What is faith? What – is – faith? That is a question which we might now profitably address. Faith is a word that we use often. At each Eucharist we make our profession of faith. At each baptism we loudly proclaim that, “THIS IS OUR FAITH”. When, each Sunday, we recite the Nicene Creed, we open with those ringing words, “We believe in One God”. But what do these words mean? Faith and belief. Do they mean the same thing? When we talk about our faith, are we saying no more than, “This is what we believe”? Or are belief and faith different?
Let us explore the following thought: Belief is about one kind of truth: faith is about another. I believe that, if the barometer is rising and I see blue sky, it is unlikely to rain. I believe that dough rises when it contains yeast and is left in a warm place. I believe that many sorts of birds can fly but that pigs cannot. Thus I believe those things which are logical and consistent with my past observations. Now, I also happen to believe that the world is round (well, more of an oblate spheroid, actually) but please don’t ask me to prove it. Even so, given sufficient data and some rules which appear valid, I reckon to be able to reach reliable conclusions about that – and about a whole range of things. On that basis, say that I believe them to be true. We are talking here about the evaluation of facts, of moving cautiously from the known to the unknown and returning with more that is known. This is the basis of the scientific method. We are using our intellect. We are using our heads.
What about faith? Faith, we might say, is not an intellectual exercise of mind, like the sort of belief that we have been discussing: faith is an emotional and spiritual act. Faith may knowingly fly in the face of the facts. How often are Christians challenged or even taunted by those who point to the virgin conception of our Lord, or to the resurrection itself, saying that such things cannot have happened because they do not fit the facts as we know them in our everyday lives? How often is the very existence of God called into question by those who say that you cannot see God? Thomas would not believe until he had seen the wounds for himself.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews put it like this: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Let’s hear that again, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
We could sum up so far by saying that belief is a matter of the mind: faith is an affair of the heart. The next time that somebody challenges your Christian belief – or your Christian faith – and tells you that it is irrational, you might therefore reply, “Precisely”.
Things may not, however, be quite so simple. Saint Augustine wrote about his Christian faith, “I believe it because it is impossible”. “Credo quia impossibile.” “I believe it because it is impossible”. That famous paradox contains another paradox: St Augustine uses the word ‘belief’ in a statement which is itself the definition of faith. He takes the word “Credo” – “I believe” – follows it by the word “because” and thus leads us to await some logical proof of God and his activity in this world. He leads us up the garden path. We expect the words ‘believe’ and ‘because’ to precede some convincing evidence, as in a court of law. But what he actually says is, “I believe it because it is impossible”.
This brings us to another fundamental difference between everyday belief on the one hand and faith on the other. Because those everyday things which we believe can be proved, they are accepted by all. Because, however, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”, it must always be a personal matter. To share one’s faith in God is not the same as sharing a belief in the laws of physics: to share one’s faith in the resurrection is not the same as sharing one’s belief in the power of modern medicine. That is why people do not celebrate their shared beliefs in the laws of physics or modern medicine; but that is precisely why, when we come together as Christians, we do celebrate our faith. Indeed, that is one reason why we come together at all.
You may disagree with the definitions that we have been using so far. You may contend that belief and faith are the same thing. Or you may go so far as to say that it is, at best, only a matter of degree, that they are points on a continuum – that faith is just a strong belief. If Jesus were to appear tomorrow in Hampstead High Street and perform a miracle, no doubt all who witnessed it would believe. It would not be hard to believe. It would require little effort. It would hardly engage the heart at all: the head would have all the evidence it needed. The facts would be there for all to acknowledge. It would not require any faith at all.
We believe that Jesus, who was crucified, rose from the dead. This is not a belief like our belief that the majority of the inhabitants of France speak French. On the contrary, our belief that our Lord rose from the dead is counterintuitive – it is contrary to reasonable expectation. It cannot be a belief based on evidence because we do not have the evidence. We were not there, yet we are persuaded that it happened so. Our Lord had something to say about such an attitude on our part. He said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
I do not argue with those who say that they are certain about the facts of the resurrection. I reflect only that this must be a different sort of certainty from that which persuades me that two plus two always make four or that a figure with four equal sides and four internal right angles must be a square. No faith is required for me to be certain about these mathematical or geometric propositions. You may even say that it is pretty rich to claim to believe them, as if it were possible to disbelieve them. That sort of certainty is, we might say, the enemy of faith. The paradox of faith is that it cannot exist without doubt. Faith presupposes doubt. Belief is founded on evidence: faith requires doubt. I cannot prove by logical demonstration to anyone else – or to myself, for that matter – that the facts of the resurrection are true. By definition, if I could prove them, faith would be irrelevant. So we need to be careful how we use the word belief when moving from the everyday world of objects and physical laws into the world of religious truths. We need to reflect on what faith is and how it differs from mundane belief.
In our increasingly secular and prosaic world this may seem hard to swallow but there is no other way to approach our faith. It is, of course, worth the effort. And you don’t have to take my word for it. We cannot transport ourselves back in time and space to that room in Jerusalem. If we could, it might even undermine our faith. As our Lord said to the disciples after Doubting Thomas had finally been persuaded by the evidence of his eyes, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Amen.