As I mentioned last week, the Greek word translated ‘faith’ is PISTIS (“PIS-tis”), also translated ‘trust’. As used in the New Testament, ‘faith’ doesn’t mean assent to doctrines, it’s trusting that something is so, or trusting someone — to treat you well, to come through for you, etc. I personally fail to see how “believing in the Trinity” for example, makes a practical difference in one’s life, but “trusting in God” most certainly does. Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus ask us to assent to some doctrine — it’s all about how conduct ourselves, and treat our neighbors.
Some think that Faith and Reason are opposed, but I think they’re joined at the hip. So let’s consider the role of Faith in what is “applied reason par excellence,” namely Science.
The cornerstone of Science is the “scientific method”: form a hypothesis, test it with experiments, rinse and repeat. Last week I pointed out that Science cannot demonstrate that there’s a Future. That’s because experimental verification is an essential part of doing Science, and you can only do that in the Present! Science also assumes (as an “act of faith”?) that the Laws of Physics have worked the way they do for all of Time, and throughout all of Space. How do you demonstrate THAT with an experiment? Nevertheless scientists assume/trust that this is so, otherwise Science isn’t even possible.
The New Testament itself provides a definition of Faith in Hebrews 11: “Faith is the substance of things expected, the evidence of things not seen.” Science can’t demonstrate that the Sun will rise tomorrow (because that’s in the future), but the track record of 4.5 billion years so far of the sun rising like clockwork inspires confidence! So I ‘have faith in’ and ‘expect’ a sunrise tomorrow that is not YET seen.
Faith plays another role in human endeavors. Hebrews 11 continues with a long list of examples of ‘people of Faith’, including Abraham: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” I think this happens every time a human ventures into the Unknown to discover or invent something new.
Einstein (1879-1955) is especially famous for his two theories of Relativity. He presented his first, ‘Special Relativity’, in 1905. In it he argued that the speed of light is constant, therefore our yardsticks of space and time can’t be the same for all observers. Those examples of someone traveling into space anywhere near the speed of light and returning to Earth only to find that mere years have passed for them, but millennia for those they left behind on Earth — all that comes from Special Relativity. Then Einstein turned his attention to gravity.
When Einstein undertook solving ‘gravity’, I suggest that he stepped out ‘on faith’ into an unknown country — not unlike Abraham, believing/trusting that this was a solvable problem and that he could solve it. It took him EIGHT YEARS to do so. He presented his theory of gravity in 1915 (known as “General Relativity”). Eight years — that’s a fair amount of determined faith.
Such faith in oneself is not always rewarded, however — even if you’re Einstein. Twentieth century physics saw itself divide into Relativity (Special and General) — concerned with really large distances and speeds on astronomical scales, and Quantum Physics — concerned with the unimaginably tiny constituents of atoms. But the two theories just don’t fit together. After presenting General Relativity in 1915, Einstein devoted his remaining 40 years to bridging this divide — without success. Physics is still trying to bridge this gap.
in Hebrews 11, Moses of course makes the list as a ‘person of faith’ — indeed he gets more column inches ithan anyone else, recounting how he went toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, led the Israelites through the Red Sea, etc. But in the end, in spite of all his faith, he doesn’t get to enter the promised land himself.
Faith is a tricky thing.
For my part, here’s where I’ve ended up: Each human being, each one of us consists of something like 100 trillion cells walking around. Purely as a metaphor, suppose the Body of Christ consists of 100 trillion souls. By faith I can choose to be one of them. My assigned task turns out to be a pancreas cell —a role with no privilege or glamor, but still needs to be done. What’s wrong with that?