Belief or Faith?

We ought to  ask ourselves whether the focus of our religion is belief or faith. The two differ.

Belief could be described as acceptance of doctrines. At the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, the council fathers published a creed. They were responding to a controversy in the Church about whether Jesus was equal to the Father. A priest named Arius argued that Jesus was subordinate to the Father, that Jesus received his being from the Father at the beginning of time.

Others insisted that Jesus was not subordinate, that Jesus was truly God like the Father.

As the intensity of the conflict increased, the Emperor Constantine called the bishops of the Church together to settle the matter: What do Christians believe about Jesus' relationship to the Father?

The major result of this council was the creed which formally defined that Jesus is "from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father."

Although this proclamation settled the matter about what the council bishops believed to be the truth, the controversy continued for many decades. A second council was called in 380 AD to respond once more to the Arian heresy.

It is clear that spelling out one's beliefs has an enormous effect upon one's faith. If faith is a lived response to God, then it makes a difference to a believer whether Jesus is God or not. How much more awesome (and filled with mystery) is God's love for the world if indeed it was God who "became man and dwelt among us" and not simply some emissary.

Belief, then, is important, but acceptance of a creed is only the first step; the second is faith.

It is conceivable that a person could believe what the Bible and the Church teach and still not be a Christian in the full sense of that designation.

Believing a set of doctrines does not a Christian make. To be a Christian one must be a disciple of Jesus, must pick up his cross, must walk in his footsteps, strive to live out the Gospel, and have a personal relationship (deep and intimate) with Jesus.

It is much easier to be a believing Catholic than to be a practicing one.

Catholics who are intense about doctrine are also called to be intense about compassion, kindness, forgiveness, service, and many other Christ-like virtues.

When Church members become "liturgical police" or "heretic hunters," they may distort both their religion and the faith. Attitude is a vital element of true discipleship. Jesus' concern was people over law. He did not denigrate the law, but neither did he condemn the law-breakers.

Belief, then, is a matter of creed, of doctrines and magisterium. Faith, then, is a matter of living one's beliefs, of loving one's neighbor, of intimacy with Jesus.

It is noteworthy that in the middle of Mass the congregation pauses to profess its faith in the words of the creed.

It is especially noteworthy that, as scholar Karen Armstrong explains, "The word 'belief' itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear...In the 17th century, it narrowed its focus...to mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, a credo."

She continues, "I believe did not mean, 'I accept certain creedal articles of faith.' It meant 'I commit myself. I engage myself.'"

With that insight in mind, note that the creed becomes an excellent transition piece between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Think of that next Sunday.

The so-called "profession of faith" is no longer a mere recitation of beliefs; it is rather a committing to faith, an accepting of the Father as Creator, a welcoming of Jesus as Lord, a being open to the Holy Spirit, a rededicating of oneself to full partnership in the community of Christ.

Belief and faith are not opposed to each other; they need each other. Belief without faith is dead.

It's OK To Question

The most challenging question any Christian can face is the one posed by Jesus himself, "Who do you say I am?"

Most of us will be tempted to give a pat answer, affirming that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the savior of the world.

But if we go back to the question as Jesus posed it, "Who do you say that I am?" the true answer will have to be more personal, not something taught, not something imposed from without, but something realized from within.

And there's the rub. For an authentic answer comes only after a long time of standing in the question.

By nature our intellects seek the truth, but our impatience often leads us to settle for quick answers. We want to know and we want to know right now.

Standing in the question, living with the mystery, requires patience and the honesty to admit, "I don't know."

When some of Jesus' early disciples asked him, "Where do you stay?" he replied, "Come and see!" He refused to give them a pat answer. He wanted them to discover it for themselves.

Jesus does the same with us. The Jesus of our childhood must give way to the Jesus of our adult years. And as we age it becomes clear that our picture of Jesus, our understanding of who he is, changes (or should change) too.

Many Christians rebel against the notion that we do not have all the answers. Those raised on a catechism's Q&A often assume that we know it all, or at least that we know enough.

To question is not to doubt. To question is to be a seeker. It is the sign of a living faith. It implies openness to growth. It means we are stil disciples (the word means "student").

Questioning was what Mary did ("How can this be?"), what John the Baptist did ("Are you the one?"), what Nicodemus did ("How can a man be born again?"). The rush to answer often precludes a full picture.

It's OK not to have an answer to "Who do you say that I am?". It's not OK to stop pursuing the question.

Mystery of Faith

I don't like not knowing. I don't like ambiguity. I don't like mystery. But if I'm going to be a Christian I have to make friends with all three.

St. Paul put it simply, "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Even though God has spoken to us in past times in partial and various ways through the prophets, and more recently and powerfully through his Son, (cf. Hebrews 1:1-2), we still do not know everything.

How could a puny human mind ever comprehend the height, breath, or depth of the wisdom of God? God's ways are unsearchable, his judgments inscrutable. "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" ( Romans 11:34).

Jesus ' teaching was not without ambiguity. He says we must love everybody, even our enemies (cf. Matthew 5:44), and then he insists that only those who hate their parents, their siblings, even their very selves can be his disciples (cf. Luke 14:26). He was fond of couching his message in paradox: to be the leader, you must be the servant (cf Mt. 20:27).

And the mysteries of the kingdom have never been resolved. Jesus spoke about them in parables (cf. Lk 8:8-10) but even when he explained his stories, his disciples were still confused. "But they understood nothing of this; the word remained hidden from them, and they failed to comprehend what he said" (Lk 18:34).

St. Thomas Aquinas argued that the existence of God can be proved. His first argument was based on the need for a prime mover. Then the need for an uncaused cause. And then the need for some intelligent being to direct natural things to their end.

Others have argued that "evil in the world" suggests there is no God, for if God is loving then God should prevent evil, especially the evils of natural disasters. Since God does not prevent such evils, either he is powerless to do so or he is not all that loving.

French philosopher Blaise Pascal concluded that one cannot prove that God exists nor prove that he does not exist. Unable to offer proof one way or the other, Pascal proposed what has become known as Pascal's Wager. He reasons, in effect, that although we cannot prove or disprove God's existence, one has better odds in believing in God since one loses nothing if there is no God but gains eternal life if there is.

Christians come at this issue from an altogether different angle. They generally believe in God's existence because the world and its complexity require an intelligent creator, but they add further that faith is a gift from God, freely offered to those willing to accept it.

Christians not only believe in God, they also believe that God made the world, loves it dearly, and sent his divine Son to help us cope with the mess we have made of it.

This Son of God we call Jesus, and Christians accept him as their Savior and their Lord. They accept his message as Gospel truth and they make an effort, with varying degrees of success, to overcome evil and live according to the divine plan.

There remains for many of us, however, in spite of our faith, a degree of uneasiness. Faith by its very nature implies risk. It means trusting in something, or in this case, Someone.

The uneasiness that leads me to feel uncomfortable about not knowing, about ambiguity, and about mystery is normal and natural, but it does not have to rob me of peace of mind.

Saints and mystics have long offered the assurance that the uneasiness of faith can be reduced by deepening one's personal relationship with God. Faith, then, is supported not by reasoned proofs for God's existence nor by quotes from Jesus' Gospel, but rather rests on a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

Prayer can be a a religious exercise of words and actions and song, or it can be an avenue of intimacy with the Divine One.

If or when I finally come to trust Jesus implicitly, I will not need the surety of answers nor will I mind the ambiguity or mystery which faith implies.

I have come to believe that the best answer anyone can give to those who question why I believe in God or why I am a Christian is simply, "Because I've met him. I know him. We're friends."

Big Bang

I think it amusing and encouraging that a Belgian Catholic priest, Father George Lemaitre (1894-1966), is known as "the Father of the Big Bang." Inspired by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, Lemaitre proposed that if taken to its logical conclusion Einstein's theory demonstrated that ours is an ever-expanding universe.

Einstein, following the common opinion of his day, believed the universe was a closed system, that it was static. Lemaitre questioned the number (the so-called cosmological constant) which Einstein put into his theory to make it work. When Lemaitre proposed his theory to the master in 1927, Einstein reportedly replied, "Your calculations are correct, but your physics is abominable."

(To be fair, Alexander Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, using math rather than physics, had come to the same conclusion about five years before Lemaitre did, but died without ever following up with observational data. Lemaitre may be said to have re-discovered the theory of an expanding universe.)

Lemaitre's observational data was supplied in 1929 by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, whose telescopic search of the galaxies verified that they indeed seemed to be receding from one another. Einstein finally agreed.

An unlikely "prophet" of the big bang theory was American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49). In an essay he entitled Eureka (1848), Poe surveys the universe and develops his theory that the start of the universe came from "a certain exertion of the diffusive power (presumed to be the Divine Volition.)" This was 80 years before Lemaitre talked with Einstein.

The Big Bang implies that the universe had a beginning. The biblical story of Yahweh's creating the heavens and the earth had some scientific basis. The continuing expansion of the universe from that initial big bang showed that in a sense creation was still happening. There is a dynamic in the world as we know it, and evolution is an obvious possibility.

Dominican theologian St. Thomas Aquinas concluded in the 13th century that "that the world began is an article of faith...it cannot be proved demonstratively" (Summa, I, 46, 2). It seems most appropriate to me that a diocesan priest who studied Aquinas should be the one to offer a demonstration.

I am but a neophyte when it comes to following some of Aquinas' arguments. I could not explain Einstein's theory for love or money. I have only the vaguest sense of Lemaitre's discovery.

But I am thoroughly engaged by the idea that someone of Lemaitre's background in religion and Church ministry should propose this far-reaching discovery about the universe. Coming from a faith perspective I should expect the universe to be ever expanding. God has shown a super abundance of love, a prodigality of forgiveness, the sheer wastefulness of grace. The multiplicity of stars alone reflects the extravangance of his generosity. Lemaitre discovered through his study of science that the universe is still expanding. Perhaps he could have come to that same conclusion by reflecting on faith alone. Scientists would have balked at a conclusion based on religion, but the rest of us would have said, "Yes, of course the universe is dynamic! God is like that!"