IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

67

Is Faith Communicable
Fr. Louis F. Angeles

Is Faith Communicable? A very intriguing and strong question for faith is elusive and it defies reason, not in the sense of opposition or contradiction, but faith goes beyond reason. Tillich (1951) in his book, What is Religion, stated that faith is directedness towards the Unconditioned (God who is the ultimate) in the theoretical and practical act. Faith is not the acceptance of uncertain objects as true; it has nothing to do with acceptance or probability. Nor is it merely the establishing of a community relationship, like confidence or obedience or the like; rather it is thee apprehension of the Unconditional as the ground of both the theoretical and the practical. Tillich (1951) showed the relationship between faith and culture; a culture that expresses itself in different forms of belief. Faith then is directedness of the spirit toward the Unconditioned meaning. But the two meet in orientation to the completed unity of the forms of meaning. He calls this unity theonomy. But within this theonomy there is tension between autonomy and heteronomy. Autonomy has a twofold element: the nomos the law or structural form that is supposedly carried out radically corresponding to the unconditioned demand for meaning, and the autos the self-assertion of the conditioned which in the process of achieving form loses the unconditioned import. Hence, autonomy is at the same hybris and a gift of the God. Heteronomy on the other hand, rises against the hybris of autonomy and submits to the unconditioned meaning. Can one presume faith as existent and a given in the sense that it is a Biblical faith? Can faith in God as described in the Bible be reality around which we should plan our model and therefore the natural agency of communication of faith in the community of believers? Yes, you can.
LCCM Review

IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

68

But today there is the problem of the existential and phenomenological investigation of meaning, especially the meaning of existence and belief in God compounded by a new understanding of language and symbolization. Man has become autonomous, has come of age, and authority is not easily acceptable even the authority of Biblical language and symbolization. Man has become secular and the only way for man to find a transcendal meaning in his life is to analyze his own seculiarity, autonomy, self-sufficiency and see if there is any transcendental dimension for which religious or theological language is necessary. This is a starting point for man as Gilkey (1969) has tried to do in his book Naming of the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language. Human Experience to Transcendence Certainly we can find our ordinary human experience and relationship a basis for a religious language about God. In other words, there is something that God communicates and relates to us in a way that is meaningful and relevant to us. The core of Gods revealing and relating to us by His word in the Bible does not mean a subject matter but the dynamism inherent within His divine message that becomes alive and transforms within us by the power of the Spirit. For instance, St. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians:
So, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. (Corinthians 10:31).

At times we are not even aware of doing something for Christ but He blesses us. In Matthews gospel people has cried out to Christ:
When did we see you hungry and feed you? And Christ replies: Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:40).

In another example we can think of the sacramental analogy of the family as an expression of the relationship between marriage and the church. Just as in the Church, Jesus Christ is the Head of
LCCM Review

IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

69

the body and we are the members, so also in marriage: the husband is the head of the family and the rest are its members. There is bond of fellowship and love. There can be then present a ground, a basis and a dimension of the divine as a real possibility building up a structure within the system of the human family life relationships. In his book, The Language of Gap and God, Miller (1970) declared about the relationship between God and the family: There is an organic relationship between parents and children, which when properly structured and supported by love, becomes the means of grace whereby God works within the group. Miller (1970) explained further the idea of Christian Nurture within the family structure. He said: Even before a child can use word, the Gospel beams out from the Christian parent as a living epistle, before it escapes from their lips, or is taught in words. (Christian Nurture). Nelson (1971) in his book Where Faith Begins, proposed to answer the question of how the Christian faith is communicated, not what is Christian faith. His approach tries to be more pedagogical than theological. In this pedagogical approach there is emphasis on the community of the believers as a means of faith transmission or communication of events in history and current events of todays life, culture within which man is shaped and formed through the process of socialization which includes three steps: (1) a perceptive system in relation to a world view, (2) formation of conscience according to a value system, (3) selfidentification out of personal relations within the social group. However, this process of socialization in faith-communication has its own pitfall and weakness: this process could be misconstrued as a mere institutional reproduction of tradition, or a mold into which everyone has to fit in and acquiesce. Nelson (1971)sensed this also:
Although our conception of God is rooted in the past, God is free to be what he wants to be today. Hence, the Christians central concern is to be a learner of Gods will for current events. Faith is therefore not only the relationship of trust between the believer and God: it is also on the doctrinal side, constantly undergoing critical review of the community being reconceptualized.
LCCM Review

IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

70

Besides, this may limit the universal redemptive action of Christ. Christ died for all, and his Gospel has to be preached and taught to all. Faith in the mystery of death and resurrection of Christ is faith in Christ who is not limited within the confines of the community of believers and covers the whole of mankind. Someone I know back then made this remark: Sociological faith is dying, the kind of faith that identifies a person as a Christian of a particular sociological community just like a secular profession. Only personal faith remains. Christ in the Gospels rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducasees for their pride and self-righteousness for the reason of their strict and literal observances of the Mosaic law. St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans:
The promise of inheriting the world was not made to Abraham and his descendants on account of any law but on the account of the righteousness which consists of faith. If the world is only to be inherited by those who submit to the law, then faith is pointless and the promise is worth nothing. Law involved the possibility of punishment for breaking the law only whew there is no law that can be avoided. Thats why what fulfills the promise depends on faith, so that it may be a free gift and be available to all of Abrahams descendants, not only to those who belong to the law but also to those who belong to the faith of Abraham who is the father to all of us. (Romans 4:13-17)

Tillich (1951) had this to say about the question of faith and action: The Reformation emancipated man from the law of action in late-Catholic heteronomy: but in accord with the spiritual situation, it left the law of cognition untouched and inviolable. Modern Protestantism has freed man from the law of cognition, but has led into the emptiness of unbelief-ful in (and through) the autonomous form of knowledge and action. The God described in the Bible reveals himself to man in the past through events and God reveals himself today in the same way through the human situation it is in many ways sharply different from that described in the Bible. This is no problem for those who believe in the Bible.

LCCM Review

IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

71

The Scriptures give Gods revelation of himself but this has to be appropriated by man to his own life. Van Caster (1965) of Lumen Vitae Institute has this to say:
Man reacts to the facts of his existence, through, become aware of them, interpreting their meaning, and setting himself to act upon them.

There is an idea of freedom in our faith, the kind of freedom that Bonhoeffer expressed in his letters from prison: The experience of transcendence is Jesus being for others. His omnipotence, omniscience, and omniprescence arise solely out of his freedom from self, out of his freedom to be for others unto death.

The Reality It is the freedom of Jesus, perhaps, that became contagious at Easter time, as Van Buren (1968) expressed it: The experience of Peter and the others on Easter was certainly their own subjective experience. But it was an experience of Jesus and his freedom in a way which was quite new for them. They may still have been attracted by their memory of Jesus. But on Easter they found themselves beginning to share in this freedom, and this had not happened to them before. We might say on Easter the freedom of Jesus began to be contagious. Faith and the experience of Jesus is something not of our choice, but something that happens to us. This Easter event is of the experience of Jesus has to be told as a witness of ones life of faith and freedom to others and to all mankind.

References Gilkey, L. (1969). Naming of the whirlwind: The renewal of Godlanguage. New York: The Bibbi-Merril. Miller, R. (1970). How does one speak of God in a secular age. Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press.
LCCM Review

IS FAITH COMMUNICABLE

72

Nelson, E. (1971). Where faith begins. Richmond, Viginia: John Knox Press. Tillich, P. (1971). What is Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Van Buren, P. (1968). Theological explorations. New York: Macmillan. Van Caster, M. (1965). Value catechetics. New York: Herder and Herder.

LCCM Review