PAPER NO. 98
FAITH AND THE WORD OF GOD
The Object of Faith
- The Word of God is that by which God makes himself known. The Logos is the Word of God in its fullness. The sum of all God’s Word is truth. The object of faith is always and only the Word of God.
- Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Without faith it is impossible to please God. He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. Left to oneself, no one seeks God, no one understands. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
- Faith is inseparable from proof (evidence) based on understanding. Faith without understanding is like words without meaning. Faith grows as understanding grows; faith is tested as understanding is tested. Faith without understanding is dead; fideism (belief without proof based on understanding) is not faith.
- By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear (Hebrews 11:3). The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (anapologia) (Romans 1:20).
- Due to sin (remaining in all, and ruling in some) there is resistance to request for proof, manifest in many/every degree(s), both inside and outside the Church. The gospel calls men everywhere to repent of failure to seek and understand what is clear about God and man and good and evil, and to seek first the kingdom of God in all relations of life.
- Faith is to reason as truth is to meaning. By reason we see (understand) the invisible things of God. Without understanding the meaning of experience, man is like the beast that perishes. Faith is based on reason; it is not based on uncritically examined tradition; it is not based on mere persuasion (by informal fallacies vs. sound argument); it is not based on mere appearance (common sense); it is not based on intuition (the sign is not the reality); it is not based on science in so far as it assumes empiricism (all knowledge is from sense experience); it is not based on the constructive use of reason building on dogmatic assumptions.
- Faith begins with the light of reason (the life of the Logos in all men made in the image of God) (John 1:4). By reason, as the laws of thought, we understand the Logos in general revelation (John 1:10). By reason, we understand scripture—the Word of God written (John 1:11). The Logos, rejected as reason, general revelation and special revelation, became incarnate in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth (John 1:14-18). The Holy Spirit is sent by Christ to lead the Church into all truth (John 16:13) summed up in the creeds through Church councils (Acts 15). The Spirit restores persons to the life of faith sovereignly by regeneration (Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Peter 1:23) and brings them to a mature faith by sanctification (John 17:17).
- Faith (Word of God, Truth, doctrine, belief) is fundamental to all other aspects of life—to the psychological (feeling) and the practical (outward/actional). Yet we live (existentially are aware of and operate) on the less basic level. So, divisions are seldom addressed as disputes about faith and they persist through one lifetime and are passed on to the third and fourth generations. What becomes longstanding and deep-seated requires both repentance and forgiveness up to seventy times seven.
- What is more basic is not the ethical or the metaphysical, but the epistemological (how we know—by the Word of God, the object of faith). Meaning is more basic than truth; and reason—the life of the Logos in all men as light (John 1:4)—that by which we understand meaning, is the most basic form of the Word of God in man. In our fallen state, we neglect, avoid, resist, and deny reason as the laws of thought to avoid what is clear about God. We avoid the inexcusability of the light of reason—in ourselves and in others.
- Unbelief regarding clarity has been avoided by excusing or accusing: doctrine divides; theological hairsplitting; dry-as-dust theology; faith is above or against reason; faith of the simple (most); only (very) few can do metaphysics; proof is by evidence for special revelation (miracles, prophesy, the Resurrection) vs. from clear general revelation; all men already know—deep down (without seeking and understanding); all must know (and supress) to be culpable (vs. culpable ignorance); belief in God is properly basic— prima facie warrant only (like the external world and other minds); one must presuppose God to reason (vs. reason is the self-attesting Word of God—John 1:4-5). None of these apologetics aim at clarity and inexcusability. All, therefore, miss the mark (hamartia). All sin comes short of the glory of God. All sin brings death. The emperor has no clothes. Without rational justification for belief in God we are all naked. Rational justification is avoided by self-deception (fig leaves—comes in many styles and every size and color) and self-justification. The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates). Man that is in honor, without understanding, is like the beasts that perish (Psalm 49:20).
- Professing believers, drawn to the doctrine of clarity, without repentance of root sin (the lack of faith—belief in God without proof/fideism) in themselves first and in their tradition, merely add the proofs of clarity to their apologetic arsenal. Addition without repentance puts new wine (the worldview arising from the cornerstone of clarity) into old wineskins (built on a faulty foundation). To preach clarity without repentance of one’s inexcusability is to preach a fatal distortion of clarity (clarity-lite). The old wineskins burst sooner or later, and all labor is lost.
- The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22). Clarity (and inexcusability) is cornerstone, the bedrock of the foundation. All else is sand. The Church has not withstood the challenges of modernity and post-modernity. There has been division and apostasy in the Church. Without the Church as salt and light, the culture is in decay, nearing collapse. But the promise stands: with the foundation the Church can grow to maturity, fruitfulness, unity, and fullness. All flesh is grass. Only the Word of God, grasped by faith, stands forever (Isaiah 40:8).
