Exploring Values, Meaning and Spirituality

Newsletter Issue 145 January 2020 SOFiA Exploring Values, Meaning and Spirituality to mean something like ‘the Christian Is There Any Hope for Faith? religion as a whole.’ If we say, ‘I’ve lost faith in doctors’ we mean by faith something like At the centre of the recent debate on personal trust in a group of people. Ian whether to change our name is the word Harris has made an eloquent plea for ‘faith’ ‘faith’. For the change enthusiasts, ‘faith’ is and against belief. In what follows, I will try an obstacle; it makes our organisation to unfold an understanding of faith in sound like propagandists for a religious, contrast to belief, stressing the inward, probably Christian world view. The subjective side of religion. consequence is that many of us were embarrassed to name our organisation to This is no easy task, because Western others. My view is that the word has largely Christendom has a long tradition of just the negative associations for the general public, opposite. Battles have been fought and the even though it is a word with a long and church community has split asunder over venerable tradition that is worth paying differing beliefs. Some said that Jesus was attention to. homoousious (of one substance) with the Father, while others said he was merely By contrast, for most SOFiAns, the phrase homoiousious (of similar substance). Some ‘Sea of Faith’ has become familiar, so no said that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the longer causes the negative reaction that Father, while others said that ‘he’ proceeded outsiders probably have. from Father and Son jointly. Luther said But what about the word ‘faith’ itself? Do that we are justified by faith, while the we still need it? Is there something valuable Catholic Church found that works were here that we need to become aware of? My sufficient. Calvin had someone executed as a first thought comes from James Barr, who heretic for denying the Trinity. claimed that the sentence is the smallest Predestination (the idea that God determined unit of meaning. In other words, a word by in advance who belongs to the saved and itself doesn’t have a meaning. Barr was an who to the damned) was a common theme Old Testament scholar, and this claim was a but Calvinist thinkers argued over whether fundamental undermining of the Theological God already had predestined us before the Dictionary of the New Testament and the Fall (supralapsarianism) or only after the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Fall (infralapsarianism). These were a grand German theological Each Protestant denomination produced project to provide a comprehensive its own confession of faith, in which its dictionary of theological words used in the particular set of doctrines are articulated in bible and to draw out of them all manner of order to establish its unique identity. I could profound insights. go on but that should be enough. Attempts Trouble is, the meaning of any word, to articulate a purely rational, objective including the word ‘faith’, varies depending understanding of religion end up with weird on the sentence it occurs in. If we say ‘the arguments about strange concepts and have Christian faith has evolved over the two provoked a humanist rejection of all religion. millennia of its existence’ we are using faith sof.org.nz 1 Newsletter Issue 145 January 2020 Kierkegaard, as the father of sudden jump brought about by some inward existentialism, was one of the first to protest process of maturation. against this process, which he saw As Ian Harris points out (see page 6), the supremely represented in the philosophy of religious studies professor Wilfred Cantwell Hegel. For him, ‘truth is subjectivity’. He told Smith has carefully analysed the way the the following story to illustrate the word ‘faith’ has been used in the bible and limitations of objective truth. down through the ages. For him, faith comes I shall here permit myself to tell a story, which first and belief is something that is derived without any sort of adaptation on my part comes from faith. Linguistic analysts reduce faith direct from an asylum. A patient in such an institution expressions to propositional statements. seeks to escape, and actually succeeds in effecting his They focus on belief rather than faith. No purpose by leaping out of a window, and prepares to serious acquaintance with philosophy or start on the road to freedom, when the thought religion of other cultures. strikes him (shall I say sanely enough or madly In general, modern scholarship tends to enough?): “When you come to town you will be recognized, and you will at once be brought back here begin with belief and ignore faith’s personal again; hence you need to prepare yourself fully to side. convince everyone by Scholars anachronistically project the objective truth of If I could tell the world just one thing twentieth century assumptions what you say, that all is It would be that we're all ok about the priority of belief over in order as far as your And not to worry because worry is wasteful faith and misrepresent all known sanity is concerned.” As And useless in times like these prior civilizations. By returning to he walks along and I will not be made useless the central significance of faith he thinks about this, he I won't be idled with despair hopes to overcome the modern sees a ball lying on the I will gather myself around my faith tendency of objectifying religious ground, picks it up, and For light does the darkness most fear life, the result of which is puts it into the tail Jewel Hands valuelessness, scepticism and loss of pocket of his coat. Every faith. step he takes the ball strikes him, politely speaking, Wilfred Cantwell Smith: A Theology for the on his hinder parts, and every time it thus strikes him World. Edward J Hughes SCM Press 1986 p 20 he says: “Bang, the earth is round.” He comes to the For Paul Tillich, faith is ‘ultimate city, and at once calls on one of his friends; he wants concern’. This might be best understood by to convince him that he is not crazy, and therefore contrasting it with preliminary concerns, walks back and forth, saying continually: “Bang, the which are everyday matters of no great earth is round!” But is not the earth round? Does the importance and that could be decided quite asylum still crave yet another sacrifice for this differently, such as which pair of trousers to opinion, as in the time when all men believed it to be flat as a pancake? Or is a man who hopes to prove buy and what colour you like best. that he is sane, by uttering a generally accepted and Interestingly, his examples of ultimate generally respected objective truth, insane? And yet it concern are nationalism and communism. was clear to the physician that the patient was not yet What happens with these quasi-religions, is cured; though it is not to be thought that the cure that a particular concern comes to have would consist in getting him to accept the opinion absolute, unconditional importance. One’s that the earth is flat. But all men are not physicians, own nation has an importance that overrides and what the age demands seems to have a all other factors such as a humane considerable influence upon the question of what consideration of the fate of refugees. In madness is. Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ we see For Kierkegaard, Christianity wasn’t a set the same dynamic continuing to work. of doctrines, but a communication Perhaps if Tillich were alive today, he would concerning a way of existing. In Either/Or, point to neoliberalism as another example of he set about contrasting two different ways ultimate concern. Its obsessive focus on of being: the aesthetic and the ethical. Now individual freedom, minimal government and the transition between one and the other is lack of a framework for ensuring social not brought about by a new empirical welfare insight; it is a leap, a discontinuity, a sof.org.nz 2 Newsletter Issue 145 January 2020 About SOFiA SOFiA (The Sea of Faith in Aotearoa) is a network of people interested in the non-dogmatic discussion of Contents values, meaning and spirituality. We want to explore for ourselves what we can believe and how we can find Is There Any Hope for Faith? ..................................... 1 meaning in our lives. About SOFiA ................................................................. 3 SOFiA is not a church: it is a forum for discussing ideas, SOFiA News .................................................................. 4 experiences and perspectives. SOFiA itself has no creed; its members come from many faiths and from Committee News ....................................................... 4 those with no attachment to any religious institution. Remembering John Irwin .......................................... 4 If you are in sympathy with our aims, you are most welcome to join us; receive our Newsletter, attend a Book Review ................................................................ 5 local group and/or come to our Conferences. Philosopher of the Heart ........................................... 5 We follow similar organisations in the UK and Australia in taking our name from “Sea of Faith”, the 1984 BBC Faith vs Belief ............................................................... 6 TV series and book by the British religious academic, Book Review: On Tyranny ......................................... 7 Don Cupitt. Stop Press: Shirley Murray ........................................ 7 Committee Popular Music and Theopoetics .................................. 8 Our national Committee oversees the work of SOFiA. Chairperson: Ian Crumpton ‘Theomusicology’ and Black Sacred Music ................ 8 email [email protected] David Edwards ........................................................... 8 Secretary: Steve Collard email [email protected] David Tacey: Understanding God in a Secular Age ... 8 Treasurer: Philip Grimmett John D Caputo: The Poetics of What is Going On in email [email protected] the Name of “God” ................................................

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