--J.E.C.F.
[42] _Vivir un mundo_.
[43] _Sermons_, by the Rev. Frederick W. Robertson. First series, sermon
iii., "Jacob's Wrestling." Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebuer and Co., London,
1898.
IX
FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY
Sanctius ac reverentius visum de actis deorum credere quam
scire.--TACITUS: _Germania_, 34.
The road that leads us to the living God, the God of the heart, and that
leads us back to Him when we have left Him for the lifeless God of
logic, is the road of faith, not of rational or mathematical conviction.
And what is faith?
This is the question propounded in the Catechism of Christian Doctrine
that was taught us at school, and the answer runs: Faith is believing
what we have not seen.
This, in an essay written some twelve years ago, I amended as follows:
"Believing what we have not seen, no! but creating what we do not see."
And I have already told you that believing in God is, in the first
instance at least, wishing that God may be, longing for the existence of
God.
The theological virtue of faith, according to the Apostle Paul, whose
definition serves as the basis of the traditional Christian
disquisitions upon it, is "the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen," _elpizomevon hupostasis, pragmaton
elegchos ou blepomenon_ (Heb. xi. 1).
The substance, or rather the support and basis, of hope, the guarantee
of it.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280