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COMMENTARY
Moral Theology : When Does Faith Disappear ?
June 6 , 2017 | The Valley Catholic
By Rev . Ron Rolheiser , OMI
Theologian , teacher , award-winning author , and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio , TX
When Friedrich Nietzsche declared that “ God is dead ” he added a question : What kind of a sponge does it take to wipe away a whole horizon ?
I often ask that question because just in my own lifetime there has been an unprecedented decline in the number of people who go to church regularly and , more recently , an equally unprecedented spike in the number of people who claim to have lost their faith completely and are now classified under a religious category called , “ None .”
This latter group ( persons who when asked about their religious affiliation on a census form answer with the word , None ) has essentially doubled in the last twenty years and today in Canada and the USA make up over 30 percent of the population . The numbers are much the same for Western Europe and other secularized parts of the world .
But have these individuals really lost their faith ? When they use the word “ None ” to refer to their religious beliefs they generally explain that with phrases to this effect : I just no longer believe ! It doesn ’ t make sense to me anymore ! I ’ ve lost faith in religion and the church ! I can ’ t pretend any longer ! I ’ ve lost my faith in those beliefs ! I ’ m not sure whether or not I believe in God !
What ’ s common among all these phrases is the concept of “ believing ” or “ belief ”: “ I just don ’ t believe it anymore !” But is ceasing to believe in something the same thing as losing one ’ s faith ? Not necessarily . It can be one thing to no longer believe in something , but it can be something quite different to lose one ’ s faith . To cease believing in a set of faith propositions doesn ’ t necessarily equate with losing one ’ s faith . Indeed , the loss of one ’ s belief system is often the condition for a purified faith .
How is belief different from faith ? In normal , everyday parlance to say that we believe something to be true means that we are able to square that truth with our imagination , that is , we are able to somehow circumscribe it imaginatively so that it makes sense to us . Conversely , if we cannot picture how something might make sense then it is a short step to say that it isn ’ t true . Our beliefs are predicated on what we can square with our imagination and our thinking .
But many of the objects of our faith are , in essence and by definition , unimaginable , ineffable , and beyond conceptualization . Hence in the area of faith , to say that I can ’ t believe this or that is generally more an indication of the limitation of our imagination and our rational powers than it is indicative of the loss of faith . I believe that we are much more agnostic about our beliefs than we are agnostic about God , and this isn ’ t a loss of faith .
Faith is deeper than belief , and it is not always something we can picture imaginatively inside our minds . Take , for instance , a number of articles in the Apostles ’ Creed : It is impossible to imagine them as true in terms of picturing them as real . They are real , but our images of them are only icons . That is true too of many articles within our Christian creed and many of our written doctrines of faith . As expressed , they are merely images and words that point us towards something which we cannot imagine because it is beyond imagination .
For example : The first thing , always , that needs to be said about God is that God is ineffable , that is , God is beyond all conceptualization , beyond all imaginings , beyond being pictured , and beyond being captured in any adequate way by language . This is also true for our understanding of Christ as the Second Person in the Trinity . Jesus was God ’ s son , but how can that to be imagined or pictured ? It can ’ t be . How can God , who is one , be three ? This isn ’ t mathematics ; it ’ s mystery , something that cannot be imaginatively circumscribed . Yet , we believe it and millions and millions of people for two thousand years have risked their lives and their souls on its truth without being able to picture it imaginatively . Faith is a knowing of something which , because of its magnitude and infinity , cannot be adequately pictured in terms of an imaginative construct . Our words about it express our beliefs and those words point to the reality , but they are not the reality .
To reject a specific piece of art does not mean we reject beauty . So when someone says , I can no longer believe this , he is in effect rejecting a set of propositions , a set of particular icons and a theory of art ( a theology ), rather than actually rejecting belief in God , and he is rejecting it precisely because he cannot imagin atively picture something which in fact cannot be pictured .
It has been said that atheist is just another name for someone who cannot get metaphor . Perhaps that ’ s too simple , but it does suggest that rejecting a set of theological propositions is not the same thing as losing one ’ s faith .
Barnabas
The story of this early missionary , a Cypriot Jew called Joseph , is told in the Acts of the Apostles . He was named Barnabas ( son of encouragement ) by the Twelve Apostles when he sold property and gave them the money ( 4:36-37 ). He introduced the convert Paul to the apostles ( 9:27 ), was officially sent by the Jerusalem church to Antioch ( 11:22-26 ), was set apart with Paul by the Spirit for a mission to Cyprus ( 13:2 ), attended the Council of Jerusalem ( 15:12 ), and returned to Cyprus with Mark ( 15:36-41 ). By tradition , he was martyred there .
By Catholic News Service