| 6. Faith | ||||
Jesus uses the word "faith" for belief both in miracle and in prayer. | ||||
"If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Go over there, and it will go." (Matt. 17:20) | ||||
To the father of the epileptic boy he says, "Everything is possible to him who has faith." (Mark 9 :23) In this sense men are rebuked for their lack of faith or their little faith. (Mark 9:19, Matt. 6:30) On the other hand the word "faith" does not mean for him, as later for Paul and John, the obedience of men under God s redeeming revelation, though this use of the term also enters occasionally into the gospel tradition. (Mark 1 :15, Luke 18 :8) Although the word faith is not especially prominent in his teaching, yet it is characteristic of his thought of God. For Jesus does not speak of faith in God in general, but only with reference to definite, actual situations. | ||||
When the author of the Epistle of James says, combating a purely theoretical belief in God, "You believe that God exists? You do well. The demons also believe, and tremble" (James 2 :19), the conception of belief here expressed is not "faith" according to Jesus. This intellectual concept of faith, in which belief in God is part of a world view, a general theoretical conviction of the existence of God, arose in missionary preaching, in which it was necessary to proclaim in contrast to polytheism the belief in one God. The heathen were those who do not "know" God. (Gal. 4 :8, 1 Thess. 4:5); hence "faith" seemed to be correct knowledge about God. In a Christian book of the second century, the Shepherd of Hermas, the first commandment is rendered: "First of all believe that God is one, who created and formed all things, who called everything from nothingness into existence, who, Himself incomprehensible, comprehends all in Himself." | ||||
In this sense, then, according to which belief in God is part of a world-view and stands in opposition to another world-view, in opposition also to doubt of God s existence, Jesus does not speak of faith. Instead, faith is for him the power, in particular moments of life, to take seriously the conviction of the omnipotence of God; it is the certainty that in such particular moments God s activity is really experienced; it is the conviction that the distant God is really the God near at hand, if man will only relinquish his usual attitude and be ready to see the nearness of God. In the sense of Jesus it is possible to have faith only if one is obedient, and thus every frivolous misuse of faith in God is excluded. | ||||