Knowing Our Faith

A Guide for Believers, Seekers, and Christian Communities

Justo L. González

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780802877062
• eBook ISBN: 9781467452311
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

“I do not hope to convince you so that you will believe. That is to be left to the Holy Spirit. I write to you because you share the faith by which I live. I write so that you may share my joy in seeking to understand better this truth that our hearts believe and love.”  

In  Knowing Our Faith  Justo González introduces the Christian faith in direct, contemporary language that does not assume prior knowledge. While recognizing the existence of various denomi­nations and theological positions, González focuses on the core faith of the Christian church through the centuries. 

Covering all the key topics—revelation, God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, the church, Christian hope, and others— Knowing Our Faith  is an ideal resource for both individual reading and small group study, with questions for discussion included at the end of each short chapter. 

This accessible resource will help readers understand the Christian faith better—and, more importantly, live it better.

ONE

Revelation

When speaking about God, the first thing we have to say is that the only way to know God is through God’s own disclosure. This doesn’t mean that in order to know something about God one has to have a special revelation. But it does mean that our knowledge of God depends on what God wishes us to know. It’s a matter not of our discovering God, but rather of a God who uncovers Godself to us. If, for instance, we say that we discovered God by looking at nature, this isn’t due to our particular perspicacity, but rather to God being willing to be revealed in nature. The same is true if we say that we see God in the person of Jesus, or in Scripture, or in our personal experience. In order for us really to encounter God through any of these means, first of all it is necessary for God to wish to be known through them.

The second thing one must say regarding this matter is that God’s revelation is always adapted to our capacity to understand and know God’s nature. The absolute knowledge of God is not within our reach as mortals. As God says to Moses, “No one shall see me and live” (Exod. 33:20). Thus, revelation itself is a sign of God’s grace. Out of love God makes Godself known to us and, also out of love, adapts revelation to our capacity to receive it.

Some examples taken from sports and from education may help us understand this. In baseball, if there were ever a pitcher who could throw a ball at 500 mph, that wouldn’t be particularly useful, because there is no catcher able to catch such a ball. In education, a teacher with a PhD in mathematics teaching first-grade children cannot teach them trigonometry or calculus. Both the pitching and the teaching have to adapt themselves to the capabilities of those receiving them. Likewise, God’s revelation is adapted to our capability of receiving it. God’s revelation is the result of a God who so loved us as to adapt to our condition, coming to us first in the written Word, and then in the Word made flesh. “For God so loved the world . . .”

God in Nature and in History

Where and how is God revealed? Perhaps on this score we must begin by affirming that God is revealed first of all in the emptiness of our hearts. No matter what religion or philosophy we follow, we all know that we are incomplete beings. Not only is the universe a mystery, but so is life itself. Both those who flee from religion and those who embrace it know in the depth of their souls that they need a point of reference outside themselves. As Augustine says at the very beginning of his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they come to rest in you.”

If we then look around with the openness resulting from acknowledging our own incompleteness, the first thing we can say is that we see God in nature. As the psalmist says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). And the apostle Paul echoes that information: “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (Rom. 1:20). One doesn’t have to be a poet or a visionary in order to be overwhelmed by the mysteries of subatomic particles or the vastness of interstellar space, and even more so by our inability to comprehend such things. As the psalmist says, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Ps. 8:3–4).

As we see God in nature, we begin to discover God’s infinite wisdom. The more we explore the functioning of nature, the more surprised we are at the wisdom of its creator. If the psalmist was overwhelmed by the movement of the heavenly bodies, much more overwhelmed are we today as scientists discover more about those very bodies, about atoms and their minuscule particles, or the manner in which a single cell carries within itself an entire code of reproduction. But above all, the contemplation of nature, as in the case of the psalmist, lets us see the enormous gulf between God’s wisdom and ours. Paradoxically, the more we study nature and the better we understand it, the more aware we are of how little we really understand.

Sometimes we are attracted by the serene beauty of nature, and at other points by its majestic power. Sometimes as we look at nature we’re soothed by the calm beauty of a pool in a small river, and sometimes we’re overwhelmed by the irrepressible might of a waterfall. We see the power and wisdom of God both in the afternoon breeze and in the raging tempest.

But nature alone does not suffice. While the contemplation of nature may prove inspiring, it is also perplexing. In nature there is not only life, harmony, and beauty, but also death, corruption, ugliness, and violence. Thus nature points us towards the great mystery of God; but by itself it can never tell us much about the will of that God. Therefore, in order to understand nature in such a way that we can discern the presence of God in it, we need a further guide that is not nature itself.

This is why ancient Israel, surrounded by peoples who worshiped gods and goddesses of nature, always insisted that its God is not only the Lord of nature, but also the Lord of history. The God of Israel not only made the heavens and the earth, but also intervened with a mighty arm in order to free the children of Israel from the yoke of Egypt. Both Judaism and Christianity are based on the premise that God is always present and active in history. God is not a distant being who sets the world going and then abandons it. Thus, by studying history one can begin to discern the divine action in it. And this is true not only of the history that we study at school, which deals with empires and invasions, but also with that other but perhaps more important history that is each of our lives, as well as the history of the church itself.

But even history, like nature, includes much that we certainly cannot attribute to God. History includes a long series of abuses, violent conquests, and genocides. And even where things don’t go that far, there are also corrupt governments and demagogues who abuse their power. Furthermore, as we study history, we see that the church itself is not exempt from crime and abuse. And our own personal history also includes its high points and its lows—times in which we have seen the hand of God as well as times of anxiety, perplexity, and infidelity. Therefore, in order to understand all those various levels of history in such a way that we can discern the presence of God in them, we need another guide that is not history itself.

We Christians are convinced that such a guide is to be found in the Scriptures, where the people of Israel discern and celebrate the presence of God in their own history at the same time that the prophets call them to repentance for their own faithlessness and disobedience. In Scripture, God lets us see the divine action in our human past, and on that basis calls us to discern the divine presence in our present history so as to be faithful and obedient.

But there is more. Our God speaks to us not only in nature and in history, and not only in the history of Israel as explained in the writings of the biblical prophets. Ours is a God who in Jesus Christ has become part of nature and of history in order to be known by us. Further on, in a later chapter, we will deal more extensively with the person of Jesus Christ. For the time being, the words of the book of Hebrews immediately come to mind: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is a reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:1–3).

How Does Scripture Reveal God?

Since in another chapter we will return to the subject of God’s revelation and action in Jesus Christ, here we must take the time to consider Scripture and its interpretation. On this matter, one must begin by affirming that the interpretation of Scripture requires the intervention of the Holy Spirit. In the past there has been much discussion about how the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Scripture. Although there are significant differences regarding the manner in which that inspiration works, in general believers agree that Scripture is the Word of God by reason of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What we often forget is that this inspiration isn’t limited to the time when the text was written, but also takes place when it is read and interpreted. Without the Holy Spirit, it’s possible to read the Bible simply as a collection of ancient literary pieces, some more elegant than others, which one approaches with the same curiosity and the same methods that one employs, for instance, in reading the writings of Plato. Furthermore, in the church itself there have been believers who have employed the Bible in order to condemn those who are not like them, to justify injustice and oppression, and even to do violence to their enemies. For the Bible to be the Word of God for us, it is necessary that in our own reading and interpretation the Holy Spirit be at work.

And we need to consider other points besides this one. The first is that the Bible is a revelation, and not a sort of puzzle that God has given us awaiting the arrival of some supposed prophet who knows how to solve it. Looking for a “secret key” or a mystical number that would allow us to understand the entirety of biblical history is to deny the very nature of Scripture as the revelation of God—of a God who out of love reveals Godself to us, and who in this process doesn’t present us with puzzles to solve and certainly doesn’t play silly games with us.

Second, if God has given us Scripture as well as the means to understand whatever we see and read, it behooves us to employ those means in our reading of Scripture. It’s not simply a matter of asking the Holy Spirit to inspire us in the reading—that’s absolutely necessary. But that same Holy Spirit gives us the numerous resources that we must also consider and use. These resources include, among other things, translations that allow us to read the text in our own language. Without such translations, most of us would be at a loss, unable to understand a single word of the sacred texts. There’s no doubt that those who gave us those translations invoked the help of the Holy Spirit for their work. Some of them risked freedom and life in that enterprise, and for that we must be profoundly grateful. But the fact that the Holy Spirit accompanied them in their task as translators doesn’t mean that they were infallible. In English, every version has been revised once and again as we’ve developed better knowledge of the original languages and found better ancient manuscripts, and also as the English language itself has evolved.

This means that our various interpretations of Scripture, even though they’re guided by the Holy Spirit, are not infallible. They frequently need correction, just as the ancient versions of the Bible do. This is of great importance, because if we forget it, we may fall into the trap of thinking that if our interpretation is correct, then it must be seen as infallible, and that if at some point we err, this implies that the Holy Spirit didn’t accompany us in our reading. In truth, even when the Holy Spirit inspires our reading, all our interpretations of Scripture are ours, and therefore are subject to correction.

This constant need for correction is one of the reasons why one must underline the importance of reading Scripture within the context of the community. One must certainly develop the discipline of reading the Bible and meditating on it in private. This has become much easier in the last several centuries thanks to the invention of the printing press, which allows us to have Bibles in our own homes. But that private reading must not take the place of the study of Scripture in community. If we stop to think about it, we will realize that almost all of the Bible was written in order to be read in public: the Old Testament, to be read before the congregation of Israel; and the New, to be read out loud in the church. The Old Testament isn’t addressed to individual Israelites, and the New Testament isn’t addressed primarily to the individual believer. Even though our own personal faith is of great importance, the purpose of the Bible is not only our individual formation, but is also and above all the formation and guidance of the people of God. When, for instance, Paul writes to believers in Rome, he’s taking for granted that his epistle will be read out loud in the presence of the entire congregation. Naturally, some of the people who were present at that point would later wish to read it again with more care. (But during these times there were no printed books, and therefore it would have been very difficult for an individual believer to have even a portion of the Bible at home.) Both elements—community reading and private reading—are necessary. In our case, the community of faith helps us to discern between what is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit and what is nothing more than our personal opinion.

But it’s not enough to read within the closely knit community of faith with which we gather periodically. Such reading is very important, because it is within that community that our faith is shaped and nourished. But we must remember first of all that just as we are reading and interpreting Scripture, millions of sisters and brothers throughout the whole world are also reading and interpreting it. In whatever measure we can, we must take their perspectives into account, for all of these people are part of the same body of Christ to which we belong. For instance, it’s easy for a local congregation in the United States whose members are mostly of European descent to celebrate Thanksgiving by thanking God for “this land you gave us.” But it becomes much more difficult to say the same words if we consider ourselves to be in the presence of brothers and sisters who descend from the original inhabitants of these lands, and who still remember that their ancestors were dispossessed of them by force.

Furthermore, it doesn’t suffice to remember those others who today walk in a spiritual pilgrimage that is also ours. We must also recall the enormous cloud of witnesses who have walked before us and in whose steps we now follow. The Bible itself has come to us thanks to many generations of people who carefully copied and recopied it when there was no printing press. It has come to us through many generations of people who devotedly studied the original languages of the sacred text so that we might receive it in a way that we can understand. It has come to us through a long chain of believers throughout the centuries. All of these people are also part of our community of faith, and we must take all of them into account in our study of Scripture.

We see some of that in the Bible itself. The prophets of the Bible don’t speak as if Abraham and Moses had never existed. The Psalms are inspired by the stories of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. The New Testament opens with the genealogy that relates the story of Jesus with the entire history of Israel. And Jesus himself reminds us of all this when he says that our God, the God of Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants “is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:32).

This is why, as we are often told, the first principle ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• An Open Letter to the Reader
• Introduction: Understanding the Faith
• 1. Revelation
• 2. The Triune Creator God
• 3. Humankind
• 4. Redemption: Jesus Christ and the New Creation
• 5. The Spirit of Holiness
• 6. The Church: A Community of the Holy Spirit
• 7. Worship in the Church
• 8. Baptism and Communion
• 9. Christian Hope and the Last Days
• 10. Christian Life
• Index