concerning something now inscripturated there was faulty.)
Or maybe none of these approaches totally “work”. Yet, in what field of human knowledge is everything tidy and worked out? Certainly not in the natural sciences — there are enormous paradoxes and conundra that remain unsolved, such as the problem of “dark matter.” If physicists can continue to believe in an expanding universe and in the explanatory power of physical models despite the enormous unsolved mystery of dark matter, can we continue to believe in the Christ we have come to know despite the admittedly difficult problems of heremeneutics you and I both wrestle with?
Concerning your local church — I hurt with you there too. I left a church where I’d served for 30 years partly because it became clear to me that I would always be suspect because I was willing to ask these questions. Thankfully, I’ve found another very sound church in which I’ve been given the freedom to be who I am for the most part. It isn’t easy to find, but it’s out there.
Last, concerning “evolutionary creation” — what I’m not comfortable here is that the leading voices of that camp don’t seem to have much theological sophistication, or their theology is a bit beyond where I feel comfortable. I appreciate Francis Collins, for example, but his theology is so shallow. Denis Lameoreux offers some good arguments in his new book, but personally I’m not totally comfortable with the extent to which he uses the notion of accommodation. I hear you on Waltke — I don’t think he fully understands what he’s saying in that section of his recent OT theology. Have you read any of Christopher Kaiser? His “A Theology of Scientific Endeavor” offers some interesting ideas, though not entirely convincingly. I’m also glad for John Stott’s ideas about “Adam” in his Romans commentary, though again, the model he offers isn’t totally convincing.
But lately I’m feeling more comfortable with not having to label myself on this question, not having to having to solve the whole thing myself, and just letting the conversation and debate develop. It took 300 years of hard work to solidify the doctrine of the Trinity. I suspect it’s going to take a long time, probably longer than both of our lifetimes, for the Church to come to some workable consensus on the kinds of questions you and I are wrestling with. That is not comfortable, but I’m slowly learning to let that be part of the “not yet.”
Wow, that might be the most helpful response I have read in all of my recent struggles and doubts. I thank you for your thoughtful words and taking the time to post this.