Let me further illustrate from James.
James 2:17-23 – (17) So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (dead faith) (18) But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (19) You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (demonic faith) (20) Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? (21) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? (22) You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; (saving faith) (23) and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.
So what do we mean by faith?
Because of Oprah and the like, faith has been redefined & everyone now is a “person of faith.”
Just as long as you believe in something, then you have faith and that is good.
In our post-modern, relativistic, pluralistic culture, this is viewed as a good thing.
When we hear it, we usually all just mean it in the subjective sense. Which isn’t wrong, just not totally right.
Here is what I mean…
18th century Christian philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was an existentialist, who was troubled with the dead orthodoxy around him in Denmark.
Existentialism is the philosophical belief system that means, for them, the starting point in their philosophical thought doesn’t just start with the cerebral, but also with the affections, the way we feel.
Existentialism is a 20th century philosophy concerned with human existence, finding self, and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.
Existentialism then stresses that a person’s judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by religious or secular world values.(external sources)
Kierkegaard was the famous philosopher who coined the phrase for us “to take a blind leap of faith”
So this is faith in the subjective sense, but not in anything objective, because it can’t be seen. (he believed that this wasn’t an irrational leap of faith, because it was based on a person’s judgment.)
So, Faith is “based on a person’s judgment, rather than an external source.”
Kierkegaard’s philosophy has become so much a part of faith and Christian practice today because “FAITH” has been defined in this Oprah-type mentality as a “blind leap into a subjective whatever”
Now, I’m not totally divorcing subjective from the Christian faith. I just want to define it and ADD faith in the objective sense.
Subjective Faith vs. Objective Faith
Subjective Faith – This is trust and confidence that an individual believer has in God. It is individualistic.
Maybe you’ve heard this text that speaks to this.
Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Objective Faith – Jude 3 - Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 3 is referring to “The Faith.” “The Faith” is a set of objective truths. This is the Gospel.
Where subjective faith is the faith of the individual believer, this objective faith is belief in Christian Doctrine. It is faith in the objective truths of the Gospel. We must have an individualistic faith in Christ for salvation, but also in the objective truths of the Gospel. We must maintain continued belief in this.
The objective truths of the Gospel are…
(1 Cor. 15:3-7) – 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
We, as Christians believe or have faith that these objective things really happened.
AND FURTHER, the reality of those events that we call the Gospel, inform us regarding our reality today and how we should live for Christ as a act of worship. So we always continue looking to the Gospel, the objective truths of the Cross as where we put our faith. When and where this is not done and it is just a Kierkegaardian, subjective, leap of faith into the unknown, (especially in this post-modern context), we end up with the Oprah-type belief system where FAITH itself is the thing to be worshiped and not Christ.
When this happens, atheism and agnosticism rise and orthodox Christianity falls.
So, we must recapture and understand what the Christian faith is and is not.
