In my prior post on the subject of faith, I addressed some of the tensions between faith and reason, pointed out the tightly-constricted world of those who embrace the material while a priori excluding the transcendent, and attempted to make the point that faith of any kind — be it as simple as starting your car or as mystical as praying for healing — requires both a trust based far more on experience than knowledge, and a trustworthy, dependable faith object.
But faith requires more than simply trust in a reliable object — it requires that such a trust proceed from the true nature of that object. Thus when we talk of religious or spiritual faith — and this is the faith of which we are most concerned — it is not simply sufficient that our trust in God (whom we understand to be completely trustworthy) will invariably bring results. Our trust must be consistent and harmonious with the nature of God to bear fruit. These conditions or constraints which dictate and direct the faith relationship I have called — for lack of a better term — the transaction of faith. To simply trust, while disregarding the true nature of God, is to practice mere wishful thinking or magical projection. And a trustworthy God in whom no genuine trust (or misdirected trust) is vested will likewise avail us nothing.
Continue reading “On Faith II: The Transaction”