Faith is trust

I cannot imagine that you can have faith without doubt. Some things are certain. Others, however, are completely unknown or unresolved – sometimes even unredeemed. Some things I learned early, others I relearned later. Our experience in this world is not fixed. Faith is not either. Instead of “fixed”, it is always “movable”. Faith marks the confrontation with oneself, with this world and with God. In this, the Bible is like a lighthouse, a “light for my path and a lamp for my foot” (Ps 119:105). Faith is the confidence with which we go on in life. It is the expression of an understanding and an attitude towards life.

Some things determine the basis of Christian faith (as Paul writes about them, for example, in 1Cor 15:1-4). Other things, however, are far less important. There is no reason to think only in black and white, but some things are more significant than others. The foundation of faith is about significant things.

Although faith requires a basis of belief, it is not to be confused with certain assumptions about “right” or “wrong.” Faith is first of all neutral. Faith is the same as trust. In Hebrew and in Greek (that is: in the Old and in the New Testament) “believe” and “trust” are expressed with the same word. Faith in the Bible is not a “believing to be true” but a “trusting”. It’s about trusting God.

He who believes trusts. It should be noted that we are talking about verbs, that is, activities. Faith is not something you “have,” but it is something you “do.” One trusts. It is an active alignment of the heart.

Faith and knowledge

The other day a friend said to me “God’s Spirit unites us in faith, not in knowledge.” An apt phrase, which is worth thinking about. Cognition defines black and white, good and bad. God’s Spirit, however, who works in every believer, unites us not in knowledge but in faith. We share “the calling from Christ,” not necessarily the same knowledge. Therefore, it is possible for people with very different understandings to still accept each other in Christ and even fellowship.

Over the centuries, many “knowledges” have been defined, whether by doctrines, by councils, or otherwise. Based on these findings, people were excluded from or included in the community. The heresy was invented, which makes you stand out. Those who “believe as we do” belong to it and “those who have other things in mind” should go one door further. This is understandable from a human perspective, because people like to exchange ideas with their peers. If you do that, then all seems well with the world. If, on the other hand, you are confronted with completely different ideas, this can be a challenge. The problem arises where one confuses certain beliefs with the basis of belief.

Faith, as defined by the Bible, is not based on “knowledge” but on “trust” and “encounter”. It is about trusting God as expressed by Paul:

“I believe God that it will happen in the way I was promised.”
Acts 27:25 KNT

Faith is not a checklist of dogmas, but entering into a trusting relationship with God and from that also with others. It’s not about “believing something to be true,” but about “trusting someone.” The trust receives Strength and confidence through knowledge. Knowledge is the drive for our trust, but not to be confused with it.

It is not a matter of “believing something to be true,” but of “trusting someone.”

Cognition has expanded again and again. What Adam or Moses or Isaiah, the 12 apostles or Paul thought was different. However, they all believed God and trusted Him.

There is a development in the Bible. You can’t deny Abraham faith just because he didn’t believe that Jesus died for Him (he couldn’t, because Jesus came much later). Faith is trust and not a certain knowledge according to the guidelines of your church or community. Faith existed even before Jesus. The Tenach (the Old Testament) is full of testimonies of faith. Abraham is the father of all believers and Jesus says of him that he will be in the Messianic kingdom (Mt 8:11).

Knowledge is good, but faith is better. Knowledge is fragmentary (1Cor 13,8), but love is the lasting (1Cor 13,13). And faith only becomes effective through love – and not, for example, through supposed know-it-all attitude (Gal 5:6).

The “right” faith

I have encountered many people who placed emphasis on believing “correctly” above all else. I couldn’t always tell clearly whether they meant their own comfort zone, or any assumptions about faith. However, I understand: there is a great relief in simply having some rules to follow, a simple confession to make. This simplifies “faith” immensely because you don’t have to deal with it properly.

Clearly, there also seems to be an intention to “define” faith, namely to “delineate” it. With relationship such a “right faith” has of course nothing more to do. One seems to be far away from a relationship, if one would say (in comparison) of the other person only descriptively: “I must see, how he/she is dressed!”. That would be more about the packaging than the content.

Encounter looks different. It has as much to do with me as it does with the other person. It’s about reciprocity. Trust is not blind, but is based on an encounter. Only those who encounter can believe. As Martin Buber puts it:

“He believeth, said I; but by this is said, He meeteth.”
Martin Buber, I and Thou

Dealing with dissenters

The church has had a long history of power. Often there were many opinions, but only one was declared to be the right one. Dogmas were often used for demarcation and heresy. But what about in the New Testament?

The New Testament differentiates quite differently. Of course, there are basic facts that outline a Christian faith based on the biblical model. However, this was rarely the issue in church history. It is the further interpretations, which are not mentioned in the Bible with any word, which caused the most violent reactions. Inquisition, heresy and the like were the result.

In the New Testament, you don’t read things like that. Not “what one believed” but “how one lived” was looked at critically for the community. Those who “believed wrongly” were not thereby excluded from the community, but rather corrected. For example, Paul reports:

“But from the unholy, empty babblings stand aloof; for they will advance to further impiety, and their word will devour like cold fire, among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have digressed from the truth, and say that the resurrection has already happened, and so shatter the faith of some.”
2Tim 2:16-18

What was the problem? Hymenaeus and Philetus both believed in the resurrection. The resurrection was right. The resurrection is a core statement of the New Testament. However, they saw something differently: the resurrection should have already happened. People were hoping for the resurrection, and then these two came, claiming that the resurrection was already over. We would have missed it! In doing so, they have shattered the faith of many. So not only had these two strayed from the truth, but they had brought many others into harm’s way. This was a tangible problem for the community.

What does Paul say now: declare them heretics and throw them out? Not at all! Rather, the apostle said that the church should “keep aloof” from these. Hymenaeus and philetus should be avoided. Not so Hymenaeus and Philetus were removed from the church. It was more like the community should keep their distance from them. However, as far as we know from the Bible, they were not excluded from the community altogether.

Things were quite different in the following story from Corinth, to which Paul wrote:

“Generally you hear of fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even called among the nations, namely, that one has taken his father’s wife. And there ye are yet puffed up, and grieve not rather, that he may be taken out of your midst for this conduct.”
1Cor 5,1-2

Now here the community was asked to remove someone from the community. The reason is not a theological dispute, but it is the way of life. It was a clear case of fornication that should lead to expulsion. Paul is astonished that the church has not accomplished this until now and now unmistakably calls on them to do so.

So teaching is not a reason for exclusion, but lifestyle is. There is a lot to be said for the fact that it has long been done the other way around in churches and the community. Wouldn’t we have to go back to healthier patterns here?

The exclusion Paul has in mind here, by the way, is not definite. It is very clearly formulated, but with a goal in mind:

“For I, though absent in body, yet present in spirit, have already judged him who thus does this, as though I were present, in order that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (when you are gathered together, and my Spirit together with the power of our Lord Jesus) such to Satan for the ruin of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
2Cor 5,3-5

There would be a lot more to say about these verses, but this is the point: Paul had this man’s salvation in mind. In the second letter to the Corinthians he comes back to the case:

“For such a one, this rebuke which the majority of you have given him is enough, so that, on the contrary, you may now rather show and grant him mercy, so that such a one may not be swallowed up by excessive sorrow. Therefore, I pronounce upon you to show love toward him.”
2Cor 2,5-8

Paul has in mind what he was taught by Christ. This is always directed towards encounter, redemption and fulfillment. Love is the expression of it.

Faith is an adventure

Faith is multifaceted. It is relationship. Now one can try to define this belief exactly like that – to learn further only then.