“Fides Quarens Intellectum”
© Marlene L. Johnson 2007
St. Anselm of Canterbury’s definition of theology in his Pros Logion speaks of using reason to try to understand God’s truth, a truth Anselm already had accepted by faith.
Discourses on faith include a number of definitions. One is that faith involves believing and trusting that Christ was born for us personally and achieved salvation for us. To have faith means more than just believing something is true, it means we are prepared to act and rely upon that belief. Our faith comes from God, just as our understanding does if we are open to receiving what He wants to reveal to us. As John Calvin explains, “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity.” Faith is the human response to this Divine initiative.
Because humans desire to experience the transcendence of God, in theology faith seeks understanding. Theology once a discourse about God, now is an analysis of religious beliefs, and according to John McQuarrie “seeks to express the content of this faith in the clearest and most coherent language available.” But whatever answers we come up with will fall short because we are ill-equipped to unravel the mystery of God and his creation. The use of reason to reflect on and understand the meaning of our existence and our relationship to God involves human thought and language.
While theology invites us to make connections between the tradition of faith and the language we use, this pursuit becomes difficult because the meaning of our language changes based on its context. Moreover, we humans use language that tries to create God in our image, rather than accepting that God created us in His image.
So, despite our best theological efforts to understand our faith, the existence of God remains a conundrum.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
