Is 'Personal Trust' an Essential Component of Saving Faith?–I
November 15, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
Saving faith is typically thought to consist of three necessary
components: knowledge (or understanding), approval (or assent), and
personal trust (i.e., some act of will). I want to suggest (and briefly
argue) that the third element might not be necessary after all. In
short, I have a hard time seeing how believing the right things about
my own sinful state, along with some very important and specific right
things about Jesus, isn’t enough.
Most verses dealing with saving faith speak of “believing in” or
“coming to” Jesus. Take the prototypical example, John 3:16: “He gave
his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life.” It seems that replacement of “believes
in” with “believes that he lived a sinless life and died on the Cross
to pay the penalty for their sins,” or some other more theologically
precise formulation, would preserve the meaning of this crucial verse.
Someone might respond that no matter how precise your “believes that”
replacement, an additional clause, e.g., “and exhibits a personal trust
in him as Savior” is necessary—but that response already assumes that
saving faith includes an element of personal trust.
Perhaps there’s a way to soften the conclusion above. Perhaps there is
an affective component of saving faith, but one that’s not our responsibility.
Augustine, for example, said “Faith is nothing else than to think with
assent.” I think it’s at least reasonable to claim that, given the
inconclusive nature of the scriptural evidence pertaining to the exact
constituents of saving faith, it’s quite possible that the “personal
trust” so often assumed to be required for a saving faith may not be
necessary—and if necessary, may not in fact be our responsibility.
Consider John 6:37: if it is the Father who has given us to the Son,
then it is at least possible that personal trust in Jesus is not
something we can even come up with on our own; we might therefore be
better served focusing on attempts to believe the right propositions
about the perfection of God’s nature, the sinfulness of our own human
nature, and how Jesus’ life and death have reconciled the two.
Finally, it’s worth considering the practical outcome of the view I’m
suggesting. No doubt, an abandonment of trust and commitment to the
person of Christ is dangerous; but I think we have the unique position
of living among the deleterious effects of a conception of saving faith
that has shifted an inordinate amount of its focus toward the idea of
trust in a person, as exemplified by pithy slogans like “no creed but
Christ.” In one sense, focus on the person of Christ can be of nothing
but benefit; but when trust, commitment, and matters of the heart are
exalted at the expense of propositional belief, the intellectual—and by
extension spiritual—life of the Church suffers. In fact, I do not think
that the effect of the 20th century church’s general and
anti-intellectual subordination of correct propositional belief can be
overstated.
Related posts:
- Book Review: Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul
- A Key to Personal Growth: Introspective Plank Removal
- How Todd is Saving England: Part II
- Faith & Reason Through the Ages
- Reasoning from Trust
- ETS 2006- Brett Kunkle: Essential Concerns Regarding the Emerging Church
Posted in Main Page, Poetry/Scripture/Liturgy/Etc., Religion (General), Theology
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November 15th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
But even the demons presumably know the truth of all those propositions and still shudder . . .
November 15th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
B.A., good to see you posting!!
I agree with Micah. The verse he refers to does show that it's possible to believe the right things and not be saved, so it seems that those things are necessary, but not sufficient.
I'm not sure you can replace “believes in” with “believes that.” I think that believing in something implies that you are trusting in that thing to be and do what it claims.
I do agree that learning the truths about God and His nature does increase our trust in Him, but there's also a surrender of our wills to the reign of Christ that goes beyond knowing who He is.
November 15th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
I agree with Amy and Micah. There is, as Amy notes, a definite distinction between “belief that” and “belief in” such that defining one in terms of the other fails to capture the essence of either. Amy also points out that propositional truths are necessary but not sufficient, and though I agree, B.A., that the effect of 20th century anti-intellectualism within the church has been demonstrably disastrous, to attribute the decline of robust confessionalism solely to the rise of affective expressionism is to miss the failings of intellectuals in making their (our) legacy secure. The heart/mind relation is not like a seesaw. The relation between our believings in and our believings that is, or it should be, more complementarian. To borrow from Einstein, the heart without the mind is blind but the mind without the heart is lame. It seems strange to attribute a decline in our vision to an increase in our ability to walk, or a demise in our ability to walk to better vision. To antithesize them is to miss the necessity of a strong belief in God and a strong belief that God. . . .
November 15th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
Two points in response, Micah.
1) I don't think the demons are relevant here, since saving faith isn't an option for them. If my two-part proposal for saving faith isn't adequate because the demons can meet the conditions and yet fail to be saved, then a three- (or four-) part proposal will be inadequate for the same reason.
2) Can the demons really believe all of the relevant propositions? I think not. For example, no demon can believe, “God became incarnate in Jesus for the purpose of washing away my sins and restoring my ruptured relationship with him.” So there's at least one relevant proposition that the demons can't believe.
November 16th, 2005 at 9:28 am
I too affirm that the movements proclaiming anti-intellectual faith have been dangerous (as has been the near worship of intellectualism in other circles). These anti-intellectual movements remind me of other movements that “want to return to the Bible” and do away with tradition altogether as if the Bible itself or their interpretation of it were not products of tradition.
I agree with much of what others have said here. I think part of the problem is that our contemporary definitions of faith, belief, or believing (same root in Greek) are somewhat anemic when compared to the original language. The same word for faith could be translated as belief or faithfulness given the context — and sometimes the context supports both readings. Similarly, trust and faith are pretty synonymous. Our view of belief is a mental agreement with or without any action or trust involved.
I don't want to jump on Augustine for one quote when I don't have the context, but I react strongly to the statement,
November 17th, 2005 at 2:01 am
I've always thought of “personal trust” more as an evidence of a saving faith, rather than being a component of it.
November 17th, 2005 at 11:39 am
I agree with Amy, Micah, Timbo and Tyler, plus, to an extent, Victor, who raises the chicken-or-egg question re: personal trust. I also think we need to seek balance between intellect and emotion. Too often, people hurtle headlong into the pitfall of extremes, touting the intellect, or the heart, as key to a Christian walk and worldview. Obviously the answer is in Christ, and that is a mystery defying analysis. Still, I like the poster on the wall in a meeting-room at my church: “He came to take away your sins, not your mind.”