Beginning with the Enlightenment to the present day the West has had anxiety over the relation, or lack thereof, between faith and reason. The worried language has set itself in terms of “faith and science,” or “religion and reason,” or even “conservatives and liberals.” Now that western civilization has “fallen,” it seems we are coming around to understand that faith is a gate to knowledge, and is actually not without knowledge at all. Of course this has given rise to a new resurgent and militant atheism; the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to mention a few.
Calvin and those before him did not believe real faith was empty or disconnected with knowledge. He tackled this issue in Chapter 3, Bk.2. Here I summarize that section.
1. Biblical faith has more than one component. The Bible speaks of faith in terms of knowledge, inward peace and a full repose upon the promises of God. Calvin explains all three with great clarity.
2. Faith and knowledge. They are not contradictions but rather inseparable friends.
3. First of all, when faith is called knowledge, it refers to that apprehension which grasps and “really, lovingly knows the infinite truth of God. [Eph 3:18-19]
4. Secondly, faith is called recognition [Eph 1:17; 4:13; Col 1:9; 3:10; 1 Tim 2:4; Titus 1:1; Philemon 6; 2 Pet 2:21]. John asserts that God’s children can have the knowledge (recognition) that they are God’s children. “But, as Calvin writes, they are more strengthened by the persuasion of divine truth than instructed by rational proof” (Pg., 560).
The mistake we have fallen into since the rise of Christian liberalism and its affront against the reality of God’s work in incarnation, miracle, and atonement is that we have sought proof for persuasion rather than be persuaded by God’s promises by the Spirit. Calvin has good advice to help us here.
5. Third, this faith called knowledge can and often does come with great certainty due to the sureness of God’s promises. [Rom 4:16; Ps 19:7]
6. Calvin says, “As faith is not content with a doubtful and changeable opinion, so is it not content with an obscure and confused conception; but requires full and fixed certainty, such as men are wont to have from things experienced and proved” (Pg., 560).
7. Calvin essentially demands that true faith and knowledge always includes certainty! His reason for this is twofold.
a. “For unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we are so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth: namely, that God is faithful” (Pg., 560).
b. Going half-way in faith leaves the human soul in great fear. That is, God in his goodness is manifested to us so as to leave us without doubt; therefore those who do doubt do not stand before God with tranquil hearts. “This kind of faith,” says Calvin, “is no right faith” (Pg., 561).
8. Is Calvin completely correct? Can a person have true faith and still not have confidence, or at least struggle with assurance from time to time? Yes. Calvin was not completely correct and a person can struggle and still have true faith. (See WCF, XVIII)
9. However, we must always cleave to Calvin’s advice when he says, “Surely, as often as God commends his Word to us, he indirectly rebukes us for our unbelief, for he has no other intention than to uproot perverse doubts from our hearts” (Pg., 560-561). God says we can boldly claim His promises and come before his presence. [Eph. 3:12; Heb. 4:15-16]
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