Faith is Believing; John 20:8-9
John
20:8 NASB “So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then
also entered, and he saw and believed.
Faith and believing become
integral to understanding what is going on in the rest of this chapter,
concluding with the famous gospel statement in verse 31. Faith is something
that is not understood very well in our modern culture. When we come to the word
“faith” we have to understand that there are basically four systems of human
perception. The first is rationalism. Rationalism puts the ultimate source of
truth in human reason, so that man on the basis of reason alone can come to
understand the answers to the ultimate questions in life—what is man? What are
we headed for? What is the purpose of suffering? etc. The second system of
human perception is called empiricism. It argues from the existence of external
things and sense perception—what I see, what I hear, what I experience, that on
the basis starting from those things I can then logically argue to the
existence of the universe, meaning, value, absolutes, etc. A combination of
empiricism and rationalism is really the basis for the scientific method: that
man on the basis of either his own intellect (which is finite, remember) or on
the basis of his experience, what he senses, is able to find and discover the
answers to the ultimate questions of the universe—why does man exist? is there a God? What is the meaning of life? is there right or wrong? etc. But
empiricism is also flawed because it operates on a basis of faith in something,
and that is that man can on the basis of his own reason go from these external
sense objects to ultimate meaning. The problem is that even if you have 100
pieces of data and you correctly interpret that data and come to a certain
conclusion, who is to say that you are not going to come to the discovery of
another piece of data down the road which will completely invalidate that
original conclusion? That is the ultimate problem of empiricism: it, too, is
based on a faith assumption at its very core.
What happens in history is
that there are usually various cycles or trends of history where there is
rationalism, and then rationalism falls apart and is replaced by empiricism,
and then empiricism falls apart. And since both empiricism and rationalism have
been based on the rigorous use of logic and human reason as a means of going
from first principles to conclusions, reason is rejected. Then what moves into
the vacuum is an irrationalism usually expressed in terms of mysticism and
intuition: How do you know it is true? Well I just know that’s true. Don’t
confuse me with facts, reason is wrong. How do you know God exists? Oh, I had an
experience with God. This emphasises internal. Empiricism emphasises external
experience—measurable, repeatable, definable experience. Mysticism emphasises
some kind of internal experience, some kind of intuitive insight, an
epistemological hot-flash. Mysticism rejects logic and reason and says truth is
known because you have this internal conviction that it is true. The trouble is
that we can have internal conviction about all kinds of things that aren’t
necessarily true.
The fourth system is
divine revelation, and that is that God, the creator who created all things as
they are, has communicated to man the information he needs so that he will not
step out independently on the basis of his own experience or reason and come to
the wrong conclusion. God has given us the information we need that we can’t
learn from the basis of reason, empiricism or mysticism. This is not to say
that the use of reason or empiricism is wrong. It is not wrong unless it is
used independently of God’s revelation. God’s revelation is the umbrella under
which human reason and empirical data can be properly interpreted. But if we
reject divine revelation which defines the nature of reality then we are left
with man just trying to conjure up the nature of reality on the basis of his
own limited reason and limited experience. But what under girds all four
systems is something called faith. In rationalism the object of faith is human
reason. In empiricism the object of faith is human experience, that man has the
ability to properly interpret his experience. In mysticism the object of faith
is the meaning and interpretation of the intuitive hot flashes. In divine revelation
the object of faith is the revelation of God. So it is the object of faith that
makes the difference, not faith itself. Faith is something that everybody
utilises at every stage along the way in life and what is significant is not
faith but the object of faith.
That means that we have to
define something about faith. What faith means is to trust something, to rely
on something, to have confidence in something, to believe something to be true,
or to accept something as true. In order to operate faith relies on a certain
level of understanding or comprehension. Faith, on the other hand, does not
mean to commit to something, to invite or to feel. Those are not synonymous terms.
Historically in
Christianity there are couple of interesting and profound definitions of faith
that run somewhat contrary to some modern arguments and notions. One of the
things we are always running into today in various debates about the gospel and
the nature of the gospel is the meaning of faith. One of the issues that has come up is the issue of intellectual assent. There are
those who would say that faith is intellectual assent to the truth. Others will
say there has to be something more. Augustine said: “Faith is the voluntary assent
to the truth.” Calvin: “Faith is a steady and certain knowledge of the divine
benevolence toward us.” What we see from these two important definitions of faith
is that faith involves volition at some level, though
it is not primarily volitional it is primarily knowledge. It involves the act
of assent, which means to agree that something is true. So there is the
volitional aspect, the assent that something is true, and it involves knowledge
and understanding. Faith always has as its object something that can be
expressed as a proposition. A proposition is any statement that can be proved
true or false. That means in essence that if it is a true proposition you are
agreeing that it is true; if it is false then you are agreeing that it is
false. Agreeing that something is true or false is the meaning of assent. You
do that with your mind, not your emotions, therefore it is knowledge. You make
a decision that, yes, I believe that is true, and that involves your volition.
Therefore we can see that faith has to do with assenting to the veracity of a
proposition based on your knowledge and understanding of that proposition. It
is therefore not irrational, it is not illogical, it is not intuitive, it is something that is based upon understanding and
knowledge.
The Greek word for faith
is pistis [pistij]. It is used first of all as an attribute for what
causes trust or faith; it is used as the object of that faith. Titus 2:10; 2
Thessalonians 1:4. In an active sense pistis
means faith or trust or reliance upon something. We rely upon something because
it is true. There are different categories of faith in the Scriptures. The first
is saving faith, Ephesians 2:8, 9 – through faith, not because of faith, and
the faith has as its object a proposition. What is the proposition? This is
what is so important. The proposition is that Jesus Christ died as a substitute
for me. That is what we believe at salvation. It is faith alone in Christ
alone. So pistis is not only used
as an attribute but it also means faith, confidence or trust, to recognise
something as true but also it used for sanctifying faith in the Christian life which
is the faith-rest drill. The faith-rest drill takes faith, where you believe
something to be true, and mixes it with promises, and from promises it uses
doctrinal rationales, which means that underneath every promise is the
encapsulation of some doctrine, and you can think in terms of that doctrine. That
brings the third stage which is a doctrinal conclusion. But faith, again, is
agreeing to or assenting to the veracity of a promise, a doctrinal principle,
or doctrinal conclusion. It is intellectual assent. The problem is that many
people out there are assenting or agreeing to the wrong proposition, and they
don’t have a correct understanding of the gospel or of doctrine. Faith is
always intellectual assent but it is not just academic knowledge.