On Faith, Works, Eternity and the Creatures We Are

André Barbera

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780567689795
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

In this volume André Barbera considers the question of faith, how an individual may act faithfully, and what good (if any) is faithful action. Drawing on the letters of the Apostle Paul and the work of philosophical thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Barbera explores numerous aspects of faithful living, from religion, original sin, and tests of faith, to the power of prayer, and even the concept of atheism. In particular, Barbera formulates a postulate drawn from Augustine's Confessions: God is not bound by time. The person of faith, however, is enslaved by time. Augustine's expression "faith seeking understanding" stakes the claim, " but the mode of faith and the end of faith are inherently contradictory. The faithful person waits in pursuit, choking. Works, the anxiety of faith, ensue. Barbera concludes that the person of faith engages in endless trial, struggle, and contradiction, but in so doing attempts to produce a meaningful life.

1

Introduction to the Problems

I wonder about faith: faith in God, faith in reason, faith in country, faith in a lover. What is the relationship of faith to works? What does the person of faith do, or not do, and how does he do it? We are creatures of faith. We believe, we trust, and we attempt to act in accord with our belief and trust. We also doubt, betray, and live inconsistent and disintegrated lives. These failings belong to the creatures of faith, to all of us. We, the faithful, are also the unfaithful, but we are not the faithless.

My interest in the relationship of faith to works is hardly unique. To the contrary, this relationship is of universal concern, a matter of interest for all persons of faith, for each and every one of us: for the lover, for the patriot, for the secularist. Here, however, I am principally concerned with faith in the God of Abraham, and especially with faith in this God as understood by Christians, the God who gave his only begotten son. What does the Christian do? How does he act faithfully, and what good, if any, is faithful action?

As I began to investigate the relationship between faith and works, to study the interconnecting mechanism of faithful action, it became apparent to me that despite my faith in faithfulness—we are all creatures of faith—I did not and do not know who are the faithful. One might say, I do not even know what faith is, although I have learned that faith and faithfulness are not identical. I have also learned that the demands of faith cannot be met because they are inherently contradictory. Thus I find myself at a point where I charge each and every one of us with infidelity. Matters, however, are worse than mere infidelity. My answer to the question “Can one know that one believes?” is an emphatic “No.”

From this perplexity has come my inquiry, an inquiry into a struggle. The inquiry itself is a struggle, one in which I have illustrious predecessors, notably Søren Kierkegaard, but I include also the Apostle Paul and St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine especially has shaped this study with his comments on time.

Here at the beginning I am confronted with problems. A problem is something put forward, a task, a fence, an excuse. In one regard, it seems as though I present the problems to myself, I throw them before me: What is faith? Who believes? How does the person of faith act? But if I am correct in my assertion that we all are creatures of faith, then in another regard the problems present themselves. Our part consists in attending to the problems, and that is what I attempt to do with this study.

* * *

Theology, including accounts of atheism, must be the most excellent of human studies owing to the majesty of the object of inquiry, God. The question of God weighs on man more heavily and presses him more urgently than any other question. For us the significance of the word “God” is as great as it is uncertain. Commonly one encounters the claim that God is always and everywhere a question. Even more common is the assertion that God is the answer. Perhaps the indefinite and definite articles should be exchanged in these assertions. God is always and everywhere the question. God is an answer. As an answer, God intensifies and deepens the very questions that lead to God. Faith is not the end (cessation) of questioning but rather the true beginning. Despite the ever-present depth of its inquiry, however, theology also must be the most pretentious, impertinent, and foolish of human studies, to the extent that it attempts to reason methodically about the unknowable. If there is a divine judge who metes out eternal reward and damnation, then surely he imposes a unique and most horrific punishment on those who misrepresent him. Like Job’s counsellors, theologians are in need of intercessory prayer.

We are all, deep in our hearts, theologians, but only a few have the temerity and impertinence to write out their theological speculations. This work is intended to be theological. It may justly be called psychological, skeptical, disingenuously open-minded, and irreverent. At times this inquiry may appear to be engaged in anthropology, history, and ethics. These connections are incidental. My primary intent is to inquire about faith in general, more particularly about faith and works, and especially about the actions of the Christian. On the one hand, the inquiry is not explicitly confessional, in that it does not cite and hold to a foundational creed, although the influence of my Roman Catholic upbringing, training, and practice will be evident. On the other hand, the inquiry is manifestly Judeo-Christian, especially Christian, and it makes regular recourse to the Bible as a source of wisdom.

The Bible: Old and New Testaments, Tanakh and Christian Scripture. It is one thing to assert that these writings are a source of wisdom. This puts them on a par with the writings of Shakespeare. It is perhaps claiming something more, but not much more, to say that the Bible is a unique source of wisdom. One can go a little further and claim that the Bible is divinely inspired. These assertions do not amount to much more than saying that the Bible is a book revered over the ages by many for its teaching and for many other reasons. It is a foundation for Western thinking.

The Bible is the word of God. “That word is spoken eternally, and by it all things are uttered eternally” (Augustine, Confessions XI.vii.9). On the face of it, this looks like a genuine advance in that the word of God presumably could not be in truth contradicted. The word of God is the truth. But if this is so, then we must inquire into what is meant by “word of God,” leaving aside for the time being concerns about truth and God. I find attractive Karl Barth’s claim in The Epistle to the Romans that the Bible is the word of man from which the word of God attempts to break forth. The reader of the Bible, the recipient, must allow the word of God to break forth, but this allowance is no easy task, no mere passivity. Indeed, the allowance is a mighty, perhaps superhuman, struggle. One must engage with the Bible, the word of man, in order to make room for the breakthrough. One must fight with the text.

As vivid and appealing as the notions of engagement and struggle may be, we must ask ourselves how to distinguish between such an encounter with the word of man and the self-serving selection of apt expressions and phrases to support a thesis or opinion. The theologian, having formulated a proposition, then goes searching for support—a confirming parable, story, or account in the Bible. (Everyone does this.) Having found the appropriate phrase or expression, he brings it forward as evidence, divine testimony to support the ideas of men. Thus we are faced with the problem of deciding which is which. (1) Humble engagement with the word of man in the hope and with the faith that the truth that is alleged to have been revealed in the Bible will in fact be revealed to us. (2) Ex post facto cherry-picking. On the face of things, (1) and (2) look alike.

No one, no human being, comprehends the word of God. No one grasps firmly what has been said. The word of God, by its very transcendence, is beyond us. It is too big, too deep, too far away. In fact, the word of God is not too much of any magnitude, finite or infinite, for mankind. It is not simply of a different order of magnitude. No, the word of God is qualitatively different from the word of man, and thus no intensification of man’s comprehension will be up to the task. We rational beings understand infinite expansion, although we certainly do not imagine it. But infinite expansion of our understanding in no way meets up with the word of God.

On the assumption that the Bible is the word of man through which the word of God is attempting to break forth, I conclude that our encounter with the Bible begins with the word of man but does not originate with mankind. Were the encounter to originate with mankind, then this investigation would be radically different from the one presented here. It would be anthropological or psychological, but not theological.

Finally, I must make two more assertions very clear. First, attempts to tame the Bible must be resisted. The history of preaching and biblical exegesis consists largely of exactly this: an attempt to tame, to shackle and domesticate the teachings of the Bible, to make them more palatable and less exceptional, less outrageous. I assume that my outrage at biblical claims, and especially at the words of Jesus, is a sure sign of their interest to me. I may find many things interesting, but I have an interest in these remarks. My outrage points further to the second assertion. Second, the Bible’s teaching comes from without. It is revealed to us. It is not merely the words of men inspired by the Holy Spirit, although it may consist exactly of those inspired words.

In this study, I have relied on the writings of many authors other than the Bible, many of whom are Jewish or Christian theologians. Although these authors are truly magisterial and their thinking capacious, the resultant work here is narrow. Different sources would have produced different results, although perhaps equally narrow. Absent here are authors from the East, mystical or meditative writings, and consideration of religious practices other than those of Judaism and Christianity. No attempt is made to inquire into feeling. My work might also be charged with being graceless in at least two senses.

This inquiry into faith and works presents an argument of sorts, consisting of interconnected parts. These parts all fit together, at least in the mind of the author, but they are spread out sequentially in chapters. The chapters do not lend themselves entirely to a linear unfolding, although much of the argument follows from the postulate at the end of this introduction. The work here is not definitional. It is, rather, work on faith. I use definitions, especially the one in the Letter to the Hebrews. These are starting points.

The relationship of works or deeds to faith has generated much comment over the centuries, some of it contentious. Disputes have arisen among various Christian denominations as to how works issue forth from faith, and particularly regarding the role, if any, that works play in the salvation of the individual Christian. It is not my intention to address directly these disputes, and at no place has the argument below been crafted to resolve points of disagreement. More generally, let me note that this inquiry into faith represents solely the thinking of the author, who does not speak for any religious sect or denomination.

* * *

It is commonly remarked that all questions and problems of theology reduce themselves ultimately to questions about time. Such has been my experience as I have endeavored to study and to think about faith and works. Accordingly, I shall find it necessary, especially given the postulate at the end of this introduction, to make a few remarks about time, although they are mostly negative or equivocal. I propose to speak about eternity, and the inquiry into faith unfolds from the tension, perhaps one should say contradiction, between eternity and time. The terms of discourse shape the argument, and ordinary language may be an inadequate medium for thinking about time. I affirm, nonetheless, the postulate in order to investigate the temporal condition of faith, a condition that turns out to be paradoxical. Furthermore, I acknowledge boldness on my part in speaking about time as if everyone was in agreement as to what time is. Is it one? Is it at all? I beg the reader’s indulgence here (and in many other places) as I attempt to initiate the inquiry.

Most important for the consideration of the eternal is an investigation of succession and consequence. Does time form the basis for all such considerations, or can we understand relation and logical entailment independently of time? Is there meaning to the claim that all was made through the creator (“all things are uttered eternally”), and without the creator was not made at all that which was made? Specifically, did God create time? Many theologians, including those who have produced profound meditations on time, such as Augustine, answer affirmatively. And yet I shall consider the suffering aspect of time, especially as it relates to faith. In this regard, time will appear to have more in common with sin than it has with God’s good creation. We often speak of time as if it were one, although our dealings with time are varied. In one case time seems to be original with us, and in another case it seems to be external, an imposition that we suffer.

I shall speak of God, the creator, and wonder if the terms “being” or “object of faith” can in any way do justice to what is intended. If one accepts the postulate, then at least in one respect the creator is not a being, and certainly the creator does not exist. Following a line of theological speculation, I suggest that the creator is that which is supremely.

God, of course, is not the only object of faith. Along with the variety of objects come various kinds of belief and trust, and these in turn condition our lives variously. Our faith may be placed in a lover, in gold, in Dulcinea. Each of these objects is a god for the person of faith. Although the sources drawn from here are preponderantly theological and Christian, I believe that many of my claims can be extended, with some modification, to pertain to these other objects of faith.

God himself will receive a variety of designations, such as person-God, omni-God, and eternal action. With a liberal interpretation of God, or gods, and a corresponding liberal interpretation of adoration, there seems to be no such thing as complete or perfect atheism. Most people worship several gods and so, conversely, monotheism is practically impossible. We, the faithful, live contradictory lives.

Prudence, or something like it, haunts these pages as well as my efforts to navigate through some of the turbulence of contradiction, although that virtue seems to be antithetical to the zeal for truth normally associated with faith. If faith is a virtue, even if it is a divinely inspired virtue, it is a worldly one like prudence that is subject to time and shaped by circumstance. The goal may be transcendent, unwavering, eternal, but the pursuit is muddled and filled with what looks from the outside to be compromise. Human beings are to varying degrees faithful, unfaithful, prudent, and imprudent. A good conscience weighs in the balance.

Central to the argument set forth in this study is the understanding of faith as a quest for knowledge or wisdom, knowing, and the struggle that ensues from pursuit of this understanding. In developing this notion, I rely on arguments from Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and others. These authors combine to argue persuasively that an end of faith, perhaps the end of faith, is knowledge.

“Faith seeking understanding” stakes the claim. The notion, perhaps a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:9, is promulgated by Augustine and taken up by St. Anselm of Canterbury. But Jesus provides the key link in his parenthetical observation about eternal life: it is knowledge. “And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (Jn 17:3). This interpretation is confirmed by Paul, Aquinas, and Calvin. Faith is the pursuit of eternal life.

There are various kinds of knowledge. Some knowledge is factual, worldly, and contingent. Some is logical and necessary. Augustine distinguishes between wisdom and knowledge. The former concerns eternal things and the latter concerns temporal ones. Crucial to the argument set forth is the role that time plays in the knowing. I assume that the knowledge of eternal life, at least in its eternality, is independent of time. This is a contentious claim. The argument here accepts the assumption in order to explore the tension and conflict that necessarily ensue from pursuing the eternal. If the emphasis is placed on life rather than on eternality, and if life is to be taken in more than a metaphorical sense, then time re-enters into the considerations. The Incarnation, an affront to the understanding, epitomizes the confusion to which eternal life points.

The person of faith seeks a level of knowing beyond his comprehension. He seeks the beatific vision. Equally incomprehensible is the union of the eternal with the temporal, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. A common union, a fitting together, comes about whenever a temporal being understands and contemplates the necessary, but the Incarnation is a union of a different kind. It is unique. Can Jesus Christ be known in any way other than as the man Jesus of Nazareth? But knowledge of Jesus Christ the Son of God is exactly part of the reward, achievement, or eternal condition of temporal faithfulness, according to Jesus. I shall investigate the impossibility of attaining such knowledge in our lifetime. Given this state of affairs, the pursuit of eternal life (faith) is at best a struggle and it may be futile.

The person of faith, or aspirant to faith, is also doubly in the dark. He seeks not only knowledge about the object of faith but also about his own faithfulness. Our own trustworthiness is always at stake. According to Augustine and Aquinas, to believe is to think with assent, and we must know what constitutes assent. We must also investigate that which is to be believed. Is it a person or a proposition? If it is a person, then how do we believe that person? Do we trust what he says to be the truth, or do we simply trust that the person cares for us? Do we trust Jesus when he says “I am the truth”? If what is to be believed or assented to is a proposition or statement, then we must inquire into the meaning of the proposition irrespective of its veracity.

The inherent contradiction between the mode of faith and the objective of faith leads to anxiety. Contradiction and anxiety can be found in all forms of faith, not just in the pursuit of eternal life. This is so because we human beings are creatures of faith and likewise are sufferers of time. In this state the person of faith, a sinner, must act. Necessarily he performs works and obeys, and I inquire into the evidential nature of these works and obedience. They may be signs of faith, but they are not eternal life.

The connection of faith to works by means of anxiety appears to be a psychological solution to my motivating question, and such an understanding is possible. The introduction of sin, however, refashions the solution whereby we leave the realm of psychology to enter that of religion. One might be anxious for a variety of reasons and, in turn, there may be a variety of anxieties. Some of these might be identified with historical periods, but the anxiety of faith is not historical, or perhaps more properly it is all-historical, since it is inextricable from faith itself.

Luther, relying on Paul, asserts that no one loves the Lord with all his heart, soul, and might. Thus no one keeps the law, not even the First Commandment, and we worship many gods. For this investigation I accept the all-or-nothing theology of Paul, and thus part ways with the more pragmatic and accommodating thinking of many theologians. A consequence of my position is that we all become idolaters, and we know it.

The person of faith who is self-aware, who knows himself as a sinner, becomes particularly anxious, and for him anxiety manifests itself in works. Even without the acknowledgment of sin, this person acts and obeys. This may seem to be a psychological response, not a theological one. But along with my liberal interpretation of God or gods comes an equally liberal interpretation of theology. The person of faith who betrays does not sin against God but “sins” against god. Thus the faithful-unfaithful on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents 
• Preface
• 1 Introduction to the Problems
• 2 Is Time?
• 3 Kinds of Faith
• 4 Faith as Pursuit of Knowledge
• 5 Faith and Works
• 6 Faith and Time, or Choking on Faith
• 7 The Individual
• 8 Heaven and Rewards
• 9 Religion and Fellowship
• 10 Tests of Faith
• 11 Solace, Miracles, and the Power of Prayer
• 12 Crucifixion and Resurrection
• 13 Atheism and the Face of Christ
• 14 Concluding Remarks
• 15 The Coroner of Jerusalem
• Bibliography
• Index of Scripture
• Index
• Imprint