114 - Faith is Believing

Faith is Believing; John 20:8-9

John 20:8 ^NASB "So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. [9] For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead."

Faith and believing become integral to understanding what is going on in the rest of this chapter, concluding with the famous gospel statement in verse 31. Faith is something that is not understood very well in our modern culture. When we come to the word "faith" we have to understand that there are basically four systems of human perception. The first is rationalism. Rationalism puts the ultimate source of truth in human reason, so that man on the basis of reason alone can come to understand the answers to the ultimate questions in life—what is man? What are we headed for? What is the purpose of suffering? etc. The second system of human perception is called empiricism. It argues from the existence of external things and sense perception—what I see, what I hear, what I experience, that on the basis starting from those things I can then logically argue to the existence of the universe, meaning, value, absolutes, etc. A combination of empiricism and rationalism is really the basis for the scientific method: that man on the basis of either his own intellect (which is finite, remember) or on the basis of his experience, what he senses, is able to find and discover the answers to the ultimate questions of the universe—why does man exist? is there a God? What is the meaning of life? is there right or wrong? etc. But empiricism is also flawed because it operates on a basis of faith in something, and that is that man can on the basis of his own reason go from these external sense objects to ultimate meaning. The problem is that even if you have 100 pieces of data and you correctly interpret that data and come to a certain conclusion, who is to say that you are not going to come to the discovery of another piece of data down the road which will completely invalidate that original conclusion? That is the ultimate problem of empiricism: it, too, is based on a faith assumption at its very core.

What happens in history is that there are usually various cycles or trends of history where there is rationalism, and then rationalism falls apart and is replaced by empiricism, and then empiricism falls apart. And since both empiricism and rationalism have been based on the rigorous use of logic and human reason as a means of going from first principles to conclusions, reason is rejected. Then what moves into the vacuum is an irrationalism usually expressed in terms of mysticism and intuition: How do you know it is true? Well I just know that's true. Don't confuse me with facts, reason is wrong. How do you know God exists? Oh, I had an experience with God. This emphasises internal. Empiricism emphasises external experience—measurable, repeatable, definable experience. Mysticism emphasises some kind of internal experience, some kind of intuitive insight, an epistemological hot-flash. Mysticism rejects logic and reason and says truth is known because you have this internal conviction that it is true. The trouble is that we can have internal conviction about all kinds of things that aren't necessarily true.

The fourth system is divine revelation, and that is that God, the creator who created all things as they are, has communicated to man the information he needs so that he will not step out independently on the basis of his own experience or reason and come to the wrong conclusion. God has given us the information we need that we can't learn from the basis of reason, empiricism or mysticism. This is not to say that the use of reason or empiricism is wrong. It is not wrong unless it is used independently of God's revelation. God's revelation is the umbrella under which human reason and empirical data can be properly interpreted. But if we reject divine revelation which defines the nature of reality then we are left with man just trying to conjure up the nature of reality on the basis of his own limited reason and limited experience. But what under girds all four systems is something called faith. In rationalism the object of faith is human reason. In empiricism the object of faith is human experience, that man has the ability to properly interpret his experience. In mysticism the object of faith is the meaning and interpretation of the intuitive hot flashes. In divine revelation the object of faith is the revelation of God. So it is the object of faith that makes the difference, not faith itself. Faith is something that everybody utilises at every stage along the way in life and what is significant is not faith but the object of faith.

That means that we have to define something about faith. What faith means is to trust something, to rely on something, to have confidence in something, to believe something to be true, or to accept something as true. In order to operate faith relies on a certain level of understanding or comprehension. Faith, on the other hand, does not mean to commit to something, to invite or to feel. Those are not synonymous terms.

Historically in Christianity there are couple of interesting and profound definitions of faith that run somewhat contrary to some modern arguments and notions. One of the things we are always running into today in various debates about the gospel and the nature of the gospel is the meaning of faith. One of the issues that has come up is the issue of intellectual assent. There are those who would say that faith is intellectual assent to the truth. Others will say there has to be something more. Augustine said: "Faith is the voluntary assent to the truth." Calvin: "Faith is a steady and certain knowledge of the divine benevolence toward us." What we see from these two important definitions of faith is that faith involves volition at some level, though it is not primarily volitional it is primarily knowledge. It involves the act of assent, which means to agree that something is true. So there is the volitional aspect, the assent that something is true, and it involves knowledge and understanding. Faith always has as its object something that can be expressed as a proposition. A proposition is any statement that can be proved true or false. That means in essence that if it is a true proposition you are agreeing that it is true; if it is false then you are agreeing that it is false. Agreeing that something is true or false is the meaning of assent. You do that with your mind, not your emotions, therefore it is knowledge. You make a decision that, yes, I believe that is true, and that involves your volition. Therefore we can see that faith has to do with assenting to the veracity of a proposition based on your knowledge and understanding of that proposition. It is therefore not irrational, it is not illogical, it is not intuitive, it is something that is based upon understanding and knowledge.

The Greek word for faith is pistis [pistij]. It is used first of all as an attribute for what causes trust or faith; it is used as the object of that faith. Titus 2:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:4. In an active sense pistis means faith or trust or reliance upon something. We rely upon something because it is true. There are different categories of faith in the Scriptures. The first is saving faith, Ephesians 2:8, 9 – through faith, not because of faith, and the faith has as its object a proposition. What is the proposition? This is what is so important. The proposition is that Jesus Christ died as a substitute for me. That is what we believe at salvation. It is faith alone in Christ alone. So pistis is not only used as an attribute but it also means faith, confidence or trust, to recognise something as true but also it used for sanctifying faith in the Christian life which is the faith-rest drill. The faith-rest drill takes faith, where you believe something to be true, and mixes it with promises, and from promises it uses doctrinal rationales, which means that underneath every promise is the encapsulation of some doctrine, and you can think in terms of that doctrine. That brings the third stage which is a doctrinal conclusion. But faith, again, is agreeing to or assenting to the veracity of a promise, a doctrinal principle, or doctrinal conclusion. It is intellectual assent. The problem is that many people out there are assenting or agreeing to the wrong proposition, and they don't have a correct understanding of the gospel or of doctrine. Faith is always intellectual assent but it is not just academic knowledge.