(The Nationalist, 6 August 2004)
What is faith? What is it to believe? The Latin word, credo, which means I believe, gives a clue. Credo comes from two words, cor, meaning heart, and reddo, I give back. Through frequent use cor reddo became credo. And credo, I believe means I give back my heart. Faith involves the heart, affection, emotion, love, as well as the mind. It is the commitment of people in their totality. It means the heart is restored to where it belongs. To borrow a phrase, there is a God-shaped gap in human consciousness, where God had always been. To believe is to fill that gap with the only reality that can fill it – God.
So, faith means:
Not ‘Does God exist?’ but ‘Does God love me? (Galatians 2.20b)
Not ‘Who am I?’ but ‘Whose am I?’ (Ephesians 1.4)
Not taking hold of God but ‘God took hold of me’. (Philippians 3.12)
Not encompassing or defining but being embraced by and described. (Romans 11.33-34)
Not examining a theory but receiving and responding to revelation. (1 Corinthians 2.10)
Not through seminars but through surrender. (Luke 23.46)
Not demanding an answer but answering an invitation. (Matthew 4.19)
Not just listening but ready to lay down one’s life. (James 1.22-25)
Not ‘God is everywhere’ but ‘God is where you let him in’. (Revelation 3.20)
God is not available to the neutral observer. God is ‘Father’ for believers.
(With thanks to Father Des O’Donnell OMI.)
And the opposite of faith is not so much doubt as fear, or the rocklike certainty of the closed mind.