FAITH is a very rich virtue. Much like the virtue of charity it has many definitions. Faith in God means to believe, to trust and to obey Him. St. Thomas Aquinas calls faith the door to spiritual life.
It is the door to our relationship with God. One of the definitions of faith in the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, “Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature (both humans and created things).” (CCC 150)We practice faith in our everyday life and
oftentimes we are not aware of it. We have faith in a jeepney driver that
he would drive us safely to our intended destination. We have faith in a
restaurant where we eat, that the food served is safe to consume. We have
faith in our barber or hairdresser, that he or she would cut our hair according
to our instructions. Faith is important in our dealings with others
otherwise we would not interact with anyone nor go out of the house anymore
because we trust no one.
Faith in God is not just a belief that He exists
because even the demons do that. “You believe that there is one God.
Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” (James 2:19) But it
is also trusting in God’s goodness who has previously shown love and care for
us on many occasions.
And it is continually trusting in Him even at times
we could not understand what He does in our lives especially when we suffer
because we trust that it is for our good (see Romans 8:28). Even
without the Bible telling us that God is someone who is good, we could
ascertain it from the way the universe was created. The universe was made with
order, beauty and with provisions to live in it, such as water, the air we
breathe, sources of food, etc. If someone gives you a nice gift or
provides you with the basic needs in life you can conclude that this person is
good and that he or she loves you and cares for you.
After having trusted God as a Person, it will
simply follow that we should also trust His teachings. Belief
in God’s teachings through the Word of God or the Bible for example does not
mean we don’t use our intelligence anymore and just accept all His teachings by
heart. An example would be God revealing to us that He is a Being
composed of Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit
which is something we can analyze, appreciate and later on decide to believe or
make an act of faith to believe.
Or God’s teachings on the afterlife of Heaven, Hell
and Purgatory that we would have not known unless God revealed these to
us. These teachings are not contrary to reason because they appeal
to our intellect precisely because they are reasonable or they make sense and
because God is the God of Truth or even more accurately, He is Truth Himself
(John 14:6). Nevertheless, it would also mean that we could not totally
understand these teachings in complete detail in this life because these are
mysteries, and can only be fully understood in the next life. Faith comes
when we trust what we can’t fully know.
Lastly, faith in God also means obedience to Him
and to His commandments. Obedience means our faith is not just in words
but most importantly in deeds. “As the body without spirit is dead,
so faith without deeds is dead.” (James 2:26) God’s Ten Commandments
and The Beatitudes are an expression of His character. God’s nature
is goodness, kindness, love, justice, mercy, humility, generosity, chastity,
etc. The goal is to become like God through obedience (imitating
Christ’s obedience to the Father) so as to share in God’s Divine Life partially
here on earth and fully later on in heaven. “Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
(Hebrews 11:1) (ECC)
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