Faith Is Not Faith Unless There Is Someone Beyond Me to Believe
When “faith” is rightly defined, it is a phenomenon that cannot exist without someone in whom faith is placed
Sometimes, we think of faith as a solo endeavor, especially when we’re seeking to defend the truthfulness of the Christian faith.
And yet, what we seek in the apologetics endeavor is not to convince someone to assent to particular facts but to show the truth, beauty, and goodness of trusting in a particular person. Of course, there are particular facts that are entailed in this act of trust, but faith is, by its very nature, social.
Whenever “faith” is reduced to something that’s solo rather than social, the phenomenon that’s being described as “faith” is not, in fact, faith at all—this, despite the widespread misunderstanding in our culture of “faith” as confidence in oneself.
Here’s how Teresa Morgan describes this reality in her study of “faith” in the early centuries of Christianity Roman Faith and Christian Faith:
There are many emotions one can practice on a desert island and at least a few virtues (wisdom, temperance, and self-control). Cognition is by no means constrained by the absence of company. But [faith] (along with justice, mercy, and a few others) is one of those qualities that can only be practiced socially: it is inherently relational and characteristically expressed in action towards other human beings (or, occasionally, animals).