A careful reader of the Gospels must be struck with the insistence which Jesus Christ places upon faith. "Verily I say unto you I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" "Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy, son be of good cheer." "According to your faith be it done unto you." "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." "O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt." "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" "Ye believe in God, believe also in me."
What then is this faith which Jesus Christ asks of people? Is it nothing more than a "looking upward" by one in need to one able to supply the need? Jesus was never satisfied with this attitude.
THE TRUE NATURE OF FAITH.
In the case of the twelve Apostles we see what the nature of true faith is. Jesus Christ chose them that they might be with Him in order that they might learn His "secret"—the knowledge of His Personality. He wished for such confidence in Him that they would commit themselves wholly to His keeping. For the lack of this faith He rebuked them in the storm on the lake. Their faith failed them again at the Crucifixion; and it was the first task of the Master after the Resurrection to build again this confidence which was shattered by the tragedy of His death. He was successful. The early chapters of the Acts record the degree of calm confidence with which these same men committed their lives to His keeping (though absent from their sight) as to One possessing all authority in heaven and on earth. Such is the true nature of Faith.
THE EVERLASTING WHISPER.
Perhaps it will be better to clear away a misconception existing in some minds arising from a confusion of thought between the exercise of personal faith and the facts themselves of which the Christian revelation consists. The two are quite distinct. "The Faith" means the facts of revealed religion made known to us through the Church and interwoven into the very texture of the Creeds and the Book of Common Prayer,—originally the content of the oral gospels. We speak of the Articles of the Christian Faith, meaning the Apostles' Creed. The doctrine of the Holy Communion or of the Ministry of the Church, etc., are parts also of "The Faith"; of this "faith" the Church is the guardian and the teacher. This is essentially different from that inward personal movement of the soul towards God which we are now considering. The former may be thought of collectively as an objective thing—something quite apart from the individual,—which he may disregard or fail to understand; whereas personal faith is a movement of the soul of man which as we shall see vitalizes his being and calls into operation all his capacities. It is possible to be thoroughly instructed in the verities of "The Faith", and at the same time to be devoid of personal faith; while on the other hand persons are to be met with who possess an intense personal faith in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity who have through no fault of their own but a very slight intellectual grasp of the contents of "The Faith" as it has been committed to the Church of God. Yet "The Faith", "the Christian Faith" must be cherished by faith (that movement in the soul of man towards God) if the believer is to grow up unto the knowledge of God.
FAITH NOT ANTAGONISTIC TO REASON.
We find ourselves in a world of material things and physical phenomena. We watch and study nature; we witness its orderly movements. We ask questions. Is matter the real thing and the true explanation of it all? Does nature reveal an intelligence behind the universe and working in it? Are the movements in nature the product of law,—and how did the laws begin to operate and when? We listen to the answer of the materialist, but it does not satisfy, because somehow or other it does not account for everything. Surely, we say, if the operation of law accounts for everything, there must be a lawgiver. Besides this we observe in nature both design and beauty. This suggests to us a mind behind nature. Man looks also within himself as part of creation and finds he has a moral sense. He makes distinctions between right and wrong; there are present to his mind ideas of justice and mercy and love,—whence came these, he enquires, for these are not material forces at all, they are intellectual and spiritual? He sees men die and infants born, and he asks whence do they come and whither are they going. He refuses to believe that this life sees the end of man for he has within himself the witness that he is spirit and not matter. It is in this refusal of the innermost being of a man to consent to any materialistic explanation of the phenomena of nature or of human life that faith declares itself. The judgment which insists that the only adequate explanation of the universe (as science has made it known) must be sought on the basis of the existence of a spiritual world permeating all that is seen in human life, and that behind it all as its source and origin, as its upholder and controlling power, is God—this is faith.
Further. Faith—living faith—is the elemental act within man going forth from him as a son in search for the knowledge of God as Father. It is the greatest energising force within man, for it includes within itself the other capacities within man's personality, such as his emotions and his will; and in the case of the intellect,—it embraces all that the intellect can accomplish, and then goes beyond the limit which intellect can reach. For faith takes all the conclusions arrived at by man's intellect, and then, supported by these conclusions, makes its venture as it were by the very power which is its own.