The Presence of a Hidden God

What can be seen on earth indicates neither the total absence nor the obvious presence, but the presence of a Hidden God.

— Blaise Pascal
Pensées (556)

Newbigin on Faith & Knowledge

The challenge to faith has to be accepted. Faith is not a second-class substitute for knowledge: it is the indispensable precondition for knowledge. This is true in every sphere but supremely true when we are thinking of the knowledge of God. There is a personal invitation which has to be accepted on trust if we are to have the possibility of vision. The common idea in our secular culture that this "personal knowledge" is of an inferior validity to that which depends upon pure induction from the data of the senses, or upon extrapolation from the requirements of a logical system, has no foundation.

— Lesslie Newbigin
The Light Has Come

Making a Jesus Out of Your Faith

From ideliglog

William Romaine (18th century English Anglican Evangelical) was a great man. His Letters are spectacular and in fact the great Thomas Chalmers said that Romaine’s letters are the best book to read to heal you of a legal spirit (i.e. legalism.) In Letter 37 of the Select Letters (kept in print by Old Paths Gospel Press and sold by Dr. Beeke at http://www.heritagebooks.org) he writes about the problem of making a Jesus out of our faith and how this robs us of our comfort. Here is an excerpt:

“For you are looking, not at the object of your faith, at jesus, but at your faith. You would draw your comfort, not from Him, but from your faith. And because your faith is not quite perfect, you are as much discouraged as if Jesus was not quite a perfect Savior… But, besides this mistake, I can see one of the greatest sins in your way of reasoning, and yet finely cloaked under a very specious covering. I pulled it off; and behold there was rank treason under it, against the crown and majesty of my Lord and God; for you are kept looking at your act of believing. What is this for? Why, certainly, that you may be satisfied with it. What then? No doubt you will then rest in it, and upon it, satisfied now that Christ is yours, because you are satisfied with your faith. This is making a Jesus of it, and is in effect taking the crown of crowns from his head, and placing it upon the head of your faith. Lord grant you may never do this any more!

"I observe… how, by this mistake, and by this great sin, the sin of sins, you are robbed of the sweet enjoyment of the God of all comfort. You lose what you seek, and lose it in the way of seeking. You want comfort, and you look to your faith for it. If faith could speak it would say, ‘I have none to give you, look unto Jesus, it is all in Him’ Indeed my friend it is. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, will not glorify your faith. he will not give it the honour of comforting you. he takes nothing to comfort with but the things of Christ - and His things, not as used by you, but as given by Him, who is all yours… I grant you, and I know it well, that much faith brings much comfort from Christ, and carries much glory to Him; but the way to get much faith is not to look at it, as you do, but at the Savior; not to look at your hand, but at Jesus; not how you hold Him, but that He is yours , and holds you, and your faith too, and therefore you shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life.”

Brueggemann on Barrenness

Barrenness is the way of human history. It is an effective metaphor for hopelessness. There is no foreseeable future. There is no human power to invent a future. But barrenness is not only the condition of hopeless humanity. The marvel of biblical faith is that barrenness is the arena of God’s life-giving action. Inexplicably, this God speaks his powerful word directly into a situation of barrenness. This is the ground of the good news. This God does not depend on any potentiality in the one addressed. Abraham and Sarah were quite without potential. The speech of God presumes nothing from the one addressed but carries in itself all that is necessary to begin a new people in history. The speech of God overcomes and overpowers the barrenness of reality.

Walter Brueggemann
Genesis, in the Interpretation Commentary Series

St. Augustine on Faith to Believe

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

— St. Augustine

Leithart on Faith & Reason

"We have...a conflict of various faith-reasons...."

For centuries, Christians have posed the dilemma of Christian theology as a problem of faith v. reason. That's a non-starter, a concession of defeat, for it assumes that there can be such a thing as a faith-free rationality. But there cannot be.

What we have is not a conflict of faith and reason, but a conflict of various faith-reasons or reason-faiths.

HT: Leithart