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OCTOBER 4, 2007
The Virtue of Faith
Part Two
“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Mt 17:20). With these words, Jesus teaches us the power of faith to transform our lives and to transform the world. Faith’s power, of course, comes from God, not from us. What moves mountains is the Lord acting in us and through us. But He only does this when we give our full consent, that is, when we believe in Him. Our faith, even if it is as tiny as a mustard seed, opens our whole being to the presence of God. When God is with us, who can be against us?
In the previous edition of The Catholic Sun, we considered the essential elements of faith: trust, assent and obedience. Now let us look at additional properties of this fundamental theological virtue.
Faith is obscure
The Letter to the Hebrews describes faith in the following way (11:1): “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” To put it another way, faith is obscure. It goes beyond what our human minds can grasp. The One in whom we believe we cannot see. God is a mystery.
To be sure, God is a wondrous and wonderful mystery, a mystery that inspires in us feelings of amazement and awe. Moreover, for those of us blessed with Christian faith, our minds are fascinated by the revelation of the Blessed Trinity. But we can never fully comprehend how one God can exist as three divine persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor can we completely understand how Jesus can be, at one and the same time, fully man and fully God.
St. Paul gives emphasis to this obscure and mysterious nature of faith in his New Testament Epistles. The wisdom of faith, according to this great Apostle, (1 Cor 2:7-10), is “mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew for, if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: ‘What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love,’ this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.”
St. Augustine says that faith brings us a certain kind of seeing, not one with the eyes of our body but a seeing that changes our experience of the obscurity of faith and makes us delight in the goodness of God. We are able to see into the mysteries of faith because, in faith, we gaze upon God with the eyes of love. Recall how Jesus tells Nathaniel (Jn 1:50), after he professes faith in Him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.”
Faith is certain
Of all the properties of faith, none is more controversial in our contemporary world than that of certitude. How can you be certain about something that is obscure? How can you have certitude about something that surpasses scientifically verified evidence? How can something be certain when it is mysterious?
Throughout the Sacred Scriptures, the certainty of faith is affirmed. Our father in faith, Abraham, never wavered in his faith, convinced beyond doubt that God would be true to what He had promised. The Letter to the Hebrews states that it is not enough to act “as if” you believe, “for anyone who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (11:6).
The Christian tradition, both Catholic and non-Catholic, constantly affirm faith’s certitude. Martin Luther, for example, called faith “a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times” (“Preface to Epistle to the Romans”). The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (#157), “Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives.”
Faith is a risk
Since faith is such a precious gift, it is not surprising that its certitude is contested, and not surprising that our confidence in God should be put to the test. After all, faith is an authentically human act, requiring the use of both our freedom and our reasoning. We see this struggle of faith already evident in the New Testament disciples (Mk 9:24), “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
In the past few months, we have also learned of the faith struggles of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, how God refined and deepened her faith by allowing her, for nearly 50 years, to feel in her heart the constant sentiments of dryness, darkness and loneliness. Faith, of course, is far more than feelings. It is a religious act, a submission of one’s whole self to God, with no reservations and without knowing where God will lead. In 1961, Blessed Teresa wrote to her spiritual director of how these testings had brought her to a new level of faith, “I have come to love the darkness — for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth…Jesus can’t go anymore through the agony — but He wants to go through it in me.”
“We walk by faith, not by sight,” (2 Cor 5:7), writes St. Paul. The mystery of God’s love utterly transcends our comprehension. But it is not contrary to reason. In fact, faith is entirely reasonable; we can find sufficient evidence in the world to make belief a prudent decision. What is more, as St. Thomas Aquinas asserts (II, II, 10, 1 ad 1), unbelief is contrary to our human nature. Thus, while we firmly believe in God with an unshakeable certitude, people of faith are constantly seeking deeper understanding.
Faith is a supernatural gift
Jesus repeatedly underlines the gifted-nature of faith. He says, for example (Jn 6:44), “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.” On another occasion, Jesus says (Jn 15:5), “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” St. Paul states emphatically (Eph 2:8), “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God.”
God reveals Himself to us in many and varied ways. In the fullest way, He reveals Himself in Christ. Through Christ’s Body, the Church, He continues today to come to us in word and sacrament. He also gives us the grace to respond in faith to His self-revelation in Christ. How blest then we are to believe, as Mary did. How important never to take the gift of faith for granted.
Faith is necessary for obtaining salvation; without it, we cannot please God. Jesus warns us (Mk 16:16), “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Not surprisingly, then, St. Paul urges (I Tim 1:18-19), “may you fight a good fight by having faith and a good conscience. Some, by rejecting conscience, have made a shipwreck of their faith.”
Faith is foundational. No other decision we make bears as much weight as this: to believe or not in God. It gives meaning and purpose to our lives; it overcomes boredom and futility. It opens the way for fullness of life and happiness in communion with God.
For further reading:
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church, #142-184, #1814-1816
-- Joseph Pieper, “Faith, Hope, Love,” pp. 13-86
-- Benedict Ashley, OP, “Living the Truth in Love,” pp. 41-88
-- Avery Dulles, SJ, “The Assurance of Things Hoped For”
Copyright 2007 The Catholic Sun.
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