Introduction to Christian Faith

Introduction to Christian Faith
Christian Faith as we have it today is the outcome of thousands of years of pilgrimage through the experience of many faith communities. The faith of Abraham, which is at the root of at least three major religions, was the result of his direct experience of God, whom God considered as his friend. This has not been an isolated experience in history. There were other friends of God lived before and after Abraham, like Enoch (Gen 5:22) who walked with God, and Noah, the righteous, and later Moses in biblical lands. There were biblical references to such relationship of God with people in other lands: Abraham considered Melchizedek, the King of Salem, as his priest and paid tithes to him. Certainly Abraham subscribed to Melchizedek's faith, the religion of Canaanites. Abraham, the father of believers, was also a friend of the Hittites, whose help he sought in his war to liberate Lot and his family who were imprisoned by the combined army of seven local kings. Similar different faith traditions, like that of Moabite Ruth, saw their entry into the Old Testament text as established by the major sources of Biblical documents known as JEDP(Jahwist, Eloshist, Deuteronomist, Priestly) in representing God in different names of God and traditions. Faith of Moses was also influenced by his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, where Moses first met God and got his commission to liberate the Israelites. Amos speaks of God liberating many people groups from slavery to freedom (Amos 9) Isaiah considers Cyrus, the Chaldean King, as the anointed one(Messiah, Christ) to free the Israelites from Babylon. The revelation of Jahweh was the criterion to accept or reject other traditions and the Israelites used it creatively, a methodology that is very significant to any community which takes life seriously. The introductory chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew is the best example in the New Testament to see how creatively and dynamically the Early Church articulated the formation of their faith, which though in later periods met with the spirit of exclusion, as it happened in the times of Ezrah and Nehemiah. Such isolationary traditions have their extra ordinary historical background but that should not be the criterion for expressing and maintaining our faith life. Faith is a search process seeking truth for which needs open mind and heart committed to God and God's creation. this is great task of Christian in the postmodern context of India.

What is Faith? What is Theology?

What is Faith? What is Theology?

June 26, 2008

Theology is thoughtful faith. Faith and theology are inseparable. Theology is an inquiry into faith. The classical definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding”(St. Anselm: fides quaerns intellectum). Augustine also points to the integral relation of faith and theology, when he said: “I believe in order that I may understand.” Do you understand what you read? is a classical raised by an early evangelist to a pagan seeker (Acts 8:26ff). Prophet Isaiah laments over people who do not understand, who do not care to understand. Gospel writers say that Jesus also endorsed the prophet’s concern (Mark 4:12ff). The Deuteronomic Creed, Shema, exhorts people: Love your God with your whole heart, mind and spirit (Deut: 4:6). Understanding is the capacity of mind to comprehend. Theology is understanding what is believed. Without theology faith turns out to be fideism, an ideology without the possibility of correcting it. As Edward Schillebeeckx noted, Christian faith “causes us to think.” Faith keeps on seeking and asking, thus moves out of ideological blindness to responsible freedom. Human life ceases to be human when we no longer have the courage to ask questions that are necessary “to keep human life human” (Paul Lehmann in Ethics in a Christian Context). Without faith theology loses its cutting edge, its focus, its subject. The starting point of faith is not Cartesian self-consciousness (Des Cartes,” Cogito ergo sum,” I think, therefore, I am) but the awareness of the reality of God ( “God is, therefore, we are,” Daniel Migliore, Faith seeking Understang, 5). For Karl Barth: “Theology means taking rational trouble over the mystery…. If we are unwilling to take the trouble neither shall we know what we mean when we say that we are dealing with the mystery of God: (Church Dogmatics , 1/1:483, Cited by Migliore, p.8).