Faith and Grace

Who would have thought that reading the introduction volume to The Great Books of the Western World, The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education (Moritmer J. Alder, ed., 1st ed., 54 vols.,  Chicago: Britannica, 1952) and then browsing the Syntopica, the index of the great ideas of the Western world such as love, money, angel, theology, mathematics, God, infinity, eternity, causation, some and other, one and many, et cetera ad nauseum ad infinitum, would be a good thing to do enjoy the ereb Shabat (Heb. "evening of rest") of the Memorial Day Weekend? Apparently, I did.

Well, as I floundered through these dense topics, I stumbled upon religion, where, to my dismay, the author basically says that faith is not a gift, but is man's will to believe in a god.

The author wrote, "Religion can be supernatural only for those whose faith declares it so. Those who deny that it is supernatural may offer many reasons for thinking so, and try in many ways to explain away faith. What they all come to is that it is an allusion to suppose faith is God's gift rather than man's own will to believe. To the man of faith this only means that his critic lacks the gift of faith or even the wish to have it" (2: 466, ch. 79, "Religion," s.v., "Introduction").

On the next page, the author cites Hobbes being slightly heterodox. "[F]aith is a gift of God," Hobbes says, "which man can neither give nor take away by promises of rewards or menaces of torture," because faith depends "only upon certainty or probability of arguments drawn from reason or from something men believe already." Faith, Hobbes says, does not come "by supernatural inspiration or infusion," but "by education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways, by which God worketh them in his elect, as such time as he thinketh fit." "Consequently," Hobbes writes, "when we believe that the Scriptures are the word of God, having no immediate revelation from God himself, our belief, faith, and trust is in the Church, whose word we take, and acquiesce therein" (qtd. in 2: 468-9).

When Hobbes says that faith is a gift of God and then that faith does not come by supernatural inspiration or infusion, does he contradict himself? Is not a gift of God only through supernatural means?

Awww...but no, apparently not. Other gifts of God such as love, food, music, and the creation are not necessarily spiritual per se.

Or we can erase the mind-body dualism from platonic thought and instead take the Hebraic (Biblical) view that all of life is sacred! There is nothing in life that is secular or religious; it is all religious. It just depends on whom one is worshiping, their heart (intent, attitude), and what they are doing. (Sinning would be still be religious, not secular, -- since one is worshiping either oneself or Satan -- but it's still bad -- so just because nothing is secular does not mean everything is good.)

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was faith in the Bible. So I grabbed my concordance and found a few verses.

The first was from Paul's epistle to the ekklesia living at Rome. He writes after his long greeting and introduction (in Eng. trans.), "For righteousness of God  in Him/it  was revealed/uncovered/unveiled from(in, by, with)  faith/-fulness/trust  into(to, toward, with a view to, aiming at)  faith/-fulness/trust,  just as it has been written, 'Now  the one who is righteous/the righteous one  from(in, by, with)  faith/-fulness/trust  shall live'" (my trans.). "δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, καθὼς γέγραπται· ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται." 

The slashes show the various ways the Greek could be translated. The ἐν αὐτῷ can be either the dative singular masculine or neuter, so, "in him" or "in it." Πιστος, faith, can be either one's faith or trust or one's faithfulness. And the preposition of origin, ἐκ, can be "from, in, by, with," while the preposition of direction into, εἰς , can be "into, onto, in, to, toward, with a view to, aiming at."

So what we have here is that God's righteousness was revealed. It was revealed in either Him (i.e., Jesus) or it (i.e., the good news). The origin of this revelation was faith. The end goal of this revelation was faith. Which is why some translations say, "beginning and ending in faith."
Now, since faith can be faithfulness, there are four (five) logical options:

1. God's righteousness was revealed by God's faithfulness to us and its end goal is also His faithfulness to us.
2. God's righteousness was revealed by God's faithfulness to us and its end goal is our faith or trust in Him.
3. God's righteousness was revealed by our faith and trust in Him and its end goal is our faith or trust in Him.
4. God's righteousness was revealed by our our faith and trust in Him and its end goal is His faithfulness.
5. Or, all, some, or none of these.

I like them all. Isn't it amazing how rich implication can be?

And the next clause, the righteous one from faith shall live. From his own faithfulness (to God) he shall live. From his own faith in God he shall live. From God's faith in him he shall live. From God's faithfulness to him he shall live.