The nature of faith

Karen Armstrong in her newest tome, The Case for God (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, p. 87), suggests that “loyalty” is the original, New Testament meaning of the Greek words for “faith” and “belief.” That historical analysis coheres well with my definition of “faith” as the trajectory of one’s life. In other words, faith in God denotes aiming to move, to grow, toward God.

Defining “faith” or “belief” in terms of assent or alleged adherence to propositional statements ignores that assent or adherence constitute an action while implicitly presuming that human experience of a transcendent sacred reality can be accurately described in finite, human language. In the case of the former, words that lack any substantive follow-through ring hollow. In the latter case, humans have fashioned an idol using words rather than clay, stone, or wood. Yet the idols are equally vacuous. Prominent twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich once said, “Even orthodox theology is nothing but idolatry.” (Armstrong, 281-2)

The trajectory of a person’s life – the person’s progress toward explicitly identified goals or goals that discernible only with the benefit of hindsight – reveals a person’s true loyalties, i.e., that person’s true faith or beliefs.

Persons who wish to travel the Jesus path do well to intentionally reflect upon the question: does the trajectory of my life emulate the trajectory of Jesus’ life? Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the Christian liturgical year, is an especially appropriate time for such reflections.