The Problem of Faith Today

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If we really think of God as a Who and not a What—in other words, if we think of him as a Someone capable of speech, then there is no “security” against revelation. And man’s only meaningful response to revelation is faith!

The Weight of Belief, by Josef Pieper (Cluny Media, 326 pages)

The difficulty of discussing proofs and counterproofs in matters of faith lies in the fact that, strictly speaking, faith is not based on proofs, or at least not on factual arguments which can be reduced to precise formulations, and thus cannot be deeply affected by such arguments. Naturally this is a somewhat misleading statement; but we are in deep waters here. On the one hand, of course, true faith does not arise like a bolt out of the blue. On the other hand, the decision to believe does not simply represent the final proposition of a syllogism. One is never forced to believe by, let us say, the rules of logic. By its very nature faith does not represent a logically compelling deduction. If I carry out an arithmetical computation, there comes a moment when I have no choice but to acknowledge the validity of my results; for it is simply impossible for me to oppose the truth of the knowledge thus made evident to me. But the state of affairs which the believer accepts through faith, is not evident to him; he confronts no compelling truth. Of course, in faith I do rely on the credibility of someone else who assures me that things are as he says they are. And naturally this credibility can be verified, at least to a certain degree. In some cases, so many proofs of the credibility of a witness exist that it would be irrational and (perhaps) even improper not to believe him. Nevertheless, I do not “have” to believe him. Between the clear and compelling recognition of a man’s credibility, on the one hand, and actual trust and faith in him, on the other, lies a totally free act of will which nothing and no one can compel me to make—just as, no matter how convincingly and authoritatively someone may demonstrate to me that a certain person is worthy of love, it is by no means inevitable that I must love him. One can admit certain facts “against one’s will,” but one can experience neither love nor faith against one’s will. St. Augustine makes this clear in his commentary on the Gospel of John: nemo credit nisi volens, or no one believes but by his own free will. Thus, because by its very nature it is based on and derived from freedom, faith—like the basic, in no way religious, belief in each other which human beings evince in the course of their everyday dealings—is, in a special sense, an insoluble phenomenon which borders upon a mystery.

This makes it clear, or at least clearer, why it is particularly difficult to speak of proofs, of factual arguments, in relation to faith or the lack of faith. The decisive factor in faith is not a fact which can be more or less compellingly demonstrated or refuted. The decisive factor is the personal factor, in other words, the encounter with a person—the witness who vouches for the truth of a certain state of affairs—by another person, the believer, who in accepting this state of affairs as true, demonstrates his reliance on the person of its guarantor. All this does not have the slightest thing to do with “irrationality.” It is a question of recognizing that a person and his qualities—for example, his credibility—are knowable by, and comprehensible to, our faculties in a completely different way than a fact of nature which can be precisely measured.

Socrates once claimed that he could always recognize a person in love. But how can we know something of this kind? No one, including Socrates, has ever succeeded in supplying a rationally verifiable answer to this question. And yet Socrates would no doubt insist that this kind of knowledge by no means represents a purely subjective feeling, a purely irrational impression, but instead constitutes objective, true knowledge attained through the encounter with reality. But what proofs can be offered for such knowledge—proofs, that is, which would appear plausible to someone other than oneself, or indeed to everyone who examined them? In the same way—as is only to be expected—faith, which originally always implies faith in someone, arises from a certitude which can be acquired in a virtually infinite variety of ways that may convey meaning only to one particular individual and mean nothing at all to anyone else. Thus clearly (although we always tend to forget it) the decision to believe is rooted in the personal history of the believer. One person, while contemplating the cathedral of Rouen, suddenly becomes convinced that “plenitude” must constitute the hallmark of divine revelation; whereas someone else may, as Simone Weil said of herself, accept the truth of Christ when, in a moment of deep emotion, she beholds God’s presence illuminating the face of a boy taking Holy Communion. Who would dare to judge the weight or validity of such proofs? I believe that we should be very clear about this point before we move on to discuss arguments which can be precisely formulated. (For of course it is both possible and meaningful to do this.) The discussion of “arguments” will above all involve counterarguments, objections and obstacles to faith.

It seems to me that a whole class of obstacles to faith can be reduced to a single common denominator, namely a certain conception of “critical thinking,” or rather a sense of obligation to adopt a specific type of “critical posture” in order to avoid being guilty of any intellectual dishonesty or “shady dealings.” In this case—in other words when a person orients his thought in accordance with the ideals of science—to “adopt a critical posture” means to refuse to accept anything as valid, true, and real unless it can be proved by the methods of exact science. Everyone now takes this criterion of truth so much for granted that anyone reading this essay may well be asking himself with amazement how any modern, thoughtful person could ever disregard it. After all, what other criterion is possible? I would answer this question as follows: As long as a person investigates and inquires as a scientist; that is, as long as he is researching one particular aspect of a clearly demarcated, limited sphere of reality (for example, if he is trying to determine the cause of a specific infectious disease, or exactly what physiological processes occur when a human being dies), he is in fact committed to the norm of critical thought which I have just outlined. To avoid betraying his responsibility as a scientist, he must refuse to accept the validity of anything which cannot be verified by the methods of exact science. However, indispensable as the scientific attitude may be, it does not represent the totality of man’s intellectual and spiritual existence. For the man endowed with full intellectual and spiritual vitality is insatiable in asking questions about reality as a whole, about the totality of the world. Even if, to begin with, he concentrates his attention on a highly specific and concrete phenomenon or event, he still wants to know the ultimate nature of this phenomenon or event viewed from every conceivable aspect. For example, he is not satisfied simply to learn what physiological changes take place at death. As far as possible, he wants to know what the British philosopher and Harvard professor Alfred North Whitehead called “the complete fact.” And if “to adopt a critical posture” is equivalent to “taking care that a certain thing should not happen,” then his care is to ensure that not one single element of reality is concealed, overlooked, forgotten or suppressed—which could easily happen if the activity of the mind were to be restricted to what can be verified by the methods of exact science. Thus at this point we confront another form of “critical posture” which above all implies the determination not to allow any element of the totality of truth to escape us, and consequently to accept a less exact method of verifying results rather than to risk losing contact with some portion of reality.

To be sure, it is an exacting and rigorous task to achieve such an attitude of openness toward the totality of things—not because this attitude demands particular educational attainments, but because it presupposes an impartiality or simplicity of soul which maintains silence at a level much more profound than so-called scientific objectivity. It requires an opening up, like the unfolding of the petals of a flower, of the soul’s most secret powers of response, an unfolding which may not be under our conscious control. The most adequate name for this attitude is probably the biblical word simplicitas, that simplicity or “singleness” of the eye which enables one’s whole body to be filled with light.

Clearly this attitude has nothing to do with passivity, with mere neutrality. On the contrary, the achievement of such an attitude demands the untrammeled exercise of our vital intellectual energies and, at the same time, the highest degree of “seismographic” sensitivity and mental alertness. For there exist an infinite number of ways in which we can close ourselves off from the world, clandestine ways which are often virtually undetectable. For example, there is a lack of openness which does not involve any express gesture of rejection or denial and which at bottom consists of nothing but simple inattentiveness! Gabriel Marcel claims that in our time life itself tends to promote, and indeed to impose, this kind of inattentiveness, which in effect renders faith, if not impossible, at least highly improbable. Pascal has made clear the great responsibility we bear to maintain our mental alertness and to resist the innumerable secret and disguised temptations to close ourselves off from the world. His Pensées contain the following aphorism: “If you are not concerned to know the truth, then you have access to enough truth to enable you to live in peace. But if you long with your whole heart to know it, then what you have is not enough.” It is only too easy, and hardly troubles our conscience at all, to rest content with what we already know. But he who wishes to behold, and to continue to behold, the totality of things, lives in perpetual expectation of new light. The truth is the whole, but we never see the whole of anything!

But what if a person considers himself incapable of faith or simply does not choose to believe? What can be said on the subject of unbelief? As we all know, the average Christian is quick to condemn or summarily dismiss any expression of the “modern mind” as evincing a “lack of faith.” On the other hand, the great Western theological tradition suggests that we would do better to exercise extreme caution in the use of this word.

For, strictly speaking, “unbelief” is a word which can properly be applied only to that intellectual act in which someone deliberately refuses assent to truth which has, with sufficient clarity, been shown to him to represent revelation, or more precisely, the word of God. One might well think that such a thing would almost never come to pass! By this definition, is there any such thing as unbelief? I would reply that, on the whole, the true adversary of faith is far more likely to be that deeply ingrained inattentiveness of which Gabriel Marcel speaks, than the deliberate rejection of faith with which this inattentiveness may often be confused by “unbelievers” themselves.

All the same, it is of course possible to cite dozens of convincing, clearly definable, and specifically modern arguments against faith which make it if not impossible at least very difficult for a human being in our times to believe. For example—so runs one weighty objection to faith—why shouldn’t a person be able to get along perfectly well on the basis of purely empirical knowledge, on the basis of truth which is accessible to the natural reason? Why should we rely on information whose truth we can never verify, and in which we are forced to “have faith” if we are to partake of it at all? Naturally one can only answer this question by, at the same time, involving oneself with the question of the nature of man and his true situation within reality as a whole. However, if this “true situation” turns out to be that by his very nature he is located within the force field of a wholly superhuman reality, and that instructions and information can be imparted to him from this source, in this case, can we continue to regard it as an indisputable truth that man is, once and for all, confined within his own closed universe? To state the matter a little differently: If man is by nature an “open-ended” being whose limitations are not clearly defined, and if God is a personal Being capable of speech, then it is intrinsic to the basic situation of the natural man that he can be spoken to by God. The natural man is bound to find this a somewhat jolting thought, once he has experienced the reality behind it. For as C. S. Lewis says in his book about miracles, it is always terrifying to encounter a living being where we had thought we were all alone. “Yipes,” we cry, “it’s alive!”

“An ‘impersonal God’—well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads—better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap—best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching us at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband—that is quite another matter… There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? … Worse still, supposing He had found us? So it is a sort of Rubicon. One goes across; or not. But if one does, there is no manner of security against miracles.”

I have only one thing to add to what Lewis has said: If we really think of God as a Who and not a What—in other words, if we think of him as a Someone capable of speech, then there is no “security” against revelation. And man’s only meaningful response to revelation is faith!

Republished with gracious permission from Cluny Media.

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The featured image is “The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet” (1890), by Vincent van Gogh, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.