The Nature of Christian Faith

 

            A new turn of phrase can well serve to make an old, established insight or truth more easily understood, but not always.  It was Søren Kierkegaard, I believe, who coined or made popular the phrase “leap of faith,” used three times in a recent Catholic News Service column in our diocesan newspaper.  All three uses are unfortunate, simply because they are not true. 

            “Unity in ‘necessary things’,” the article’s author writes to a correspondent, “means that each of us must try to make the leap of faith even when to do so seems to go against logic.”  Here the author’s “necessary things” refers to the fundamental teachings of the Church, the adhering to which is the basis of our unity as Catholics.  But no “leap of faith” is necessary to believe anything that the Church teaches, because everything she does teach rests upon plenty of evidence and a firm foundation of reasonable authority; and, the idea that someone could really believe in something that is illogical is to say that they can – and probably would – believe in just about anything, even the glaringly ridiculous.  The Christian act of faith cannot be the movement of the human mind and will toward embracing the truth of Catholic teaching when that movement seems to be against logic.  That is, one cannot – it is simply psychologically impossible – really believe something that one thinks is against logic.  Ever how much a tragedy, such as a tsunami, a Katrina or an earthquake (the article’s examples), should make us feel as if there is no God, still, there is nothing illogical about holding to faith in God even in the face of the worst of tragedies.

            “But we are not rationalists who demand evidence before we believe.  The leap of faith transcends logic because it is theological.  It [is] based on revelation, not human logic.”  On the contrary, the Church has never said that the act of faith “transcends logic.”  And we have no need to “demand evidence”; it’s already there, abundantly provided by God in the very world He created and in the human heart where operates the conscience, the echo of God’s own voice in our souls, speaking against evil and urging toward good.  Yes, it is true that Christians are not “rationalists” (rationalism being the idea that all truth is attainable by human reason alone, that there is no divine revelation needed); but we are imminently rational in our beliefs, in that in believing what God has revealed we are not acting against logic.  And that quite a bit different.   

            “You say,” the author continues, answering the correspondent, “you accept the Creed.  That means you believe that Jesus Christ is ‘true God and true man.’  Good for you; that is a leap of faith.  You are part of the Catholic heritage.”  But the whole idea of a “leap of faith” is not a part of the “Catholic heritage.”  That’s the problem. 

            Here, the writer is a bit confused, I believe.  It seems he has put the cart before the horse.  Believers do not attain to God’s revelation by “leaping” up to it in an act of faith.  The infinite chasm between God and creature is not bridged by our act of faith, whether leaping or not.  This chasm is bridged by God Himself.  That’s what we mean by divine revelation, and it is perfectly realized in the Incarnation of the Son of God.  Rather than our “rising” to God by the means of an act of leaping faith, God comes to us, reveals Himself fully to us… how?  By becoming one of us.  God freely grants us what we could never have come to know by reason alone, but our response to His self-revelation is not to take a leap in the dark, but rather to respond to the light.   

            St. John the Evangelist writes beautifully of this in the prologue to his Gospel, where he proclaims, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… [a]nd the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Interestingly, the Greek word St. John used for our English “Word” is logos, from which we get our word logic.  God, that is, is expressing Himself, revealing Himself, to us by the means of an intelligible word, an effective communication, all in accordance with logic.  He has spanned the infinite distance between Himself and us; thus, on our part, no “leap” is necessary, for God has “leapt” down into our world to show us Himself.  Analogously, we experience much the same thing in our human relations:  you will never come to know other people by making a “leap of faith,” but rather by the means of their revealing themselves to you.

            At the First Vatican Council, it was decreed, what the Church has always proclaimed, that faith and human reason can never be at odds with each other and that the existence of God, His power and glory and goodness, can be known through the natural light of reason.  Pope John Paul II reiterated this in his encyclical Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason).  No leaps there.  The Church pursues this further:  this God, who can be known through reason, has fully, personally, disclosed Himself in Jesus Christ, whose claims about Himself are authenticated by His very life, teaching and resurrection from the dead, an event many have tried to explain away, but their “explanations” have never withstood the scrutiny of reason as has the Church’s:  that Christ really did rise, bodily, from the dead.  (What, He who has given the world its most profound moral teaching would lie to His followers, or be fooled about His own identity?)  No leaps there.  And this greatest of Teachers, who claimed to be God, established His Church to carry on the work of making the saving power of God known in the world:  Christ said to His followers, “whoever listens to you, listens to me, and whoever listens to me, listens to Him who sent me.”  No leaps there.

            The Church has well-thought-out arguments to show the way to the enquirer, to remind him that a knowledge of God’s existence is attainable by reason, that the claims of Christ are true beyond any reasonable doubt, and that thus the authority of the Church to speak on Christ’s behalf is grounded on a firm foundation.  Not a single leap of faith has been asked of the enquirer.  The Church has only requested a willingness to listen, reflect and think.  Progress, so far, has been made by very logical steps (not by leaps of faith).  And from this vantage – having listened to the Church – the enquirer feels, not like he’s jumping off the cliff in order to believe, but rather that an act of faith is the crowning touch of a heart’s movement, moved by grace, toward God and His revealed truth.  Such faith, after all, is not our leap, but rather God’s gift, as we follow the truths already made evident to us and then, in a moment of self-surrender to Truth, we acknowledge God’s revelation of Himself to us.  No leaps; rather a grace, and a human response of belief.