What is Faith?
No one really "possesses" true faith. We can only actively exercise faith
God is a verb, not a noun— Buckminster Fuller
Faith is a verb, not a noun— Dr. Alyce M. McKenzie and others
Faith is unknown knowing— Dr. Zeus Yiamouyiannis
God is a verb, not a noun
Buckminster Fuller had it right— God, as the ineffable and imponderable Godhead, the Uncreated Creator, can ONLY be a verb. The Godhead is that mystery which none of us can ever capture, that which always EXCEEDS us. Therefore the Godhead, the medium of God called Love, and our own spirituality can only be movements into greater “unknown knowing.” That God, Love, and Spirit which calls forth the Substance of Light and Divine Darkness far outstrips any of our vain attempts to “know” in a way that would “capture” the essence of that which creates EVERYTHING known and unknown.
We aren’t good at being humble about God, and we certainly misconstrue faith as a result. Here is a prime example: We often mistranslate the familiar phrase as “believe IN’ (God or Spirit or Love). However, if one looks into the original Koine biblical ancient Greek, the phrase is properly translated as “believe INTO” God. It is a movement, an “active trust,”not an idea, a possession, or even a deeply held conviction! The act of “believing into” is faith as a verb.
Faith is a verb, not a noun
As Dr. Alyce McKenzie attests:
In the Gospel of John belief is not intellectual assent, but wholehearted trust, entrusting our lives/futures to God. Faith in the gospel of John is a verb, not a noun.
In contrast to the Synoptics and Paul, John's Gospel never uses the noun ("faith, belief") πίστις (pistis), but only the verb ("to believe; to trust"). πιστεύω (pisteuō),
Believing is an action that one does, not an object or thing that one possesses; thus, the translation "believing" is better than "having faith."
Since believing involves relationship, an even better translation in English would be "trusting" or "entrusting oneself to [God or Jesus]."
In fact, the very name of this blog itself, “Spiritually Confident,” embodies this notion of spirit as active trust. “Confident” in its Latin and Greek roots means “fully trusting” or “trusting (fidere) with (con/com).”
Yes, an active trust, but in what? That is where faith comes in. How can you or me trust something beyond ourselves OR so deep in ourselves that we can scarcely sense what it may be? Active faith is yet unknown by me and my experience as a human person, but yet it is available to me if I but open my being to spirit and choose to invite it into a central place in my life. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it entirely normal or easy to invite the unknown to the head of my table and serve it the food of my own soul!
Faith is unknown knowing
Many people mistake even the act of faith, “believing into,” with “giving yourself over to” some idea about faith. There is an element element of giving yourself over in some way in every active faith— opening yourself to something larger, and inviting in a larger knowledge and power. That CAN be a little unnerving. You DO lose your bearings in authentic faith. But here is where it gets good. You are not giving yourself over to a guru, a man-made church, or cult or any concept or idea at all. You are giving yourself over to love itself as “unknown knowing.”
I don’t know the depths and breadths of who I am. Therefore, instead of “looking for an identity,” I understand that I am already wonderfully and marvelously created by an amazing artist! Look at these arms, these eyes, these thought and feelings, these deep movements of the spirit that already move in me! Look at these soft kisses that I share with a loved one! I am already me! Fully intact and complete as a spirit, fully knowing and known on one level, and yet, on another level, not-knowing, not-yet-experiencing all these gifts. It is this divine-human tension this imperfect perfect, this unknown knowing, that makes life VERY interesting and worth living. .
As we say in mystical circles. I am “already-and-not-yet.”
I don’t have to already know what has yet to be known by living my life, in accordance with the extraordinary capacities I have been given by God as Love, and to create in love as I was created in love. This process should never be short-circuited. Running to sure answers is spiritual idolatry and cowardice. (Hey, no judgement here. It’s understandable, and everybody does it, including me.) But when those “sure” answers lead to divorce, a tolerable but not-quite-right job, and an unfulfilling church, we are led right back into active faith. Faith is not a sure-fire formula. It is an open question that is answered in every second of authentic life. Faith is “being in the present moment” and “being in the presence of spirit.”
I don’t have to “believe in” God as a concept and as a master. I have to LIVE GOD! I am a child, a creation of the Great Creator, of the Uncreated Creator, whose instructions are in the very unfolding of my life, development of my talents, sharing of my compassion, emboldening of my courage, and expression of my creativity. Is there indeed any better definition of God and indeed faith?
Whom do I worship? Certainly not my ego or some distant, disapproving patriarch above the clouds if I am to be truly, gratefully, and actively faithful! We can do better than a self-obsessed cult of personality or dour servitude to a severe father figure.
So how can I discern the difference between hollow faith-as-a-noun and active genuine faith-as-a-verb
Create! Just create! Love! Just love! Live faith, don’t simply pursue it or seek to ‘lock in’ a guarantee!
True and active faith is unpredictable. If your answers to life already have an image attached to them or a pre-programmed vision of who you are and where you are going, it is NOT TRUE FAITH. I don’t care if you want to jump on the “picket fence” suburban fantasy of the perfect life or the spiritual conceit that you will be “whisked into heaven where you will pluck harps and wear haloes, while everyone else will be condemned to hell” if you merely profess with my mouth that you accept “Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” Your heart and soul always know the score. The very fact that you are attaching to a worldly or dogmatic answer to establish a guarantee against an uncertain life rather than co-creating a trusting relationship with the divine, means that you lack faith, that you faith is ultimately without substance. Proof does not reside in materialism, doctrine, or approval by religious authority. Faith resides in the wellsprings of love and trust you share with your spirit.
True and active faith is healthy and generative. True faith will never lead you to submit to an abuser, or prostrate yourself to an unloving parent, give your life over to a co-dependent relationship of any sort. Faith like love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Faith is CO-CREATIVE not co-dependent. If you are experiencing alleged faith as deploring yourself as a “sinner” rather than as living into yourself as a “beloved child of God,” then you can be assured that you are in a hollow temple with an unhealthy and errant notion of faith. True God, True Love, and True Faith wants YOU at your most authentic and most imperfect, so that it can provide you with divine gifts and grace to MEET your needs not to simply do away with them. If a religious ideology already fulfills all your needs, what need have you of a living God?
True and active faith is always surprising. One of the best ways to distinguish true faith from its pretenders is that it will be surprising and ultimately conducive for your positive spiritual growth and trust. This is an acquired habit and takes practice. This surprising faith can even appear irrational at times. I remember quite clearly how a deeper faith in me kept prompting me to hire what I knew to be a more incompetent lawyer in my divorce. I tried to argue with Spirit/God. “What? This is insane! Are you trying to cause me failure and pain?” It turns out that God knew better. The lawyer did a good job calculating equitable settlements, but did a horrible job advocating for me, and even developed a weird crush on my ex-spouse. I had to stand up for myself, fire him, and hire a alpha female lawyer that could put some of the fear of God in the other lawyer and my ex-spouse. THAT WAS THE POINT of that faithful move— to bring ME toward greater ability to stick up for myself and say “no” to those who would use or disrespect me!
True and active faith is grateful and opening. Faith doesn’t need a successful outcome in the world to “prove” its worth. It’s success is measured in growth and closeness with our own spirit and the spirit of others. Are we “blown open”? We all know that, very often, failures and tragedies in the world— that dream job we did not get, that forever-marriage that did not last, that death of child— can open and enlarge one to become closer to one’s own spirit, to hidden potentials obscured by our overly goal-oriented minds, to the suffering of others and the world, and to the presence of God.
Nietzsche puts it brilliantly:
(T)he genius of the heart who silences all that is loud and self-satisfied, teaching it to listen; who smooths rough souls and lets them taste a new desire—to lie still as a mirror, that the deep sky may mirror itself in them—the genius of the heart who teaches the doltish and rash hand to hesitate and reach out more delicately; who guesses the concealed and forgotten treasure, the drop of graciousness and sweet spirituality under dim and thick ice, and is a divining rod for every grain of gold that has long lain buried in the dungeon of much mud and sand; the genius of the heart from whose touch everyone walks away richer, not having received grace and surprised, not as blessed and oppressed by alien goods, but richer In himself, newer to himself than before, broken open, blown at and sounded out by a thawing wind, perhaps more unsure, tenderer, more fragile, more broken, but full of hopes that as yet have no name…
True faith is merciful, just, and ultimately redemptive. My son is now reading a book for his theology class— Legacy of Mercy— where a mother learns to authentically forgive the murderers of her son. We all leave this life. Not one of us gets out of this life alive! As the true cliche goes, “all of us die, but not all of us live.” And it is active faith that allows us to live into this life, even in (and especially in) the greatest of tragedies. Will we allow fear and pain to overwhelm us or will we see in all things a calling to the deepest and most loving in us? This is the critical question that true and active faith answers with a full support and trust. We are beloved. This life is a miracle. And we have endless possible ways to be in love and move more deeply into a faith which expresses and upholds life.
We are ultimately and intimately loved. Let us take a moment to absorb that and be deeply grateful. Then let us move move from that unconditional love granted us to the creative love we shall form and share with ourselves, our fellow humans, the world, and God, God’s self.
All blessings, Zeus