Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.
[This article is based on a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, meeting at Simpson College, San Francisco, December 26-28, 1977.]
“What was God doing before he created the world?” asks the skeptic. Calvin calls very shrewd the answer of the man who replied “that he had been making hell for over-curious men.”[1] Augustine is more reserved, saying, “I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question) ‘He was preparing hell’, said he, ‘for those who pry into mysteries’. For more willingly would I have answered, ‘I know not what I know not…’.”[2] Both answers assume, however, that there are some questions one may not ask, some questions that are out of bounds, that transgress the limits of what is meaningful.
One might object that it is wrong to suppress any questions, that to do so is to impose an alien authority on the human mind, that this is both illegitimate and unproductive—illegitimate because it is destructive of man’s humanity, of which his rational powers are constitutive, and unproductive because the questions, though suppressed, will return and will undermine any dogmatic standpoint one has adopted.
It can be shown, however, that even those who argue that human questioning may not be limited do so on the basis of presuppositions. The claim to human autonomy implied in the above objection is meaningful only within a framework of presuppositions that cannot be derived from the idea of autonomy itself. In fact, it can be asserted that every position involves has presuppositions, which, furthermore, are at bottom religious, involving an unquestioning allegiance to an ultimate commitment. One’s presuppositions will determine whether he will remain within the limits within which questioning is meaningful, or whether, transgressing them, he will lapse into meaninglessness.
To object across the board, therefore, to limiting the scope of questioning is to fail to take into account the limitations imposed by one’s own starting point. At issue, then, is not whether there will be a limit to questioning; it will be as to where this limitation falls. This, in turn, will he guided by the presuppositional framework within which one moves.
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We sketch the framework within which thinking is meaningful, that is, within which, centered in the Christian transcendence standpoint, it can come to its rights.
To be meaningful, thought must operate within the bounds of created reality. Here it has certain limits. Both it and its contents are revelational of the Creator God. Revelation sets a boundary to thought. That is to say, though cannot transcend what is given by revelation, in order to grasp hold of God, the Revealer, as he is in himself. To ignore this limit is to fall, as Calvin knew, into vain speculation. There are, furthermore, horizons connected with revelation, to which all revelation conforms. The first of these is the incomprehensibility of God. God has revealed and is revealing himself; nevertheless, he is incomprehensible in his revelation. It is impossible to exhaust the revelation of God or to gather into a rationally tight system what he has revealed. God’s incomprehensibility in his revelation, furthermore, does not diminish as that revelation increases. The more God reveals himself the more it becomes apparent that he is incomprehensible. Incomprehensibility, therefore, is a constant horizon of the revelation of God. All revelation is characterized by the fact that it displays God’s incomprehensibility. Closely related is the accommodation by God in his revelation to the finite condition of man. As Calvin recognized, we do not see God in his revelation as he is in himself but as he presents himself to us conformable to our ability to understand. That does not mean that we should thereupon seek to establish how it is that God has accommodated himself, in what respects our knowledge of him differs from what it would have been if he had not accommodated himself to us. In every act of revelation God comes to us in a way conformable to human capacity. This is a constant horizon of revelation. It holds for all revelation, that God accommodates himself in it to the limitations of human capacity. Again, very closely connected with this is another horizon, namely, the anthropomorphic character of divine revelation. If God reveals himself according to human capacity, it is in a way that is conformable to human experience and expression, so that revelation is a human-like manner of expression, in talking about God. Again, too, it is improper to ask what God is apart from this manner of speaking. It should simply be understood that all revelation is anthropomorphic. Its humanlike character is a constant horizon of revelation.
Another characteristic of revelation is that, even as it prevenes, bearing in upon man, he is responding, either positively or negatively, to God’s communication of himself in his revelation. Even though one may indeed speak in terms of man’s responding to God as he imparts himself in his revelation, he should not think of this revelation as simply existing “out there” somewhere, inertly, and of man’s response as somehow following upon it, as if he were, “subjectively.” to strike upon and apprehend it. On the contrary, God in his revelatory impartation actively confronts man, and as this revelation impinges upon man’s awareness he is already responding, either for or against its author. Again, as Calvin recognized, for man in his estate of rectitude, responding to God in a positive manner was as natural as breathing the air. This was his true state of nature, and in this state of nature he both served God and was truly himself. If he does not so apprehend and embrace the revelation, it is not because it is inertly, as some say “objectively,” out there somewhere, still waiting to be apprehended, but because, by reason of sin, he is blind and is actively resisting it.
Again, one is confronted with a horizon of revelation. All revelation is focused on man, who, in the concrete revelational situation, is responding either for or against God. If the term is understood properly, this might be called the “existential” horizon of revelation, although the manner in which we have expounded our thoughts is incompatible with any form of existentialism. It might, nevertheless, be called “existential,” because revelation does not have its meaning apart from address to man and response on his part. It may be said just as well that revelation confronts man and calls for decision. It is, however, always productive of decision. There is no neutrality with respect to God, to his person in his self-confrontation with man. One is in his being either for or against God, and is truly himself only in his free and joyful acceptance of God in his self-impartation in his revelation.
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What we have just elaborated is, in point of fact, simply an interpretation of biblical teaching concerning the Creator-creature relationship, as it bears upon knowledge. This relationship forms the proscenium within which the entire drama of human thought and life is played out.
What is the idea of creation? It is, as the Scriptures teach, that God brought all things into being out of nothing by the word of his power. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Bible teaches us that what is was not made out of what appears (Hebrews 11:3). We may distinguish God’s creating (בּרא) from all “making” (עשׂא). We can say that we “make” something out of something that already is, as we fashion an earthen pot from clay. In contrast, we teach that God created “out of nothing” or “into nothing,” without using any pre-existent material, not even an unformed matter or chaos. Otherwise, we understand, he would be a demiurge and not the Creator.
Yet, the limits of our thought are disclosed in that we are able to form an idea of what creation is only in terms of what itself is created. We must think of God’s creating in a “moment” of time, for instance; but is not time itself part of the creation?
It is impossible for us, bound as we are to the horizon of created reality, to conceive in our own power what creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) is. We can only approach it, without being able to grasp it in a concept. For every concept that we can employ has its meaning within the confines of created reality.
Everything is created, all of reality and, within reality, all of our thoughts concerning it. As Augustine and Calvin knew, we can only respond in worshipful praise to the God who has brought all of this forth, whose love accompanies our every moment, whose providence embraces our entire lives, and who as Creator is nearer to us than any father or mother, brother or sister, husband or wife.
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If what we say of creation is true, the same holds for God himself. We confess, in faith, that he is the Creator, who is above all things. Nevertheless, as we have said, we know him only as he has condescended to us in his revelation, speaking in a manner conformable to our understanding, in a way that is human-like.
Shall we seek to understand God in his relation to the world? How shall I understand, as Augustine asked, how God can be “before” all things, when temporal relations have their meaning within the created cosmos? Did not God, as Augustine taught, create time along with the creation?[3] Is it not, therefore, vain speculation to attempt, by the power of human understanding, to advance beyond the limits of creation and to inquire as to what God was doing “before” he created the world? What do we know of this, except what God has revealed to us, understanding all the while that what he has disclosed veils a mystery before which we can only bow ourselves in adoration?
Shall we think of God with regard to space? How shall we bend to our understandings that this God who, as the Creator, is far exalted above all things, is also, as the Creator, the one who is not separated from us, even as our closest earthly companion is, by a space, but, even as Paul commends some ancient poets for sensing, is the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)?
Nevertheless, as we pose questions and problems about God and his creation, we must acknowledge that these have their meaning only in terms of what God has revealed to us concerning himself and his creation, so that in facing the problems and in forming our concepts, we have a notion of the limitations, of the inadequacies, of this understanding.
Thus, we may come to understand, that all of our thought must be carried by and must reflect back on the creation and its Creator, and our relationship to him as his creatures, upon whom he has fixed his love.
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The viewpoint we have presented throws into question a nearly universally held opinion concerning theology, that its terrain is constituted by the relation to God, possibly to what is regarded to be ultimate reality. Theology is widely held to deal with the relationship to the ultimate or with the ultimate relationship. This view is represented, for instance, by the current inquiry into the meaning of “God-talk.” It also lurks in such a question as the following: “What is the theological meaning or the theological interpretation of this or that?,” if what is referred to is its meaning in relationship to God and to his revelation.
On our view, relating to God and to his revelation is not on the order of relating within the cosmos. It is relating as a creature to the Creator. According to this teaching, everything in the cosmos is created, is subject to God, and is revelatory of him.
Furthermore, this relationship to God is not, first of all, a problem, as if one, for instance, were confronted from the outset with the problem of the meaningfulness of “God-talk.” Prior to all theoretical questioning, to all facing up to theoretical problematics, is the presence of the revelation of God, in which God is actively communicating himself, and the active responding by man as he is faced with that revelation. Our understanding of Scripture leads us to assert that there is a knowledge of God prior to all questioning about him and his world.
No questioning is possible except in the medium of the revelation of God. Questioning in an “existential” sense, in the sense of doubting what God has said, is apostasy. Far from itself serving as a locus of unconditional concern and thus as a portal to the unconditional, “existential” doubt is disobedience to what God has revealed and to what the Scriptures teach is clearly revealed in man. Questioning, in the sense of putting theoretical questions, is possible, furthermore, only on the background of a framework of presuppositions, which themselves are not of the nature of theoretical thought, indeed, which are at bottom religious.
Theology shares with all theoretical thinking the fact that it is bound to the created order of reality, that it is subject to God in his revelation, required to live out of and to reflect back on that revelation.
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In the language of everyday thought, we make distinctions: God/man; Creator/creature; man/world; soul/body, etc. These are simple analytical distinctions. We understand them, in a deepened awareness, as we respond to God and his revelation in the day-to-day life of faith. Our thought turns, for example, in a spiral fashion, back upon God as the Creator, who has brought all things into being. We know, as we respond to the teaching of Scripture, that God cannot be on the same level as what he has created. He may not be identified with something of wood, of stone, of metal, or even something more ethereal, like “spiritual substance.” As witnesses to this truth we have the remarkably simple but devastating assaults of Isaiah and Jeremiah on idolatry. A man takes a log and of the one end fashions for himself a god and of the other end makes kindling wood with which to warm himself. How foolish (Isaiah 40:19; 44:15–17)! And we may not forget the divine commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Exodus 20:4).
In the language of everyday discourse, furthermore, the Bible uses the words “God” and “man” in various relationships. Sometimes it is in a simple antithesis: We are not to be men-pleasers but pleasers of God (Ephesians 6:6). We are not to fear what men can do to us (Psalm 56:4). Christ himself placed the concerns of his kingdom into sharp contrast to what are even important concerns of life. If a man does not hate his father and mother, he says, he is not worthy to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 14:26). We also remember the saying, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22). We can understand what these uncompromising statements mean, that serving God and doing his will must take precedence over everything else, and in case of conflict the concerns of the kingdom must prevail. We can also understand the warning implicit in Paul’s statement, that one who is married seeks to please his wife, while one who is not married seeks to please the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32–33).
We should know better than to make of such statements a simple exercise in logic, falling, for instance, into an unbiblical world-flight, misanthropy, or misogyny.
Reasoning in its concrete fashion, the Bible also relates God and man in other ways. It argues, for example, for the superiority, for the superior steadfastness, of the covenant of God. Even if it is a human covenant, it reasons, no man abrogates it; how much more established is the covenant of God (Galatians 3:15)! Here there is no antithesis between God and man, between the divine and the human. There is, on the contrary, an implicit sanctioning of human arrangements.
Living in a world ravaged by sin, we might not expect to find much thought in the Bible of harmony between God and man. We should not forget, however, that in the beginning God declared the creation good. Further, as Augustine also understood, sin is parasitical; it must depend for its existence on the created order of things, upon which it feeds and which it distorts. Sin indeed distorts; it does not, however, destroy. In every sinful act and in every sinful situation, the created order of reality shines through.
That we employ verbal distinction in ordinary speech, even placing one term over against the other, does not mean that we assume that there is a basic dualism. That we associate terms closely, like Creator/creature, does not mean that there is a basic unity. We must understand the meaning of the words we use in ordinary discourse, in terms of biblical teaching, as we interact with it in our life of faith.
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As soon as we have begun to think theoretically, however, using theoretical concepts, we indeed cannot do without our pre-theoretical understanding; nevertheless, we must give an account conceptually of what confronts us as a theoretical problem.
In scientific theology, one is obliged, therefore, to give an account of why it is impossible to attain to a theoretical concept of creation or of the relation between the Creator and the creature. At the same time, however, he must render an account of the fact that all of our theoretical conceptualization is led by an idea of what is the boundary between God and the cosmos, his creation.
It has been argued that the created character of the cosmos is manifest in its complete lack of self-sufficiency with respect to its Origin, the Creator God. This would entail that theoretical thought, being itself part of the cosmos, would have no self-sufficiency in forming theoretical concepts. Theoretical concept-formation, even in theology, is led by pre-theoretical presuppositions. It has its meaning within a presuppositional framework, which is of a religious character.
Far from being a more or less accurate expression of a God-relationship, theoretical theological concepts will be developed as they reflect a pre-theoretical commitment either for or against God. Theological concepts, therefore, will have to be analyzed, even as all theoretical concepts, in their depth.
For theology this is important. There is a tendency to think of theological concepts as if they were “counters,” able to be moved about like terms in a mathematical equation. Theological concepts, however, are formed within a context, where in a theoretical attitude of thought one is faced with theological problems. These problems, furthermore, appear within a field of inquiry, which itself is qualified in a certain fashion. Theology functions, as a science, just like the other sciences, within a created context of meaning, of which it should be aware and of which it should give a theoretical account. Neither theology nor its concepts escapes the need to reflect. There must be a critical, methodological awareness of what transpires in theological concept-formation. Theology, therefore, is not in the position of giving us the “ultimate perspective” on things. It itself depends upon more ultimate considerations.
It is necessary to locate theological reasoning and the concepts employed in it within the context within which they have their meaning.
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How then might we seek to delineate the area of study comprising the field of theology? What we have said about the God-relation leads us to reject the idea that it constitutes the terrain of theology. Theology as a science must be qualified by something that is able to constitute it one field of investigation in contrast to others, for example, sociology, psychology, or law. There is in things, however, nothing that is not related to God.
It is impossible, therefore, to accept a viewpoint such as the widespread one we have described, that it is things in their ultimate meaning that are related to God and his revelation, and that this relation constitutes the terrain of theology. Things themselves, even in their truest dimensions, are related to God and his revelation. They are, per se, created beings, subject to God and revelatory of his almighty, Creator will.
It has been suggested that it might be “faith” that provides the differentia of the field of theology. On this view, theology would deal with the revelation of the Covenant God, in its structure and development, as man responds to it in faith. We do not explore this view further here, except to point out certain characteristics of faith, as illustrations of theological concept-formation.
By faith we understand the quality of the response of man to God, as he is confronted with God in his revelation and accepts God and his Word in ultimate assurance. In its deficient mode, it is expressed in man’s turning away from the true God and seeking the ultimate ground of his assurance elsewhere, in an idol. A faith can result in confession, articles of faith, a community of the faithful, cultic practice, etc., though not necessarily all of them at once. In our Christian faith, we understand that all of these are subject to the Word of God, more particularly, the Scriptures, which provide the key to all faith and life. The institutional Christian church is a community of the faithful, gathering in obedience to the Word of God to engage in worship, to hear the preaching of the Word, to administer the sacraments, and to exercise discipline in the name of Jesus Christ. It is a confessing community, joined in the corporate expression of its faith.
In the above there comes to view the position, first developed by Abraham Kuyper, that faith is a function. That is to say, everyone manifests faith, either in the true or in a false direction. Everyone will have something in which he vests his ultimate assurance, even though it be an autonomous reason which appears to do away with all faith. Everyone will have something in which he trusts ultimately. As we have suggested, a Christian vests his faith in God in Christ, as he is revealed in the Scriptures.
That faith is a function comports with the position we have set forth. Just as everyone is motivated religiously, so everyone will place his trust in a source of ultimate assurance, directing it to the true God or to an idol. That faith, however, is not something that is, as it were, added on, as an attitude that has to be superimposed on one’s “natural” endowments.
One of the major questions facing modern theology, in the wake of the successes of rational criticism, was whether there was still room for theology. It appeared that there was no more place for relating God to the course of nature and history. Since theology was associated with the God-relation, that meant that theology was gradually deprived of a place among the academic disciplines. The history of liberal theology, as it responded to the rationalist challenge, was that of one attempt after the other to retain, on the one hand, the rational, critical attitude, and, on the other hand, to discover room for theology, interpreted as the discipline having as its terrain the relation to the absolute, to God, as it appears within or at the boundaries of human experience.
From the Kuyperian point of view, however, there must be a challenging of this pretended autonomy of thought itself. The gauntlet must be thrown down to every position that allows a place to a supposedly neutral rational criticism, even though it subsequently seeks to establish a relation to the absolute, to God. The truth must be established that everything has its being in its relationship to God, who has revealed himself in Christ. Nature and history themselves are subject to God. The sciences must not seek to usher God out of his creation; instead, they must realize that they as disciplines are dependent upon the revelation of God, which alone is in a position to direct them to the successful execution of their tasks. On Kuyper’s view, furthermore, there is a place for theology as a science. As one truly receives God, being encountered and encountering him in his revelation, he takes him in his revelation as the ground of his assurance. The side from which theology can approach things, in contrast to such sciences as psychology, sociology, and law, is that of faith.
We can illustrate theological concept-formation by taking an example as it relates to faith. Before we begin to think theologically, we already know something about faith. God has revealed truths about it. A believer, having exercised faith, is familiar with it and its contours. Nevertheless, there arise strictly theoretical questions concerning faith, which involve strictly theoretical problematics. The answers to such questions, we have said, cannot be neutral. This is ruled out by the nature of thought itself. Even theology, we have claimed, must reflect on its foundations and must acknowledge that it is dependent upon considerations that are themselves not scientific.
A theological concept such as “faith” is developed as a concept in confrontation with a theoretical problem, a problem that is theologically qualified, i.e., a problem that appears within this particular field of investigation. Furthermore, the problem is put by one or more theological investigators, who have assumed a theoretical attitude of thought.
One can ask the following question, not only practically, but also theoretically: “What is true faith?” In answering this and other theoretical questions, one must form theoretical concepts, and this will of necessity involve method. This scientific activity, furthermore, will lead to reflection, for example, on the method one is using and on the field of inquiry to which the method pertains. One is induced to give an account of what he is doing in his scientific activity. In theology, too, one’s attention will be drawn to the need for prolegomena.
This scientific approach, employing as it does method, is, however, not the beginning-point. Even before he puts a theological question, one already knows, be it pre-scientifically, something about both the questions and the answers. One knows from Scripture, and from his own experience in the light of Scripture, that faith without works is dead, being alone. He also knows that to be justified one must believe, even as Abraham believed. It is quite legitimate to ask questions on this level. Yet, putting them thus is neither to put a theoretical question, faced with a theoretical problem, nor to delineate a theoretical answer. Questions such as “What is true faith?” can also be put in a theoretical fashion, which will require a theoretical answer involving the formation of theoretical concepts.
In order to illustrate this point further, let us examine somewhat more closely the idea of faith.
Faith is often understood theoretically, as the act of believing, as a concrete, subjective act of appropriating what is the object of faith. What we apprehend in faith, furthermore, is often regarded to be supplementary to what we can grasp “naturally.” In traditional Reformed theology, we find supernatural faith, in relation to its object, analyzed into notitia (the intellectual apprehension of the content of faith), assensus (the assent of the will to the content of faith), and fiducia (the believing adherence to the content of faith).
One can ask theoretical questions about such a formulation, however. Does not true apprehension in faith depend upon spiritual understanding, which, in turn, is unthinkable apart from our heart’s having been opened up by the Spirit of God, so that we both assent to and embrace the truth? Our previous analysis of the revelation situation fairly requires this. There we established that it was the natural estate of man to respond freely to God manifesting himself in his revelation.
If, furthermore, one considers faith to be in essence a supernatural apprehension of the object of faith, he understands it as something one obtains, as an attitude one assumes, who in his natural estate does not have faith. Such a view does not grasp the idea that one always has a faith, whether it is turned in the true or in a false direction. Likewise, this position does not encourage examining the concept “faith” in depth. “Faith” has become a (resignation for something, like a thing one has obtained, a substantial whole. There is no suggestion that one must look in depth into the concept, to discern the religious dynamics at work in it, as faith is turned either in the true or in a false direction. On the contrary, viewing faith as a modally establislied qualification of human activity requires that one reflect on the activity of the one who “has faith” and on the context indicated by the modal qualification, namely, on the relation of the act of faith to acts qualified in other ways. These are but two directions in which the concept “faith” will have to be explored.
If one considers faith to be the concrete act of apprehending the content of faith and then inquires as to what faith is, he may be inclined to reduce “faith” to its lowest common denominator. He may inquire what is common to faith in all of its manifestations, and then seek out the specific characteristics which, like branches, must be added onto the trunk in order to arrive at a concept like “true faith.” True faith might then be regarded as faith mixed with love, as faith paired with works, etc. Following such a procedure, one starts out by taking the concept “faith” nominally, one might say, “at face value,” without any sense of need to analyze the concept in depth.
Within this tradition, a distinction has indeed been made between fides informis and fides formata, that is to say, between a faith that has not and a faith that has been mixed with love. Thus the Roman Catholics have said that it is not faith alone that justifies, but faith mixed with love. One might acknowledge that there is here some “opening up” of the concept of faith. At best, however, it is only in a teleological fashion. Faith is seen to anticipate love, as its end: love is seen to complete faith, as its goal. Faith, however, is still considered in lowest-common-denominator terms.
For such thinking the attitude is prevalent that concepts are like counters, like things that can be moved about like terms in an algebraic equation.
In our view, faith is an aspect of human experiencing, at work in every human act. One cannot avoid, therefore, believing; he can only observe his faith changed in its direction, for example, as his eyes are opened to the truth of the Gospel. “Losing one’s faith,” on this view, cannot simply mean losing something, as one might lose his pocketknife. It might mean that one had lost the true directedness of his faith, losing hold on the Gospel. It might mean that there was a change of direction of one’s faith, so that it became vested in something else. In any case, it could not mean that, having lost his faith, one landed up faith-wise with a tabula rasa. On this view, also, a “faithful act” would be an act of faith in the true direction. Or it might refer to a faithfulness of one to the direction he has chosen. It would not mean, however, that somehow, in addition to his natural powers, he enjoyed the exercise of a supernatural endowment, the ability to apprehend a content of faith.
As we have said, faith will qualify an act of adherence to what one takes as the source of his ultimate assurance. From the Scriptures we understand that this faith, in its true direction, will be an opening up to receive the Word of God, with that assurance which is the quality of faith.
It is possible to introduce a lowest-common-denominator kind of thinking into the interpretation of a passage like James 2.
“You say you believe in God,” James writes, “you do well.” And with a noticeable edge of sarcasm, he continues: “Even the devils believe and tremble.” In understanding the meaning of “faith” here, do we abstract from its positive manifestations and consider faith to embrace what is characteristic of the true believer and of the devils? In such a case, we should take “faith” nominally. To this faith, which is common to believer and unbeliever alike, we should then have to add traits like love, obedience, and works, if it is to be understood as true faith. One must grant that in our ordinary language we speak in such terms, as we shall observe more in detail later on; but here we are not involved, as James is himself, in speaking in every-day terms, but in an examination of theological concept-formation.
An alternative point of view, from which the meaning of faith can be understood, stands in conscious opposition to a nominalist position. It takes the “nominal” or “historical” faith exercised by the demons here as a distortion of faith, a deformation of what faith is pure and simple, that is, as to its idea, in its original meaning. “Historical faith” or “nominal faith” is a deformation of the idea of faith; in this manner, an idealistic approach might set itself up in opposition to a nominalistic one.
We shall not enter into this controversy. We refer to it only to illustrate the kind of problem one is confronted with as soon as he passes from the level of naïve thought, with its concrete concepts, to the level of theoretical thought, with its scientific concepts and with its need to give an account methodologically, of what is going on as one forms them.
One need not interpret the James passage, however, as a scientific theological discourse. He can see it for what it is, a practically directed diatribe against those who say that they have faith, but whose words are empty, just as empty as the words of someone who says “be warmed and filled” and who gives one in need nothing for his back and nothing for his stomach. Indeed, James speaks in such a way as to assert that one must not only have faith but also works. One must not take “faith” here, then, as a theoretical concept, which would almost force him to think of faith nominally, reducing it to a term expressing what is had in common by believer and devil. Is then true faith this kind of faith, plus something else? The passage itself does not support this kind of interpretation. It is not at all necessary to understand it as employing theoretical concepts. In our everyday speech, we use expressions such as we find here. “Don’t just say you love me,” says a neglected wife, “do something about it. Otherwise, your love is empty!” Florist ads intone “Say it with flowers!” That is not to imply that marital bliss is nominal love plus a bouquet of roses now and then! A study of the passage should show up the untenability of thinking of faith nominally, because what Abraham is said to have done, namely, offer up Isaac, is identified with what the Scriptures refer to when they say, “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Exploring the passage conceptually, one must account for the fact that faith is not only set side-by-side with work but it also said to stand behind and embrace it. The “work” of Abraham was an expression of faith. It was faith doing something. What the passage teaches is itself non-theoretical; it is, however, what any biblically inspired theoretical theologizing will have to take into account and also give an account of.
When we put a question theoretically, such as “What is faith?,” we must clearly delineate the concepts involved and render an account of what we are doing. That we are brought to give a theoretical account of what we are doing is a clear indication that we are involved in doing scientific theology.
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Analysis of concepts within the field of theology, be it an exacting task, is imperative if we are to know what we are about in our theologizing. It is also necessary if we are to provide a foundation for comparing theological systems in a meaningful way. Theological terms do not have the same meaning in all theological systems. One cannot get at the meaning of the terms, however, by taking them nominally, at their “face value,” and then combining and recombining them. Theological concepts must be analyzed in depth. There is more inclination to do this on the part of the idealists, we have observed, than on the part of the nominalists. We ourselves must go further. We must lay bare the framework within which the concepts of a theological system have their meaning, a meaning that will depend upon religious directives, which have to do with one’s response to God in his revelation as it centers in Jesus Christ.
Notes
- Calvin, Institutes, I, xiv, 1 (Allen trans.); cf. Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Argument.
- Augustine, Confessions, XI, xii, ed. Whitney J. Oates, Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, I (New York: Random House, 1948), p. 190.
- Augustine, Confessions, XI, xiii.
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