Tag Archives: certainty of faith

Conclusion: The Certainty of Faith (Seminarian Visits Theology Professor #6)

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Introduction

In their last conversation, the professor and the seminarian concluded that modern academia’s 250-year effort to rationalize faith has failed miserably. Academia’s obsessive desire to avoid believing anything false led it to apply standards appropriate only to mathematics and (perhaps) logic to the Bible. Of course, no theological scholar attempted to translate the Bible into mathematical terms. But the historical and literary methods critical biblical scholars developed aimed to approximate the ideal of mathematical certainty as closely as possible. And they do not limit their efforts to understanding the message of the texts as written. Ordinarily, when we read a supposedly historical text, we imagine the real events as having unfolded as they do in the written texts. Critical scholars begin, instead, with the suspicion—real or methodological—that the texts are not what they seem. The modern scholar’s goal is to escape the spell cast by the text, outsmart the author, and use the text as a source for discovering what really happened.

The Bible is the only source we have for almost every line of the history it contains. We don’t have independent access to the real events, so scholars develop methods—using literary features, psychological plausibility, metaphysical theories, and other criteria—they think capable of distinguishing those events within the texts that really happened from later literary embellishments. Each of these methods and the results their application produces simply generates another set of debates in an endless cycle. But from the point of view of faith, the two most troubling problems are these: the set of historical and theological beliefs considered the closest approximation to mathematical certainty are so few and so trivial that they are of no use to the church. Not only so, even these most probable beliefs are highly debatable. The end results of critical academic study of the Bible turns out to be but a pale shadow of the bright light of faith that the church, drawing on the whole canon of Scripture, has proclaimed, taught and lived for two millennia.

Setting: The professor and the seminarian thought it fitting that the sixth conversation should take place in the local Antiochian Orthodox church. Surrounded by stained glass renderings of Bible history, vaulted ceilings, and illuminated icons, what better setting could one find for discussing the reliability of the church’s faith in Scripture and the believer’s trust in both!

Seminarian: Sitting in this place one has a feeling of participation in something ancient and transcendent.

Professor: And holy!

Seminarian: Something you cannot experience in academic lecture halls!

Professor: Divine and heavenly; not earthly and merely human. A silent presence rather than empty chatter.

Seminarian: Sitting here, now, after all our conversations, I feel changed; all doubt has left me. It’s as if I had been locked in a dark cellar, my captors telling me that my memories of sun and sky, wind and rain, green grass and singing birds were mere wishes based on pretty stories; but now I see the sun and feel his warmth, I hear the birds, the breeze caresses my cheeks. I smell the flowers, I taste the fruits of the earth—and my heart sings. How is this possible? The Reality and Truth that hostile critics tried to suppress and friendly critics attempted to prove—both producing only doubt and confusion—now fills my soul so that I could sooner doubt that I exist in this world in this body than doubt that I am loved by God, saved by Christ, and illuminated by the Spirit. Is this what the church means by the “certainty of faith”?

Professor: Yes. I believe the experience you describe could be what the church designates as “the certainty of faith.” Our parents and the church assured us that the Scriptures embody and preserve the original witness of the companions of Jesus. By the “church” I don’t mean simply the church you experienced as a child. I mean the worldwide church. Pick any century you wish, the 17th, 12th, 2nd or the 1st.  Pick any continent, any country. You will find that every sermon, creed, confession, catechism, prayer, and sacramental rite derives its legitimacy from the teaching preserved in Scripture. And this is true despite heretical movements, ambitious patriarchs and worldly bishops. Scripture always exerts a corrective force that exposes heresy and ungodly bishops. No movement that abandons or twists the scriptures can long endure.

Seminarian: But there are those who deny or doubt that the church is correct in its confidence in Scripture.

Professor: Yes. You can always find someone who doubts the church but gullibly believes the most outlandish conspiracy theory. Consider the source.

Seminarian: But even if we believe the ecumenical church of all time and space that the scriptures embody and preserve the original witness of the companions of Jesus, we can still ask or be asked, “Is their testimony true?”

Professor: Yes. That is a genuine question, and it should not be dismissed too readily as cynical. On one level, asking whether or not the apostolic testimony to Jesus Christ is true has in view two alternative possibilities. It would be false if they were innocently mistaken or they cynically conspired to create and perpetuate a fraud. In responding to these possibilities, I believe we should be careful not to slide back into the endless academic debates about historical probabilities. Usually, when people, even strangers, tells us about an event they witnessed, we believe them unless we have a good reason not to do so. If we happen to know that they could not have been present at the event as they claim or if they have a reputation for telling tall tales, we greet their story with a raised eyebrow . And if the event to which they bear witness were highly unusual but not impossible, we might maintain a bit of skepticism unless their story was corroborated by several other reliable people. Whether or not to believe a stranger cannot be decided with mathematical precision. Such decisions are much too complicated and mysterious to articulate explicitly. In a similar way, evaluating the apostolic testimony and making a decision to believe them or not cannot be made in a scientific way. You have to listen to them, get to know them, and, as they say, go with your gut.

Seminarian: But even if you come to believe that the apostolic witnesses are telling the truth in the New Testament writings, you may still harbor doubts, because you don’t know what you don’t know. It doesn’t seem that we have yet achieved the certainty of faith.

Professor: It’s true. Simply believing the apostolic message—as important as that is—is not yet the fullness and certainty of faith. Why? Because you have not yet experienced for yourself the Reality of what they experienced; it was not meant for them alone, you know! For sure, we depend on the apostolic word recorded in the New Testament for knowledge of Jesus Christ. We can never outgrow it. But with the help of that word, we are led to the living Father, the reigning Christ, and the ever-present Spirit of God. In worship, in prayer, in liturgical reading, in loving service, in suffering, and in meditating on the cross, we open ourselves to the Father, Son, and Spirit who come to live in us and in whom we live. We experience an all-embracing love and a peace that passes understanding. And this is the certainty of faith.

Seminarian: Beautiful! Finally, what about the Bible? We began these conversations with the question of whether or not my parents and the church taught us rightly when it urged us to accept the whole of the canonical Scriptures as the word of God and the authority for believing and living as a Christian. Were they right?

Professor: Absolutely! They were right! Your parents and your church said only what the church has said from the beginning. The church pointed us to the original apostolic witness so that we could hear and believe and experience its truth for ourselves. It urged us to listen to the Scriptures as the word of God. Once we come to believe for ourselves and experience the Reality they experienced, that is, the Father, Son, and Spirit, we return to the church to thank her for her guidance, for preserving and rightly interpreting the Scriptures. Having tasted the truth of that to which prophets and apostles witnessed, we long by means of their writings to sit at their feet as they tell us more about the God whose word they heard and whose power they witnessed. Those chosen ones who walked with our Lord in the flesh, who saw the empty tomb, and to whom the risen Christ appeared are to be listened to, obeyed, and honored until the end of the world. We who believe want to take our place in the congregation of the people of God. We seek not to live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So, yes your parents were right when they urged you to listen with the ecumenical church of all times and places to every writing, every paragraph, every sentence, and every word of the Bible, and to receive it as from the mouth of God.

Seminarian: These conversations have been life-giving. Thank you so much! I feel a joy and confidence I have not felt for years! But my renewed joy and confidence are grounded not only on my trust in my parents and my childhood church but on my newfound trust in the ecumenical church of all times and places, in the persuasive power of the original apostolic witness, and finally, in the confirmation of the living presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit who pours out his divine love and peace into my soul. Thank you!

Professor: May God bless you always with his living presence and through you bless the lives of many yet to be born.

Seminarian: I hope you don’t mind if now and then I drop by for a visit.

Professor: Of course. You are welcome to stop by. Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye

Jesus is Risen—History’s Probability and Love’s Certainty!

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It is a huge mistake to think of the questions of the resurrection of Christ and the truth of Christianity merely as philosophical or historical problems. Approaching them as if they could be limited in this way will lead to interminable debates and wild speculation. Today I want to place the question of the resurrection in larger framework that better models how a person actually comes to believe reasonably and responsibly.

First: Of course philosophical and historical reason plays a role. Christianity does not ask us to believe contradictions or impossibilities. Nor does it ask us to believe that an event happened that we know did not happen. We’ve already looked at some New Testament statements about the resurrection from a historical perspective. Paul’s testimony in 1 Corinthians and Galatians possesses the strongest historical warrant in the New Testament because it is direct, firsthand. The number of ways we can respond to Paul’s claim is limited. We can believe that he is telling the truth about his experience and interpreting it correctly or that he is lying or mistaken. Paul also tells us in his own words that Jesus appeared alive after his death and burial to Peter, James, John and many others (1 Cor 15). We know that a few years after his conversion—more than three but not more than 5 or 6—Paul met Peter and James the Lord’s brother in person. He stayed 15 days with Peter (Gal 1:18-19). Hence Paul was in a position to hear about Peter’s and James’ (and others’) resurrection appearances from their own mouths. We must either believe or disbelieve Paul’s claim to have met with Peter and James, and through Paul we are placed in the position of having to believe or disbelieve Peter’s and James’ testimony about the resurrection. Now add to this most direct historical connection, the accounts in Acts and the Four Gospels. (I place them second in historical weight because we can’t say how much is direct and how much is indirect testimony.) In Acts, we have accounts of Peter’s and Paul’s preaching and Paul’s Damascus Road experience. In the Gospels, we have very detailed accounts of the crucifixion, and we hear the story of Jesus’ burial, the empty tomb, and some resurrection appearances. Some facts mentioned in Acts and the Gospels are also supported in Paul: the empty tomb, the dramatic conversion of Paul, the appearances to Peter and the others. Hence we have a historical warrant to fill in the gaps in Paul testimony by using Acts and the Gospels.

There is no doubt that if we possessed this level of historical support for an “ordinary” historical event, no one would doubt that it really happened. Supposed we substitute for Paul’s claim to have experienced an appearance of Jesus Christ, the claim of having visiting the Temple in Jerusalem after his visit to Arabia. Suppose further that this fact is mentioned in the Four Gospels and Acts and serves as an assumption for the rest of the New Testament documents. No historian would doubt it. Indeed no historian would even think of doubting it. It would be historically certain. But because it is a miracle, and not simply a miracle but a miracle with revolutionary, world historical, religious, moral, and metaphysical significance…some people are willing to entertain the most outlandish conspiracy theories and speculative alternatives to the resurrection. Paul, the Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, changed from persecutor to persecuted preacher because of a deception? Peter, James the Lord’s brother, and all the rest conspired to deceive the world? The disciples saw Jesus die but lost track of his body after his death? Historically speaking—leaving out the bias against miracles and the epic implications of the resurrection—any event as directly and widely documented as the resurrection appearances would be accepted as historically established without question. Hence no one can be warranted historically for rejecting the resurrection. There must be another reason.

Second: To think reasonably about the resurrection event in historical terms, one cannot apply the presupposition that miracles cannot happen. To do so would make historical argument a waste of time. I have already dealt with the issue of rejecting the resurrection because of a belief that miracles cannot happen. Last week, I pointed out that believers should not take seriously historical objections to the resurrection based on atheism or deism. The discussion must be focused elsewhere, that is, on one of the first three decision points in the move from atheism/materialism to full Christian faith.

Third: Belief in the event of the resurrection from a historical perspective is just like belief in any other event. But from an existential, moral, and religious perspective, belief in the resurrection is dramatically different. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ demands from us what it demanded from Paul and the first disciples, a complete change of life direction! To say believingly “Jesus is risen!” is to say “Jesus is my Teacher, Lord, and Savior.” It is to reject ordinary, prudential, worldly life and risk everything! From this perspective, to believe Paul, Peter, James the Lord’s brother, the women at the tomb, and all the rest appears as a very scary proposition. Even if historical science tells us the resurrection really happened and even if rejecting the resurrection requires us to consider outlandish conspiracy theories, we still hesitate.

At this point in the argument, apologists often attempt to construct an argument for the trustworthiness of the New Testament witnesses, centering perhaps on the fact that they gave their lives for their testimony. And I have no strong objection to these arguments. But arguments create incentives to rebut and think of reasons to doubt. Arguments always create their dialectical opposites. Hence I want to take another approach. In his Confessions, book 10, Augustine of Hippo expresses confidence that his readers will believe him when they read his confessions to God, which they cannot check out for themselves, because their “ears are opened by love.” He says, with reference with 1 Corinthians 13:7 “love believes all things, at least among those love has bonded to itself and made one.” In his reflections on faith, Gabriel Marcel speaks of the certainty of faith as an intersubjective bond that not only credits but “rallies to” the one in whom it believes (The Mystery of Being, Vol. 2). The certainty of faith in the resurrection arises when we get to know the New Testament witnesses, enter into their minds and hearts and see through their eyes. In other words, we believe them because we love them. If we don’t love them, we will not believe them.

Fourth: How can we get over the scariness of the revolution called for by the resurrection faith? Augustine famously said, “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.” Believing in the resurrection is not merely a matter of examining the credibility of some 2,000 year old documents. You have to love the people who bore and bear testimony to Jesus. You have to see that the resurrection faith and all that flows from it produces good people, people whose virtue and love you admire. The church should be, and sometimes actually is, the living reality that embodies the revolution implied in the resurrection of Jesus. How can a nonbeliever, one who understands practically nothing about the New Testament, come to love Jesus and those who loved him first, Paul, Peter, and the others? Only if they get to know a living human being who loves Jesus, Paul, Peter and the others! Only if they are loved by someone who has been transformed by their faith and love for Jesus, and for Paul, Peter and the others! The church—I mean the living body of believers under Christ their head—helps people believe by helping them love, and it helps them to love by loving them.