VJTR 77 (2013) 360-378

Faith in Contemporary TheologiesProspectives and Challenges

JOSEPH XAVIER, S.J.Fr Xavier < xavier@unigre.it > teaches theology at the Gregorian University (Piazza del! a Pilotta, 4,00187 Rome, Italy). In this article he revises the recent thinking on the theology of faith as spelt out in the last five lines of the second paragraph. He shows the positive and negative aspects o f each theological trend and and their complementarity.

The Year of Faith invites us to deepen our understanding of faith. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on different aspects

of faith. Normally, the term “faith” is used to indicate certain basic human attitudes to life. We know that every human activity requires faith. In a generic, non-religious sense, faith means to accept something as true that is not immediately verifiable. Here faith takes the form of trust From a religious perspective, faith refers to the relationship between God and human beings. Christians use the term mainly to designate a basic saving relationship with God into which they enter by responding to God’s self-revelation in Christ.1 However, this relationship with the divine can be experienced and expressed in many ways. In feet, ‘faith’ is as rich and diverse as the opportunities of life.

From a theological perspective, too, faith is not a one­dimensional or a univocai term. Its creative and dynamic nature can be looked at and analysed from different angles. That is to say, there are different ways of understanding faith. Therefore, theologians belonging to different schools, times and contexts describe faith and its role in the lives of the people based on their personal experience and conviction, and rightly so. We also need to remember that people often “tend to assert that of which they have experience and to deny that of which they lack experience.”2

D ulles, The Assurance o f Things Hoped For: A Theology ofChristian Faith. New Yorfc: Oxford University Press, 1994, 170.2A. Dulles, The Craft ofTheology: From Symbol to System. New York: Crossroad, 2000, 46.

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In the words of St Augustine, “ail good and true Christians should understand that truth, wherever they may find it, belongs to, their Lord.”3 However, there is no denying of the feet that all these theories and proposals on faith stand in need of further development, refinement and, sometimes, even corrections. Before accepting or refuting a particular theory it would be advisable to learn as much as one could from those who hold a particular view. In this article first I would like to see very briefly how faith is understood and interpreted in four contemporary types of theology—propositional, transcendental, political and liberation theologies. Thereafter, I try to see the implication of these interpretations for the Church and the world.1.Faith as Intellectual Assent

The traditional propositional model considers faith as an assent to truths revealed by God. Here the concept of faith goes along with divine revelation. Faith is primarily understood as the human response to revelation. The best example for such an understanding of faith can be found in the First Vatican Council’s document on revelation and faith, Dei Filius. While expounding the Christian notion of faith, the Council encourages the faithful to believe “all those things which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by solemn judgment -or by its ordinary and universal magisterium, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.”4 Thus, revelation takes the form of revealed truths. The same Council, in another document, Pastor Aetemus, considers revelation as the “deposit of faith.”5 If revelation is understood as the “summary of truths,” then faith* as the human response to revelation, becomes the intellectual assent to the revealed truths. Thus we understand why Vatican I places so much emphasis on the ‘content’ of faith: “we believe to be true what God has revealed.”6 Thereafter, these revealed truths are identified3Saint A ugustine, Teaching Christianity: De Doctrina Christiana, I /ll. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996, 144. In the same way, St Ignatius of Loyola would encourage “every good Christian to be more ready to save his neighbour’s proposition than to condemn if 5 {The Spiritual Exercises, no. 22).4Cf. J. Neuner-J. D upuis, The Christian Faith. New York: Alba House, 1996,45.slbid., 297.6Ibid.s 44.

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as doctrines of the church. From that point of view, faith means to accept every dogma that the church proposes as divinely revealed truth. The believers are reminded that they “are bound by faith to give full obedience {obsequium fidei) of intellect and will to God who reveals.”7

Under the influence of the First Vatican Council’s teaching on faith many theologians, especially authors of manuals of theology, considered faith as an assent to revealed truths based on the authority of God the revealer. Apologetics being their primary concern, these theologians followed a method of demonstration which attempted to show the credibility of Christian faith through rational-theological arguments. They based their arguments on the historically trustworthy accounts of die gospels. The reason behind it was that they wanted to prove reasonably that Jesus of Nazareth was the fully accredited bearer of God’s supernatural revelation to humankind. According to them, Jesus was sent as God’s envoy to the world for the purpose of communicating certain divine truths to the human race. Moreover, for them, Jesus vindicated his claim of being God’s delegate by his miracles because he fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament. His deeds in fact show without any doubt that he was the bearer of God’s revelation. They further held the view that Jesus founded the Church in order to transmit, expound and defend divine revelation which took the form of ‘instructions’ about unattainable divine truths. They also located the two sources of the content of the Christian faith in Scripture and tradition. Another concern of theirs was to show how the present-day teachings of the ecclesiastical magisterium, especially its doctrines, were originally expressed in scripture. In short, they understood faith as a firm adherence to the revealing word of God accessible through scripture and tradition under the guidance of

7Ibid. Though Vatican II does not alter what Vatican I proposed as faith, one can perceive a significant improvement in the understanding o f faith in Dei Verbum 5. Here obedience is understood primarily as a free and trusting commitment to God who reveals himself to humanity. Only secondarily, it is proposed as a free assent to the divinely revealed truth. Faith is a response to an invitation to share God’s life in Christ.

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the teaching magisterium.® At the same time, however, they considered faith as a free, reasonable act (of assent) made possible by the grace of God.92. Transcendental Faith

Though the above mentioned doctrinal concept of faith acknowledges the unity of the two fundamental elements of faith— fides quae (knowledge of revealed truths as content of faith) and fides qua (faith as trusting obedience or personal encounter with God)10—in that model the priority goes to the former, Le., the content of faith. The subjective act of faith, fides qua, though not denied, receives only a minor treatment. Aware of this deficit and at the same time being faithful to the traditional teachings of the church, many theologians of neo-Thomism have attempted to present faith in contemporary terms by reinterpreting it, especially in the face of modem atheism and philosophico-theological pluralism. Karl Rahner is one of the theologians who do not want to exclude any person from the ambit of God’s offer of salvation. For him, theology is not an in-house debate of the ‘baptised’ believers alone.11 It is important to realise that, as in every epoch, today’s world consists of people who believe and others who do not yet believe but need to be given reason for believing. They are indeed real people, capable of believing. They might not have arrived at the explicit knowledge of God or Christ due to circumstances that may be beyond their control or choice.12 Taking into consideration such eventualities, which are not imaginary but real, Rahner in his theology has attempted to develop a concept of faith which is in agreement with the teachings of the Church.13

8The job o f theologians, according to them, was to gather these data of faith and present them to the world in a rational-argumentative way. See G O’C o llin s , “Ressourcement and Vatican n ,” in G Flynn and P.D. Murray (eds.), Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 375./D u l le s , The Craft o f Theology: From Symbol to System, 2 1 2 .10J,i A lfaro , “Faith,” in K. Rahner (ed.), Sacramentum Mundi, vol. 2 . London: Burns & Oats, 1968, 314.uCf. K. R ahner, “On the Situation o f Faith,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 20. London: DLT, 1974, 13-31.

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The starting point of Rahner’s theological reflection is the human person. To understand the full meaning of theology, Rahner says that the investigating subject should first know who he/she is. With Heidegger,14 Rahner holds that human existence is different from the existence of any other finite being or thing. No finite being occupies itself so intensely as the human person in the search for the meaning of his or her existence..in this process, we transcend the ontic existence which we share with every other finite being. As human, we have an ontologically privileged status because we are the only being concerned of our existence. In his philosophico- theological analysis of human nature Rahner further argues that the human person, though a being in the world, belongs also to the supernatural order of reality, i.e., supernatural existential.15 That is to say, for Rahner, the “supernatural existential” is the fundamental structure of the human person. The human person carries within him/her the potency for self-transcendence towards the ultimate Mystery of life—God. Even when this Mystery is not known in an explicit or conceptual manner, it is implicitly known in the inborn drive of human subjectivity. That is to say, “when man experiences his transcendence, his limitless openness, even without explicit consciousness of it, he also experiences the offer of grace, not necessarily as such, i.e., as a distinctly supernatural call, but in its meaningful reality.”16 This “transcendental experience” of God can be verified in the analysis of every activity of the human person.17 Moreover, for Rahner, this act of transcending oneself can come

I2Here one may think of those who are-born under totalitarian regimes and places where religious freedom is a distant reality.13 Vatican II affirms: “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel o f Christ or his church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do God’s will as it is known to them through the dictates o f conscience” (LG 16).14Cf. M. H eidegger , Being and Time. New York: Harper & Row, 962, 21-64. Though Rahner seems to downplay Heidegger’s role in his theology, there is no doubt that Heidegger had a great influence on him especially regarding his philosophical interpretation of man. Cf. Paul I m h of & B iallow ons (eds.), Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews 1965-1982. New York: Crossroad, 1986, 190-1.l5Cf. K. R ahner , “Existential: Theological” in K. Rahner (ed.), Sacramentum Mundi, voi. 2, 306. .

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under the purview of faith. For example, let us take freedom. In Rahner’s understanding, exercising freedom responsibly is tantamount to an act of faith;

The freedom with which a person disposes of oneself in a fundamental decision is the freedom of a subject with a ‘supernatural existential’, with an enduring actual offer of God, an offer presented to freedom as the innermost subjective principle of orientation of humans to the immediacy of God. The radicalizing of human transcendentality to the immediacy of God, which is involved in this continuous offering of supernatural grace, has the character of a revelation in the strictly theological sense of the term. If a person in free and absolute self-understanding does not withdraw in culpable fear into finiteness but trustfully yields to the transcendentality o f the mind oriented as it is to the incomprehensibility of God, then there is a self-acceptance implying the immediacy of god inbuilt in once transcendentality radicalized by grace: one believes and does so with an absolute assent18

Rahner is of the opinion that “the explicit word of revelation does not come to us as an utterly foreign body from outside us, but is simply the' articulate expression of what we already are by grace.”19 From this Rahrier goes on to affirm that the explicit Christian revelation is the articulate utterance of the grace-given revelation which we always experience, however obscurely, in the depths of our being. If faith is seen as the human response to divine revelation as taught by the church, then Rahner would argue that whenever a person accepts the transcendental revelation in grace, he or she makes an act of supernatural faith. How do we16K. R ahner , “Mission,” in K. Rahner (ed.), Sacramentum Mundi, vol. 4, 80.l7"The experience which we are appealing to here is not primarily and ultimately the experience which a person has when he decides explicitly and in a deliberate and responsible way upon some religious activity, for example, prayer, a cuitic act, or a reflexive and theoretical occupation with religious themes It is rather the experience which is given to every person prior to soch reflexive religious activity and decisions, and indeed perhaps in a form and in a conceptuality which seemingly are not religious at all.” K. R ahner , Foundations o f Christian faith: An Introduction to the Idea o f Christianity. London: Longman & Todd, 1976,132.j8R ahn er , “On the Situation o f Faith,” 28.!9R ahner , “Mission,” 80.

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know that a person made this acceptance? For Rahner, a person accepts the transcendental revelation by the very fact of accepting oneself felly.20 Moreover, in accepting oneself, one accepts Christ as the absolute fulfilment and guarantor of one’s anonymous movement towards God in grace.21

Rainer ’s theology of faith in the first place considers grace as a kind of subjective or transcendental revelation. Graceitself is the agent that, facilitates the act of faith even when it is unaccompanied by the explicit transmission of any specific revealed truths. Rahner holds that faith always has an intrinsic dynamism to realize; itself explicitly. The grace-given interior experience of the saving mysteiy prepares a person to accept Christ and the articles of faith when these are made available through proclamation. We need to remember that acceptance of the gospel and the creed would not be faith unless their contents were integrated into the experience of God’s free self-communication in grace.3. Faith, m Political Theology

Thepolitical theology of Johann Baptist Metz consideredthat the transcendental theology of a Rahnerian cast is too bound up with individualistic categories which saw faith as nothing more than an existential encounter between God and the human being. It was. exclusively concerned with the value of the decision of the individuai. Against this background Metz proposes a political theology as a corrective to the style of theology with an existential andlpersesaist bia^,read transcendental theology. He is convinced; thai theology hasmot yet really met the challenge posedi>y the ideology critique that religion isAe opium of the people. Many “modem’ theologies tejfto sidestep this critique by assertingthat Christkffifàiih and the salvation it proclaims deal only with the ìndmfaÉ* haunted by anxiety* threatened by the uttermost possibiffity ©fan end ofMs or her existence: death. In these theologies, the Christian message is privatised and the practice offaith reduced tothetìmeless decsions of the person.22 According to Metz any theological reflection that

20That is why R a h n er is able to say that the hm aa pèrsoti is “the event of God’s absolute self-commtimcation.” See Foundations o f Christian Faith, 126.21R ahner, “Mission,” &®.

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does not understand human existence as a political problem is m danger of converting th e o lo g y into an abstract ideology. T h e on ly way available to theology to rescue iáth from falling into an ideology fe“deprivatizing” it.23 Here depróafízing faith means bringing its resources to bear on the social and political milieu. As an ad mtra críft|íie,ítós means exposing the Ifasioa of “political innocence” onthepaitofthe church and callingikto question those of its praxes re la teito fet ilusión.24 For Metz, fechurchrs criticism of society/ worlü ea® be credible and efficient! only if it is supported by a critical puttie opinion within the church herself.25 Further, an ad extra pofiieai theology means bringing the resources of Christian faith to. bear on the social and political crises that face the society within which faith lives and to which it is accountable. “In virtue of its eschatological proviso in the face of every abstract idea of progress and ofhumanity, the church protects the individual person, living here and now, from being considered exclusively as matter and means for the building of a completely rationalized technological future.”26

In its understanding of faith, according to. Metz, theology should become the critic and emancipator who strives to break through all the thought-forms by constantly fixing its gaze on the foolishness of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a truth which cannot be guaranteed like a pure idea, but only by a historical action orientated to its eschatological promises.27 Any personalist and arbitrary interpretation makes Christian faith lose its identity and forfeit its biblical foundation. There have been various attempts in contemporary theology to make Christian faith relevant to the worlds andihistory. According to Metz, all these: attempts have one thing in.common—-they all interpret faith above all as an act of faith,as•“JIB. M e tz , Theology o f the WorldL New York': Herderand Herder, 1969,1091. ^Bid., 111.* € £ J. B - M e iz , “Apologetics^’’m Sacranmatma Mtmdí, voL I, 68. s M e tz , Theology o f the Worlds 1 2 0 -4 .* M L , I I H Metz sees the chHsch as am “'esefatpfogical propaso” wMchaj3ak.es every historically real status off society appear to be “provisionalBeing; both eschatological and the exodus eorrmunity,. the church is not f e goal off&er own striving. In other words, aceerding to Mete, the eschatologieal proviso relativizes aB systems and radicalizes the importance o f historical aclwity in relation, to God. 27M e tz , “Apologetics,” 6?.

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fldes qua creditur, as far as possible without any content, as a symbol of a human free, non-objective decision. Interpreted in this way, faith looks to be contemporaiy. But an interpretation of this sort is always in danger of obscuring the power of the Christian faith to criticize society! There is nothing to recall as the point of reference which could act as catalyst to break through the magical spell of the dominant consciousness of the present. Such attempts simply lack the critical and transforming power of faith.28 In Metz’s opinion, if faith is interpreted merely fldes qua or act of faith, it leaves faith to individual’s personal decisions. How can it be called ‘Christian faith’? This is the reason that Metz proposes memoria Christi as fldes quae or content of faith.

According to Metz, in the biblical tradition, the formulations of belief are is seen as memoria. Christian faith is an attitude according to which man remembers promises that have been made and hopes that are experienced. As a result of those promises and experiences he commits himself to those memories. It is neither the intellectual model of consent to certain articles of faith nor the existential model of a decision made in one’s existence that makes this interpretation of faith possible. What is important here is the figure ofeschatologicai memory: “If the eschatologicai truth of the memoria passionis is not merely to be expressed in empty tautologies and paradoxes, then it must be reflected upon within, and determined by, temporal circumstances, the memory of the suffering Jesus must be deciphered as a subversively liberating memory within the apparent plausibilities of pur society, and the Christologicai dogmas must hold good as subversive formulas of that memory.”29 According to Metz, in practising faith, the believer renews and accomplishes the memoria passionis, mortis et resurrectionis Jesu Christi. This faith is the reiftembrance of Jesus’ testament of love in which the reign of God is manifested in a manner that destroys all oppressive powers. Jesus takes upon himself the condition of the oppressed

*J. B. Mexz, “Does Our Church Need a New Reform?” in Concilium 1970 4/ 6, p. 89.®J. B. M etz, “Hie Future in the Memory o f Suffering,” Concilium 8 (1972),18. See also J J . Meiz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology. New York; The Seaburry Press, 1980, 100-18.

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and the marginalized in order to reveal the coming of the Kingdom o f God as a liberating power of divine love without any reserve.30

As memoria, faith makes it clear that the Christian faith is a dogmatic faith which is tied to certain content, afides quae creditur. But here again, Metz insists that dogma is not merely doctrinal formulas but interpretations of the memoria Christi, An atemporal faith is a defective or substandard faith. For Metz, the Christian understanding of faith is always in relation to the contemporary world and society. Seeing from this perspective, he interprets the content of faith or dogma in the form of memoria.31 it shows how faith is able to achieve the critical freedom which is related to the history of social freedom. From the standpoint of the eschatologjcal message, the Christian is called upon in faith to bring about this freedom. In the light of this interpretation, according to Metz all traditions and the doctrines appear as formulas of the memoria Christi. “I see Christian and dogmatic formulations of belief as formulations of memoria or re-membrance.”32 This memoiy is that form of remembrance that presses on and calls in question our present world by reminding us of the future that has yet to be endured. In this way, the Christian faith derives its power to criticise society not from an arbitraiy decision of the individual but from its content and conviction that has its source in memoria Christi.

What are the consequences of this understanding of the Christian faith? Or where does it lead us? If faith is understood and interpreted as memoiy, it is not difficult to see how the Church is a community ofbelievers whose existence in fact revolves around a fides quae creditur or dogmatic faith. Metz claims that this faith “can realize the form of socially critical freedom which is directed towards the world and to wMeh the Christian is called in the light of the Gospel.”35 From that perspective the traditional dogmatic and confessional formulations: can be seen as the actualisation of fids memoria and of its “revolutionary” power and effectiveness

*7. B. M etz, “‘Politische Tfreologie’ m der Disknssion,” in H. Peukert fed.), Diskussionzurpolifischen Theologie. Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlang, 1969, 286.’’Ibid., 288.32M etz , “Does Our Chnrcii Need a New Reform,” 89.

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in criticizing the contemporary world. When faith is seen as memory the immediate result is that the church, which is founded to perpetuate memoria Christi, becomes the public forum of that memory. The church becomes conscious of its new identity. It will not be afraid to be the institutionalised critical freedom of the memory of Jesus.34 This memory, in the form of dogmas, becomes the sustaining portion of faith in the face of all sorts of provocations to be otherwise.4. Liberation Theology arid Faith

While political theology emphasises the critical function of the Church in the light of memoria Christi, Latin American liberation theology goes a step further and insists that theological reflection should not be limited to interpreting critically the world but also to transforming it.35 Unlike the classical approach where faith is seen as a response to God’s revelation* liberation theologians insist that an authentic theological reflections on faith should begin with “the signs of the times or the challenges of history, then move on to faith seen as good news, and finally arrive at a much deeper understanding of revelation, one that is liberating, not lethal.”36 Thus, for liberation theology, the locus of theological reflection is the experience of the life of the poor in Latin America. It uses this experience as the starting point and tries to read the word of God and be alert to the challenges that faith faces in the historical process. “The aim is to enter more deeply into faith in a God who became one of us, and to do so on the basis of the faith-filled experience and commitment of those who acknowledge this God as their liberator.”37

What would be the concept of faith in liberation theology? Liberation theology considers itself as that discipline which is characterised by an attachment to the practice of faith. In fact, for the proponents of this school of thought, theology as a discourse about God comes only after the experience of faith.38 A spiritual33lbid.^Metz. Theology o f the World, 115-24.35R.S. C h o w , The Praxis o f Steering: An Interpretation o f Liberation and Political Theologies. Maiyknoil, NY: Orbis Books, 1986, 20.3SJ.L. S egu n d o , Signs o f the limes. Maryknoli, NY: Orbis Books, 1993, 128.37G G utierr ez , A Theology o f Liberation. London: S C M Press, 1988, xxxiii.

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experience stands at the beginning of a spiritual journey. That experience becomes the object of later reflection and is proposed to the entire ecclesial community as a way of being disciples of Christ39 In that sense, faith comes first and is the source of theology. On this point, Gutiérrez seems to be in agreement with St Anselm: “In the fonnula of St Anselm, we believe in order that we may understand {credo ut inlelligam). For the same reason, the effort at reflection has an irrepláceable role, but one that is always subordinate to a faith that is lived and receives guidance within the communion of the church.”40 The lived faith finds expression in prayer and commitment To live the faith here precisely means to put into practice the fundamental elements of Christian existence in the light of God’s word. In order to read the sighs of the times and discern correctly the concrete forms of Christian commitments one needs to have recourse to the sources of revelation. Gutiérrez, unl ike other liberation theologians, unambiguously affirms that “the ultimate norms of judgment come from the revealed truth that we accept by faith and not from praxis itself.”41 However, for him, the “deposit of faith” is not a set of indifferent, catalogued truths but the lived experience of the church in the light of God’s word.42 Thus, for liberation theology, the Bible remains the source, inspiration

38Seg u n d o , Signs o f the Times, 1 2 8 .39G G utiérrez . We Drink from our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey o f a People, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.35. Though there are other known authors such as L. Bofíj J. Sobrino H. Assmann, L. C. Scaimone and J. L. Segundo, considering the limited space, I take Gutiérrez as the representative o f liberation theology and limit ourselves to his reflections on faith.“ G utiérrez , A theology o f Liberation, xx x iii-x x x iv .,r,Ibid.,xxxiv.“Gutiérrez insists that theological understanding o f truth must go beyond the traditional intellectual and philosophical approach. According to that philosophy, truth resides in thé essences o f things, and we reach it vía the connection that exists between any given thing and the idea we construct of it If there is conformity between reality and idea, we possess the truth about the thing. The biblical understanding o f truth (’emet/amen) implies solidity, fidelity, reliability, trustworthiness. Being historical and interpersonal, truth in Scripture is a relation not between things and concepts but between promise and fulfilment. Cf. G G utiérr ez , The Truth Shall Make You Free: Confrontations. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990, 94-5.

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and point of reference for its commitments and the primacy of praxis.

For liberation theologians, especially Gutiérrez, biblipal faith is primarily historical. That is why the professions of faith lin God by Israel refer to historical facts (Deut 6:20-25). God reveáis himself in histoiy as the One who acts. His action is directed tloward the service of justice, defence of the rights ofthe poor and the liberation of the oppressed. This activity constitutes his fheophany, his revelation.43 This God who has revealed himself in history also establishes a covenant with his people. He is faithful to his promises and asks his people to be faithful to what they see in Gbd, i.e., to practice the justice implied in God’s liberating activity on behalf of the oppressed. To be faithful is to establish justice and right Thus, through the faithfulness of the people, God’s promises are translated into concrete historical actuality.44

God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is to be understood in conformity and continuity with the revelation of God in Mstoiy. He is the fulfilment of the promises and the full manifestation of the God who is love. In him God becomes poor and suffers for the cause of justice. Being a Christian does not mean, first and foremost believing in a message but believing in a person, Christ. According to Gutiérrez, our faith goes out through the gospel straightto Christ “To believe in the God who reveals himself in history, and pitches his tent in its midst, means to live in this tent—in Christ Jesus— and to proclaim from there the liberating love of the Father.”45 However, faith does not end in personal assent, creedal profession or proclamation in word. We need to remember that Jesus Christ, the heart of the gospel message, is the Word made flesh, the Word became deed. Therefore, following his example, our faith needs to be visible in action. From the biblical perspective faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds (Jas 2:14-26). From this Gutiérrez concludes that “practice is the locus of verification of our faith in God who liberates by establishing j ustice and right in favour of the

43 G G utiérrez . The Power o f the Poor in History.'MaryknoIL NY: Orbis Books, 1983,7.«ibid., 10.45Ibzd, 16.

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poor”46 To believe is to love God and to be in solidarity with the poor and exploited of this world in the midst ofsocial confrontations and popular struggle for liberation. To believe is to proclaim the kingdom as Christ does. In other words, for Gutiérrez, faith is more than merely believing in God. It is believing that God loves us. It also means to enter into communion with God and—the two being inseparable—with our fellow human beings.475. Critical Interaction

As seen above, the prepositional approach understands faith as a firm intellectual assent to a determinate body of revealed truths or doctrines which the church authoritatively teaches in the name of God. Here revelation is accepted not because it is seen to fulfil any human aspiration for communion with God, butsjmply out of reverence for the authority of God. Faith is articulated in beliefs expressed in formulas and dogmas which indeed are useful for catechetical purpose. Such formulas, to a certain extent, assure the continuity and unity of the church in all times and places. The difficulty with this understanding of faith is that, by insisting to a passive submission to the approved formulations handed down from the past, it often fails to encourage the believers to be creative and responsible. Moreover, with its immutable doctrines such a faith struggles to cope with the rapid changes in the world. Paul Tillich draws bur attention to one of the crucial drawbacks of the prepositional understanding of faith, i.e., identifying faith with belief:

The original power of the great Christian symbols is lost. Originally they answered questions. Now they are stumbling blocks to be believed by tradition and authority. Compounding the problem is the confusion between faith and belief. Faith is the state of being grasped by something that has ultimate meaning, and acting and thinking on the basis of this as a centred person. Beliefs are opinions held to be true, which may or may not really be true. We need beliefs in practical affairs all the time. But they are never a matter of life and-death. One of the worst things making the Christian message irrelevant is the identification of faith with belief in doctrines.48

«Ibid, 17." G utiérr ez . We drink from our own wells, 95-6.^P. T illich , The Irrelevance and Relevance o f the Christian Message. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007, 15.

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The transcendental theology o f Rahner considers faith primarily as a supernatural elevation of the transcendence of the human spirit, thanks to God’s seìf-communicatión in grace. This gift ofgrace is given to every human person. Since faith is the noetic aspect of divine grace, according to Rahner, any person of good will can freelyi^aiHtJirOm that perspective faith can exist without any particular religious thematization, Christian or other. Faith in this sense is available to eveiyone, including an atheist.49 Indeed, Rahner’s transcendental theology has succeeded in explaining how non-Christians can come to salvation. It helps and enhances interreligious dialogue and engagement However, it is difficult to understand how such a notion gets reconciled with the biblical and traditional concept of faith as a response to proclamation (Rom 10:17). It appears that, for Rahner, explicit acceptance of the Christian proclamation is of secondary importance: “If one accepts that proclamation, one does so because it is seen as the best articulation of what one already believed in an implicit or non- thematic way.”50 Though Rahner has defended his positionsaying that it is indeed compatible with theieaching ofVatican H,51 many theologians disagree with Rahner.* Authors like Dulles hold that it is difficult to harmonize the doctrine of Rahner with the teachings of earlier councils and with the New Testament understanding of faith. They remind us that in traditional Christian theology faith is generally understood as explicit acceptance of fee gospel which

49Cf. K. R a h n e r , “Faith between Rationality and Emotion,” Theological Investigations, vol. 1 6 . London: DLT, 1 9 7 4 , 6 7 .“ D ulles , The Assurance o f Things Hoped for: A theology o f Christian Faith, 153.5lCf. K. R a h ner , “Salvation,” in K. Rahner (ed.), Sacrameritum Mundi, vol. 5, 4 0 7 ; I d . , “Atheism and Implicit Christianity,” in Theologicallmestigations, vol. 9 , 1 4 7 ., f“ Cf. J. R atzinger, The Principles o f Catholic Theology. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1 9 8 7 ,1 6 2 -7 1 ; H ans urs von B althas ar, The Moment o f Christian Witness. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1 9 9 4 ,1 0 0 -3 0 . Balthasar even compare Rahner’s fate with an apprentice of a sorcerer: “In addition, there is the feet that Karl Rahner, in his bold but often one-sided proposals, which are not always coordinated among themselves (there are many Karl Rahners!), often had to suffer the fate of the sorcerer’s apprentice who was no longer able to exorcise, from his disciples the spirits he had conjured up.” Ibid., 14 8 .

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involves a radical conversion to beliefs that lie beyond all previous expectatibn.53

Metz’s “political theology” has opened up new avenues for a serious debate in theology with regard to the relevance of Christian faith in contemporary society. Criticising the present position of the bourgeois subject with its “privatized” faith, Metz explores the possibility o f an innovative and at the same time a socially relevant Christian anthropology. In his theology he has stressed the critical and liberating strength of Christian dogmatic memory. Faith as dogma in the form of memoria Christi is offered as a tool to transform the “law” of negative criticism into the “spirit” of criticism. This spirit, characterized by a renunciation of self sustained by the same memory, encourages the Christian to an option that is nothing less than the imitation of Christ (Nachfolge Jesu). This imitatio Christi as service requires us to be people-for-others (Daseins- fur-Andere). According to Metz, only, when faith develops a criticism in the order of memoria Christi does it become an authentic faith or theology.54 In this way, dogmatic faith and the praxis of imitation are inseparably connected to each other.

Metz’s political theology too has come under severe criticism. According to some authors, Metz’s critical spirit and the secularization thesis are still dominated by a strong sense of the centrality of the church. It can be seen as a kind of ‘integralist’ understanding of the role of the church in the world. In spite of his advocacy of anthropocentricity and secularization, Metz looks out at the world through the windows of the church. His discussion of the church as a “second-order” institution does not really open it to the world.55

With his political theology Metz has reacted to a conformist theology, which tended to become an ideology of the advanced industrial society. By stressing the public and political dimension of faith, Metz has stressed the critical character of political'theology. However, Gutierrez notices that the climate in which Metz’s

S3D u lles , The Assurance o f Things Hoped fo , 153.“Metz, ‘“Politische Theologie’ in der Diskussion,” 290-1,S5R.D. J ohns, Man in the World: The Theology o f Johannes Baptist Metz. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1976, 179.

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reflections developed is far from the experience of the confrontations and conflicts stemming from rejection and oppression. The immediate context for the new political theology is the affluent society of developed countries of the northern hemisphere. Gutiérrez indirectly has questioned the universal applicability of political theology by pointing out the difference between the Latin American situation and that of Europe: “It is a serious and dangerous error for those who wish to transplant his ideas without qualification to ignore [the differences].”56

Metz has criticised Rahner for not taking into account the societal and political conditions that affect human subjectivity. We doubt whether Metz himself has taken into account in his practical fundamental theology the actual conditions—both political and social—of the present world! Theology cannot ignore the fact that religious beliefs have great influence on social praxis. In a pluralistic religious world, we find Rahner’s theology more appealing and realistic than the political theology of Metz. Who is the dialogue partner of Metz? Who can understand the practical fundamental theology proposed by Metz, outside Christianity? A Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist or an Animist or a Confucian? Is not Christianity taken for granted in Metz’s theology?

Faith as conceived by liberation theology has a firm foundation in scripture. It provides motivation for commitment and social action/ involvement It does offer insights into human values like freedom, justice, equality and solidarity. It insists that faith and justice are complementary and correlative terms. It considers that promotion of justice in the world is the primary way of expressing one’s faith. Thus faith becomes praxis, not atheory. Further, it invites Christians to be ‘responsible’ believers. This is a dynamic view of faith because, unlike the propositional-intellectualist model that tends to reduce the believer to passivity in the act of faith by placing all responsibilities in the hands of God, liberation theology does not see faith as a passive waiting upon God’s miraculous intervention in history at some future time. Liberation theology does not entertain any utopian illusions about the future. Rather, it sees the present as an opportunity to seize the initiative and reshape the world by^ G utiérr ez , vl Theology o f Liberation, 130.

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its God-given power. In other words, for liberationtheology, faith Is not a just passive virtue by which the believer accepts and relies upon God’s promises. Faith is an invitation to cooperate with God in the service of thé Kingdom.57

This being said, however, we need to recognize that liberation theology too has its limitations. Itruns the risk ofbeing reductionist and,, at times, selective in its use of scripture, making almost exclusive use of those passages that serve its purpose. It is misleading to quote isolated verses from the bible as though the words meant in scripture exactly what a modern writer might mean through them.58 Liberation theology’s conclusion can also be deficient if its reflections on faith are based only on selective human experiences.59 For example, some liberation theologians seem to insist that we meet Christ in the history of our time only in the poor and the oppressed. “In the preaching of Jesus no one class is made a paragon of virtue. All are admonished to examine their motives and to repent.”60 Furthermore, liberation theology tends to limit God’s involvement with human beings to a historical mediation at the expense of God’s action in thé lives of the individuals, especially their personal call and vocation. With its stress on external activity and social involvement libération theology runs the risk of minimizing the dimension of interiority in the life of faith.61 Conclusion

Christians have been accused of not doing enough, or even failing, to promote justice in the world. This failure is often attributed to a faulty understanding of the Christian faith that, because of variety of reasons, deviates itself from the original gospel message and its praxis. “The good will of some of those who sought to

57 A. D ulles, “Faith in Relation to Justice” in J. C. Haughey, The Faith that Does Justice : Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change. New York: Paulist Press, 1971, 32-44.^Dulles, The Craft o f Theology, 44. In what way does such a stance differ from the ‘regressive’ methodology of the ‘manualist’ theologians who read the sources but only in the light o f what they thought and believed? C f. note 8 above.59R.F, C ollins, Models o f Theological Reflection. Lanham : University Press o f America, 1984,159-60.“ D ulles, “Faith in Relation to Justice,” 39.61 Ibid.

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salvage the absolute character of God’s kingdom in this defective way had no impact whatsoever on objective results. The gospel message was thus rendered as innocuous as a lap dog.”“ A reductionist view of the gospel message, according to some of those liberation theologians, has in fact abetted injustice by inducing the poor and the exploited to accept their miseiy patiently, promising abundant rewards in a future life. Faith has frequently meant little more than a confident belief in some higher or future world utterly beyond human control and shaped by the power of God alone. Thus, for many, especially for those who are not sympathetic to religion, faith and religion are nothing but opium of the people. Moreover, for them, faith becomes one of those elements that alienates human beings from their proper task in the present life and induces irresponsibility.

While traditional Thomistic theology made attempts to understand the eternal content of the mystery of God and the mysteries related to belief, neo-Thomism endeavoured to bring out the “meaning” of the Christian faith for humanity. Relying more on existential philosophy, neo-Thomistic theology wanted to be rationally credible to the modem world, i.e., to be existential and anthropocentric. However, one of the shortcomings ofthis approach to faith was that it overstressed a rational credibility which had little to do with the lived credibility o f the believer. Moreover, they are not sufficient enough to explain how and why a particular person should accept the faith. In other words, they fail to pay attention to the conditions to t determined the believer’s actual reception of faith. Perhaps, the traditional approaches have igpored the feet that believers are constantly influenced and challenged by the historical and social context in which they live. This awareness has made theologians look for new avenues to makeChristian faith credible and believable. There has emerged a strong argument in favour of considering experience as a viable locus theologicus. In this contextthe contributions oftranscendental, political and liberation theologies are to be appreciated. The theologians belonging to these schools have stressed the practical aspect of belief in order to make Christian faith relevant to the modem world.

62G G utiérrez, “Liberation Praxis and Christian Faith,” in Rosino Gibellini, ed., Frontiers of Theology in Latin America. Maiyknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979; 3.

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