The Interview

What is Faith?

An imagined radio interview. 


Let's start with that question, 'what is faith?'

Faith is trusting in the invisible.  We all are forced to do that every day.  We have faith in objects- 'this chair will take my weight', in the predictability of life 'the post will be delivered, I will be able to provide for my needs, and my employer will pay me'.  Also in our relationships, my family, my spouse, my children genuinely care about me and love me.'

What are the limits of faith?

Faith and reality must connect.  We talk about 'blind faith'.  This is the child who jumps off a wall into an adult's arms believing that they will be caught.  The act is based on an assumption that the adult will act.  So faith varies on a continuum from 'cross my fingers' to 'complete certainty'.

How important is it to you to have faith?

As just mentioned, faith is not an option.  We are forced into having to have faith in this world. The question is what in, and to what degree.  Faith affects our sense of security.  For young children who have an innate sense that their world is not safe, they develop insecure behaviours. A lot of these behaviours can be understood as emanating from a deep need to feel more secure.  We see this in jealousy, a feeling of insecurity in relationships.   So we all have faith.  It's the quality of the faith and how satisfying it is that is key.

Can everyone have quality faith?

The challenge when it comes to 'quality faith'  is that it is dependent on 'quality relationships'.  Faith is reinforced by consistency and reliability. We need to know that our basic needs are met, we are loved, and that we can contribute.  

What about meaning in life? How does this involve faith?

If you ask your pet dog what meaning in life is to them you won't get very far.  Same too with a lot of people.  However if you observe their lives, you will identify where they find meaning.  Where we expend time, resources, energy and heartache, is where our meaning is likely to be.  For me,  if we remove words and culture from discussions about faith, we are likely to be able to  define true meaning much clearer.  It's an paradox.

Can you really consider faith without including culture?

I understand what you are saying.  Can we have this conversation without words?  I'm saying that the true essence of faith is beyond words and culture.  It's like the love shared between people.  Love is something that can not be tied down by words and culture. 

I'd like us to now move to faith in a religion.  How important is religion to faith?

The word 'religion' means so many different things to different people.  It is emotionally loaded, so just saying the word will trigger lots of different association immediately.  We have to define our terms carefully, as in a court of law.  For me the power of 'belonging to groups' is part of being human.  On our own we are 'drops of water'.  Together 'we become a river'.  This can be wonderful, and it can be destructive.  As humans we are bound by our context.  This is unavoidable.  It is challenging to stray from the 'tethers' we are given from birth.  A baby is born with infinite possibilities, and these drop away rapidly every day of their life.  There is a challenge to keep the possibility for change and development at a healthy level of openness for all of us.  This is just as much for people with strong 'fixed' convictions, as for people who feel they have no convictions at all.  

From the position of a historian, it is assumed that the further back in time we travel the harder it
becomes to verify facts.  Coupled with this it is known that all religions tend to have a degree of mythology surrounding them.  Most have fantastical stories.  In some religions the idea of mythology is accepted, 'this or that may have happened, it might not.   Believe what you like, it doesn't really matter.'

How important is it to your faith that Jesus really did live in Palestine and was killed, and came back to life as is reported in your scriptures?

That is a great question.  You rightly point out that it does seem fantastical that a person should come back to life after clearly being quite dead.  Some historical accounts report that Jesus did not die, but that his body was swapped on the cross.  One of the reasons we continue to talk about this story is because it is so 'fantastical'.

The study of history is fascinating, and there is plenty of active historical interest about what happened well over 2000 years ago.  There is nothing to say that events 1000 years ago have less to say and are less relevance than 100 years ago say, although this might be a point of cultural debate. 

What do you mean by cultural debate?

Some people may argue that as humans, we are evolving into more superior (or different) beings so that events in the past can say nothing to us today.  Some nationalists might say anything that is not within their cultural domain is less relevant.  Others say that some specific moment in time, say the enlightenment, has rendered passed experience obsolete.

And to my question?  How important is the accuracy of history to your faith?

Faith by definition is not dependent on certainty.  Having said this, if archaeological evidence were to appear that Jesus was married, or had children.  Or that the accounts of his life recorded in the gospels were fictitious, then certainly the basis of the Christian faith would be in crisis.

As you know, people have made these claims, including Dan Brown, in his novels.  However no one has seriously taken these claims to be true.  Over 2000 years there have been plenty of opportunities for hard historical evidence to be nailed to cathedral doors, and plenty of motivation to do it if possible.  

The opposite is true.  Evidence that is discovered tends to support the gospel narratives.

Can you give an example?

Things like evidence for the places mentioned in the Bible.  People who want to cast doubt on the story say 'Joseph of Aramathea- that name is made up.'  Last year evidence for a place called Emmaus was discovered.  Aramathea continues to be an enigma, but this is only so because the word appears in the account.  If it had been missed off the story would be no different and we would not be talking about it.

So my faith is not based on the apparent accuracy of history or not.  There are many occasions where historians have looked back and decided to reinterpret history.  That is what academic history is all about.  Evidence remains important, just as it does in a court of law, but it acts as an indicator, not factual proof.

So how important is it to you that Jesus came back to life?

For a follower of Jesus, it is essential that Jesus is alive.  If this were not so, we are just talking to the wall and calling it 'god'.   Many people may well talk to walls, but I personally want a more convincing relationship.

It's like stories you hear from the past of people being sent from the UK to Australia.  They might be separated from their loved ones, wives, husbands.  The fact that they cannot communicate with each other except by letters that might take three months to reach each other means that the relationship will be rather strange.  I am not really interested in a relationship like that.  For the poor people in the past they may be bereaved without knowing it for many months.  I'm interested in a relationship with a creator that is alive, real and satisfying.

What if your relationship is with a creator, or supreme being, and the story about Jesus is just dressing?  You might experience it as Jesus but others would give it another name.

Indeed, Jesus has many names in different cultures.  The actual word is not important.  What Jesus embodies is the nature of the relationship we have with our creator.  People across time and culture have many different concepts of what the creator is like.  For some the creator needs constantly placating, for others the creator is distant and not really involved.  For others the creator is just a life force with no real ability to have a personal relationship.

For me Jesus is the part of the creator that is able to know me just as I am.  Jesus is one who reveals the nature of life, how it is to be lived to the full, and how I am able to feel closely bonded to this life source.  The gospel stories spell this out.  Many people have never had access to these stories, even before recorded history, and they have the same relationship with their creator.  Knowing the story is to be in a privileged position, just as modern science offers us privileges others in the past have been denied.

Constantine famously converted to Christianity in about 312 AD.  For about 300 years the beliefs of Christians were taboo, and could easily get you killed.  It can be argued that after 312 AD Christianity was blessed and cursed equally by becoming a state sponsored religion.  However the faith was not exclusive to Byzantium and the churches in Armenia, Georgian and Egypt / Ethiopian were free to go their own way.  It can be argued that it is extraordinary that they have not, and despite human differences, remain in fellowship together.

Feuerbach, the German philosopher, argued that the culture of religious experiences result from the human need to create meaning and this meaning is projected onto the 'screen' of faith, so that they can be seen and shared.  How do you know that this is not your experience?

I think Feuerbach's writings are very insightful and I like his argument.  However these are circular arguments that work both ways.  Feuerbach would say that I need my relationship with Jesus so much that it becomes real to me.  I look for evidence of its voracity, and find it, to my great relief.  This is how a mutually reinforcing stereotype works.  On a larger scale we do it together in Christian worship.  Shared experiences are very powerful and create a projected reality.  Feuerbach honours these experiences and notes them to be higher forms of being, rather than delusions.  He is for religion, not against it.

The Christian starts from the basis of feeling the 'grip of the hand', rather than grasping for meaning.

The grip is from the creator who cares about the creation, just as a good parent is constantly thinking about their children.  The grip can not be denied or negated.  I therefore start from the position of saying 'I know that my creator loves me.  I feel his grip; what now?  I say the same thing about my other treasured relationships, for example with my wife.  I cannot see my father.  He has died.  I yet I am convinced that he loved me.  

We all live by faith.  It is inevitable that we have to, because certainties are few.  Modern science is not changing that.  When you feel the grip of a loving creator holding you back from running into the road, you feel secure.  You are able to have fun.  This is what I am wanting for others, and if they have it, I'm happy for them.