The starting point. . .

Having heard a month or so ago the words of Jesus gently chiding St. Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," it might be good to flesh that out a bit.  Thomas, like the rest of the apostles, thought seeing was believing.  It did not work so well for Thomas, as we all know, but we also forget that it did not work out so well for the other apostles, either.  They had seen the Lord, seen His hands and side, and heard His voice on Easter evening but the following week they were still behind locked doors.  In other words, they saw but the believing part of it all did not come quickly or easily.

How easy it is to fall into the trap of believing that if you see, you will believe.  The reality is always the other way around.  Surely this is what Luther was keen on conveying in his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed.  I cannot by my own reason or strength [eyes, ears, and all my senses] believe...  Seeing is not believing but just the opposite.  Believing is seeing.  Faith opens the eyes and not the eyes open the mind and heart to faith.  

That also translates about believing and understanding.  We have come to think that the path to faith is explanation, comprehension, and understanding.  So the goal of the preaching and teaching is to take what is complicated and explain it -- dare I say make it simple?   At some point we turned the worship and awe and reverence of the mystery of God into a didactic and reasoned explanation.  So, as Walther once complained, the lecture hall has replaced the temple and the sermon has made the preacher into the debater or orator.  We turn faith into an acceptance of and comprehension of a series of theological statements instead of the trust in God's mystery engendered by the power of the Spirit.  To make this into a pithy phrase, we don't understand to believe, we believe to understand.  

It is not that reason is bad or that faith is blind but where you begin.  Faith is borne of the hearing of God's Word and the Spirit's work in that speaking and hearing.  Faith is not the aha moment or reasoned conclusion of a consideration of the evidence.  Faith is the Holy Spirit inhabiting the mind and heart through the spoken Word and imparting trust where there was none.  Faith is the not the fruit of truths rendered reasonable but the unreasoned truths of God's Word [truth] that produce the fruit of trust and confession.  

As important as this is, the reality of our current age is that we no longer see to believe or believe to see -- all of this lies upon the holy altar of our feeling and preference.  Understanding is not believing nor is believing the means to understanding but rather both surrender to the higher value of feeling and, to some extent, experience.  This faith relies upon and arises from the revelation made to the prophets and apostles who wrote the canonical books but not to learning in general or to the revelation that has arisen from learned men.  Oddly enough, in our current age learning itself and learned men are suspect and must defer to the experience or feeling of the individual who becomes not only the arbiter of truth but also its definer.  It is no surprise, therefore, that the Reformation period and Luther are as uncomfortable in our modern era as is Aquinas.