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EDITH L.BLUMHOFER
F
FAITH
The most controversial aspect of Protestantism that emerged during the REFORMATION centered on the Protestant understanding of faith. Scholastic theology heavily influenced the prevailing Roman Catholic view on faith, creating a series of functional dualisms vastly removed from the original biblical understanding. These dualisms focused on the distinction between content of faith (in Latin fides quae) and subjective actions of faith (fides qua): the distinction between faith of laypersons in assenting to ORTHODOXY without understanding it (fides implicita) and faith of clergy in assenting to the same universal truths (fides explicita), between faith appropriated through natural means (fides acquisita) and faith incorporated into the soul alongside other virtues by supernatural means (fides infusd). The dualism drawing the Reformer’s most ardent ire involved the distinction between “unformed faith” (fides informis), a faith unrelated to love and able to exist alongside mortal sin; and “formed faith” (fides caritate formatd), a faith formed by and continually active in love. These aspects of faith required meritorious works by the believer to achieve JUSTIFICATION.
MARTIN LUTHER reacted to this formulation through the notion popularly known as justification by faith alone. Luther argued against the priority of love for perfecting faith by emphasizing the free gift of GRACE from God. Luther understood the “righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17 as justifying, not punishing, the sinner. In Hebrews 11:1 he understood faith as trust in God’s promises rather than faith achieved through good works. Saving faith focused on the sufficiency of Christ’s work divinely imputed to the sinner. This understanding of faith was refined by Luther’s contemporaries. HULDRYCH ZWINGLI heavily focused on the certainty of faith through a clear knowledge of ELECTION. For Zwingli, faith was both a pledge of the Holy Spirit that seals the believer’s heart, and a trust that God will protect and guide the believer. Faith enables the believer to reconcile contradictory passages and bring understanding to Scriptural meaning. To support his assertion, Zwingli affirmed that faith and Scripture are inseparable, citing Christ’s own appeal to Scripture to further demonstrate the certainty of God’s guidance. Faith is a sense that God assures us inwardly with the Holy Spirit while acknowledging that external matters contribute nothing to justification. As such, Zwingli understood the LORD’S SUPPER to be little more than a liturgy of “signs.” Luther and JOHN CALVIN continued to affirm the divine efficacy of the Lord’s Supper and vigorously rejected this radical reappraisal of the sacrament. Unlike Zwingli, Calvin was aware that the believer’ s faith is always weak and requires regular strengthening through the ministries of the church and the administration of the sacraments.
While all the reformers unanimously described faith as a gift from God, relating it to the workings of the Holy Spirit and Scripture, Calvin provided the clearest exposition on the role of the Holy Spirit in matters of faith. Calvin described faith as the principal work of the Holy Spirit. Believers do not initiate faith, but faith is founded upon the “might of the Spirit.” Consequently, the Spirit is the “inner teacher” by whose effort the promise of SALVATION penetrates the believer’s mind. Like Zwingli, Calvin affirmed the inseparable relationship between faith and the Word of God and that these “can no more be disconnected from each other than rays of light from the sun” (Institutes III:2:6). And while faith is both a matter of heart and mind, Calvin stressed that “the knowledge of faith consist more of certainty than discernment” (Institutes III:2:14). For Calvin, certainty is dependent on the activity of the Holy Spirit and the restoration of right worship of God through the genuine teaching and PREACHING of Scripture by the church.
The Roman Catholic reaction to this Protestant formulation was ratified in the Council of Trent (1547), which condemned the “vain confidence of [these] heretics” (see CATHOLIC REACTIONS TO PROTESTANTISM). Other reactions came from Radical Reformers such as Anabaptists and Inspirationists, or Pietists (see ANABAPTISM PIETISM). Many Anabaptists emphasized the importance of good works as testimony to the presence of faith. Pietists, like THOMAS MÜNTZER, emphasized the primacy of experiential revelatory faith as opposed to faith informed by biblical revelation.
The Post-Reformation understandings of faith took on numerous expressions. In reaction to the development of orthodox CALVINISM, JACOBUS ARMINIS began an unpretentious revival of the role of meritorious works in faith. Introducing the notion of faith as a human work upon which the pardon of SIN is suspended, Arminius reacted strongly to the claim that God damns individuals for eternity (see ARMINIANISM). Arminius linked the concept of PREDESTINATION with faith by reducing the decision of faith to a simple human possibility. While agreeing with Calvinists that there was no salvation apart from faith, Arminius accepted that faith was the basis of predestination, rather than the orthodox Calvinist’s view that predestination was the basis of faith.
PURITANISM also developed away from mainstream Reformation thought by demanding that certitude be confirmed only through the experience of holy living. The Puritan emphasis on holy living eventually influenced other expressions of Protestantism such as METHODISM and the HOLINESS MOVEMENT. These Protestant expressions accepted that faith and religious knowledge were not derived from objective theological formulation but rather blossom from the experiences of the believer’s heart.
The eighteenth-century ENLIGHTENMENT bore witness to a sustained attack on traditional categories of faith and religious dogma through the emergence of Rationalism. Popularly represented as DEISM and Protestant Scholasticism, some Protestant theologians such as Jean Aphonse Turretin sought to reduce Christianity to a core of moral principles and universally held beliefs. Faith was subsumed into an objectified natural religion. The climax of Enlightenment philosophies arrived with IMMANUEL KANT, who redirected contemporary thought by defining the limits of knowledge. Kant drew a sharp distinction between “phenomena” (knowledge which we derive from experience of the world) and “noumena” (a priori transcendental knowledge). This eventually led to the claim that knowledge of the world could not lead to knowledge of God. While Kant intended to eliminate speculative knowledge in order to “make room for faith,” he unwittingly reset the course of THEOLOGY, allowing the development of liberalism into diverse expressions (see LIBERAL PROTESTANTISM AND LIBERALISM). In the case of FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER, certainty of faith was grounded in psychological and emotional experience rather than in natural theology or biblical revelation. Here faith is grounded in a feeling of absolute dependence. Late nineteenth century liberalism tended to view institutionalized religion, traditional creeds, and metaphysics with uncertainty, although this skepticism was offset by a confidence in human progress and the unhindered quest for a unified vision of truth. ADOLF VON HARNACK clearly stated these themes in his 1901 book What Is Christianity? Harnack’s approach was to define true Christianity by “stripping off the husks and lay[ing] bare the kernel [of truth].” Harnack proposed that the core of Christianity is the personality and teachings of Jesus, which could be summed up through the commandment to love. This ethic of love grounded faith into a praxis of social engagement and framework of evolutionary progress. However, the rising confidence in human progress was shattered by World War I with the theological vacuum appropriated by NEO-ORTHODOXY and FUNDAMENTALISM.
Reacting to liberalism, fundamentalism affirmed previous Protestant faith expressions and theologies within a rationalistic framework by affirming the AuTHORITY, inspiration, and inerrancy of Scripture (see BIBLICAL INERRANCY). Appropriating a form of seventeenth-century Calvinistic scholasticism, fundamentalism was committed to resisting social change in order to preserve what were considered to be the correct articles of faith. Faith was characterized as propositional assent in order to preserve certainty, an approach that has continued on into contemporary forms of conservative EVANGELICALISM.
On the other hand, liberalism heavily influenced neo-orthodoxy, which tended to emphasize the divine origin and nature of faith. Neo-orthodox faith was characterized as active assent to the elusive, mysterious and non-propositional divine prompting. Its most popular exponent was KARL BARTH, and while his views evolved over time, he nevertheless understood faith within the framework of divine immanence. This framework took the form of the “Word of God,” which was not a proposition or object but God actually speaking. The real object of inquiry was Jesus Christ, the true foundation of faith. For Barth, certainty was the result of the triumph of God’s grace rather than the results of natural theologies or human expression.
In turn, Barth significantly influenced DIETRICH BONHOEFFER who formulated the challenging question “Who is Christ for us today?” Bonhoeffer’s faith engagement between certainty and uncertainty is clearly seen in his understanding of mystery as the root of everyting comprehensible. And while faith is part of mystery that cannot be transformed into knowledge, Bonhoeffer paradoxically states that “mystery does not mean merely that one does not know something…the deepest mystery is not the person farthest away but preciesely the one closest to us” (Feil 1985:6). This mystery is located at the center of the distinction between faith and theologies, thus influencing Bonhoeffer to urgently define the relation between theory and praxis. As a result, Bonhoeffer placed theology and faith in the service of Christian praxis, and is remembered for such expressions as “a world come of age” and “Religionless Christianity.” Bonhoeffer’s theology eventually influenced radical theologians of the 1960s, who introduced such expressions as the DEATH OF GOD and the Ground of Being (see ROBINSON, JOHN ARTHUR THOMAS) to explain the failure of anthropomorphic religious language in addressing contemporary religious concerns.
Today contemporary theology weaves between radicalism and new conservatism. Faith expressed in POSTMODERNITY is subject to a new openness brought out by the challenges of pluralism, poststructuralism, and ECUMENISM. While this openness to inquire into all aspects of faith may create great tension, the engagement of certainty and uncertainty within the ongoing process of redemption will continue to shape the future of Protestant expressions of faith.
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