Paul writes at the end of his famous poem in 1 Corinthians 13, that most things we might think are important won’t last into eternity. The ability to speak prophetically won’t last, neither will speaking in tongues, nor the ability to have insightful spiritual knowledge. However, three things will last: faith, hope and love. In this post, I will focus on faith, and in subsequent posts look at hope and love.
Disciples do well to make faith, hope and love the defining qualities of our lives. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams points us to the sixteenth century mystic and Spanish friar, St John of the Cross who believed the human mind has three main functions: understanding, memory and will. He believed these three cognitive functions paired with faith, hope and love. For the disciple, understanding should transform into faith, memory into hope, and will into love.
These transformations, however, cause the disciple to feel a sense of disorientation throughout their life. You once understood things a certain way, but your perspectives change, you start to question your memories, and your desires shift. I often find, when talking to older Christians, that they say that when they were younger they understood life and faith a certain way, but now in their old age they have a very different perspective. This is not just because of the passage of time, but also because of the mysterious and powerful qualities of faith, hope and love.
Let’s think about understanding and faith some more. We live in a time when the concept of what is true is contested. We have lost our trust in the media, politicians, and even for some people - in science. Secularism combined with postmodernism has caused people in the West to exist in what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “The buffered self” – which is a way of describing each individual with a buffer around themselves against external spiritual forces. In the pre-modern times, Taylor argues, western people were ‘porous’ in the sense that we assumed a cosmos with a God and spiritual forces that interacted with us. Now we exist inside the reality of our own individual minds. We decide truth and reality. With a buffered self we disengage and retreat back into our minds. The individual is the location of meaning and society is a collection of individuals.
This means, as Rowan Williams says, “we have lost our bearings.” There is a supernova of different meanings, which one do we follow?
It is in this context, that the faith of the disciple rises up. We find ourselves with no other option, but to have faith in the one we have our primary relationship with – Jesus Christ. We don’t necessarily understand everything, but in faith we put our confidence in Jesus Christ who is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). With Jesus, your life can be turned upside-down, but his presence remains consistent.
Jesus’ disciples were often in a state of confusion, but as Peter said “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Even when we face our own mortality, and are afraid of what may lie ahead, we can confidently say,
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39
While Christianity is intellectually rigorous and historically reliable, we will never have all the answers. Therefore faith requires epistemic humility that says that we don’t understand everything - but we do put our faith in God and his perfect love for us through Jesus. Even when this life, and all its confusion causes us to be muddled and even in despair, God will not let us go. Our salvation is not dependent on us having perfect faith, but on God’s perfect love.
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