Christian Belief

Alister McGrath DPhil

• Publisher: Lion Scholar
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781912552047
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this highly accessible guide a team of expert contributors provide an authoritative and comprehensive survey of Christian belief.

After an initial historical overview, six major chapters on Faith, God, Jesus, Salvation, the Church and Christian Hope assess in detail the breadth of Christian teaching and doctrine. Each chapter is interspersed with user-friendly boxed features that focus on key subjects such as Jesus and women and Christian ethics. Culminating with an anthology of extracts from major Christian thinkers, this book provides an ideal overview for scholars at all levels of study seeking to become acquainted with the sweep of Christian teaching.

CHAPTER 1

FAITH

John Stackhouse

What is faith? To answer this question, we may begin by looking at some of the great role models of faith. What difference does faith make to someone? And what does it mean to say that they have faith in God? The first spiritual hero in the Bible about whom there is any extended narrative is Noah. And he turns out to be a shining example of faith. God tells Noah something hard to believe: The world as he knows it will be coming to an end by a flood such as the world has never seen. But God promises to save Noah and his family (Genesis 6:9–22). Noah is then given something to do in the light of this revelation. He is to build an ark and store inside it his family and enough animals to replenish the earth.

Noah believes God. Noah obeys God. Noah has faith.

In the pages of both the Old Testament and the New, we find Abraham as the favourite example of faith. Indeed, the explicit terminology of faith and faithfulness appears first in the story of Abraham. God tells Abraham to leave his home in ancient Sumeria, near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers present-day Iraq or Kuwait), and move to a land that God would show him (Genesis 12:1–4). God also tells Abraham that, as old as he and his wife are, they nonetheless will have offspring that will multiply eventually into a nation whose influence will bless the entire world (Genesis 15:1–6).

Abraham believes God. Abraham obeys God. Abraham has faith.

No word is more central to the Christian religion than faith – so central, in fact, that we often speak of Christianity itself as the Christian faith. And yet it is a word that has been widely misunderstood in our day – so misunderstood, in fact, that many people hesitate to embrace Christianity for fear that they must give up their commitment to intelligent thinking (‘faith versus reason’) and take a mindless, groundless chance on they-know-not-what (the ‘leap of faith’). So what is faith? And why would so many apparently thoughtful and sober people – from Jesus himself to many of our contemporaries today – commend it to us?

What is Faith?

Faith is a rich word in the Bible. In fact, faith is translated by several words in ancient Hebrew, the language of most of the Old Testament, and several words in koine (or ‘common’) Greek, the language of the New Testament. And in this network of words is a fascinating linkage: belief and action.

The related Hebrew words include the following meanings: ‘to fear God’ (usually an expression of moral obedience, as well as religious awe; Deuteronomy 10:12; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10); ‘to believe’; ‘to be confident’; ‘to trust or to be trustworthy’; ‘to be loyal or reliable’; ‘to be true or truthful’; ‘to be firm or established’; ‘to heed or pay attention’; ‘to obey or follow’; and ‘to be righteous or holy’. The related Greek words in the New Testament include the meaning ‘to be persuaded’ (Hebrew has no word for persuade or convince), as well as the same range of words as in the Old Testament.

The duplication of these various definitions is illustrated by the familiar word amen. Originally an adverb in Hebrew, it is used as a word of response to what is said by someone else: ‘[That is] truly [said]’ or ‘[That was] reliably [spoken].’ We should note in passing Jesus’ prefacing of his own teachings with ‘Amen, amen’ – rendered ‘Verily, verily’ in the King James Version of the Bible and ‘Truly, truly’ in more recent renditions. Such usage was unprecedented and signalled his unique claim to authority. Consider in this context Jesus’ characterization of his words as a sure foundation for living, as dependable as a stone foundation (Matthew 7:24).

‘Amen’ becomes a word of self-involvement, particularly in response to the commands of God. The people of Israel respond to the Levites’ solemn pronouncements of curses with ‘amen’, thus committing themselves to the avoidance of those actions upon which the curses have been uttered (Deuteronomy 27:14–26). A later generation responds the same way when Nehemiah denounces those who do not free their fellow Jews from debts, thus promising both to obey Nehemiah’s directive and to repudiate their disobedient fellows (Nehemiah 5:13). We see, then, that to say ‘amen’ is not merely to recognize the accuracy or aptness of what is spoken, but is also to declare one’s intention to act in accordance with what is spoken: Since what has been said is true and reliable, then I will faithfully respond to it. Thus we must recognize that the common modern Christian use of ‘amen’ simply as a sort of coda to a prayer or hymn is a sad attenuation. When we say or sing ‘amen’, it must be as a sacred vow that we intend to fulfil.

The English language does not have a verb that precisely corresponds to the noun ‘faith’. We don’t ‘faith’, nor do we ‘faith’ anything. We ‘believe’ something or someone. But in the languages of the Bible, faith is not restricted to intellectual assent. It is not merely an acknowledgment that such-and-such is the case. Faith generally takes place in a personal relationship, so that one believes something because one believes the someone who said it. And with that belief, in the context of a relationship of mutual promise and help – what the Bible calls a covenant – comes implications of action. The common formula is as follows: Since I believe X is true because you have told me so, and I believe you to be true, then I will perform my part in our agreement, and I believe you will do your part as well. Thus we have the expression to ‘keep faith’ with someone.

Indeed, a common motif in both Testaments is the imitation of God: Since God is faithful, so the people of God are to be faithful; since God is truthful, so his people are to be truthful. In fact, one of Jesus’ great titles in the book of Revelation’s depiction of his second coming is ‘Faithful and True’ (Revelation 3:14; 19:11).

Thus in biblical faith the key element is trust – a combination of belief and action. ‘I trust you’ is a meaningless phrase if not connected with some sort of action. The lifeguard swims out to me as I flounder in a choppy sea, and he yells at me to calm down and take hold of him properly. ‘I trust you’ is a meaningless declaration at that point if I do not obey him out of confidence that he will save me.

Such a combination applies not only to crises but also to daily life. When a couple recite their marriage vows, they are not merely declaring their ideas about the other person: ‘Yes, come to think of it, I do believe you’re rather a fine person and it would be splendid to spend the rest of my life with you. What a terrific concept. And now, goodbye.’ No, the two of them make vows that oblige them to act in particular ways that are indeed consonant with their ideas: ‘Since I believe that you are a fine person, that I love you, that you love me, and that we desire to build a life together – and thus I believe not only these things about you, but I believe in you – then I promise my love to you forever and will act in all of the ways that are implied in such a promise.’

‘Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.’

Martin Luther King, Jr

The Origin of the Creeds

The word ‘creed’ comes from the Latin word credo (‘I believe’), and refers to a publicly authorized statement of faith. The earliest and simplest Christian confession of faith seems to have been ‘Jesus is Lord!’, a formula which is found at several points in the New Testament. As time passed, the need for official, public declarations of faith became increasingly obvious. Converts to Christianity were asked to confirm their faith at their baptism using short statements of faith. These gradually became expanded into what we now know as ‘creeds’. These often have a recognizably Trinitarian form, affirming belief in God as creator, Christ as saviour, and the Holy Spirit. The creeds have never been thought of as alternatives to the Bible. Rather, they are to be seen as reliable and trustworthy frameworks for making sense of the Bible, safeguarding the church against serious misinterpretations of the Bible – such as those which emerged during some of the controversies with Gnostic groups in the second century.

The two most important Christian creeds are the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Apostles’ Creed evolved over many years, with its final versions dating from the eighth century. It consists of twelve individual statements of faith. These are traditionally ascribed to individual apostles, although there is no historical justification for this belief. In its western form, the creed reads as follows:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of the heavens and earth;
2. and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
3. who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary;
4. he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended to hell;
5. on the third day he was raised from the dead;
6. he ascended into the heavens, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
7. from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit;
9. in the holy catholic church; the communion of saints;
10. the forgiveness of sins;
11. the resurrection of the flesh;
12. and eternal life.

During the twentieth century, the Apostles’ Creed has become widely accepted by most churches as the basis for ecumenical discussions aimed at deepening understanding, and encouraging cooperation.

The Nicene Creed is particularly concerned with safeguarding the identity of Jesus Christ against misunderstandings and inadequate representations of his significance. This creed dates from the fourth century, and takes its name from the Council of Nicea (AD 325), which set out the orthodox understanding of the identity of Christ. The creed includes explicit statements of the divinity of Christ, declaring that he is to be thought of as ‘true God from true God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father’.

The motif of marriage is in fact used powerfully in the Bible to represent God’s relationship with his people – from the broken-hearted prophet Hosea taking back his adulterous wife once again as God once again forgives unfaithful Israel, to the glorious Christian hope of the church joining Jesus at his second coming in the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).

In Christian usage, faith sometimes does refer to beliefs. It occasionally seems to do so in the New Testament, as in the apostle Paul’s counsel to Timothy: ‘If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed’ (1 Timothy 4:6). Even here, though, we might understand a fuller interpretation of ‘faith’: the ‘teaching’ can be seen as merely the intellectual component of the whole way of Christian life denoted as ‘the faith’, and thus ‘the teaching’ is literally ‘the words of the faith’. It is actually quite rare to find in the New Testament ‘the faith’ unequivocally reduced to simply a body of truths, although some rationalistic theologians indicate otherwise (consider examples commonly offered by those of this opinion such as Romans 1:5; Galatians 1:23; Jude 3).

In the early church, however, theologians talked about the ‘rule of faith’, by which they meant a brief statement of Christian doctrine that served as a guideline for assessing heresy. Such statements of faith, when authorized by widespread usage or official sanction, became known as ‘creeds’ – a term that comes from the Latin beginnings of the two most famous early instances, the so-called Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed: ‘I believe …’ or credo. In medieval Christianity and in Roman Catholic teaching since the controversies with Protestants in the sixteenth century, faith sometimes has meant ‘assenting to the teaching of the Church’. This definition of faith was posed particularly in opposition to what was supposed to be the basic Protestant sense of faith as a merely affective trust in God’s mercy regardless of doctrinal correctness. (Protestants, and particularly Martin Luther, could sound this way – but the Protestant Reformers’ characteristic passion for correct doctrine shows that faith for them was never actually divorced from intellectual concerns.)

‘He who hears the word of God and does not obey is out of his mind.’

Euripides

Yet no main branch of Christianity has ever narrowed faith purely to intellectual conviction, to the realm of ideas alone, to a bare ‘I believe …’ without any heartfelt concern or any practical implication. Indeed, one of the more intriguing verses in the Bible suggests that demons themselves believe certain truths about God and ‘shudder’ in response. They see the truth, but respond wrongly to it (James...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editor’s Introduction
• A Very Brief History of Christian Belief
• 1. Faith
• 2. God
• 3. Jesus
• 4. Salvation
• 5. The Church
• 6. The Christian Hope
• Concise Anthology of Christian Thought
• Glossary
• Index