we believe so that we might know.
The sovereignty of God and God in Christ was a concept that framed the remainder of Barth's theology. As applied to knowledge, especially the knowing of God and his will, faith was the starting point, for the pastor.
It appears to me that if we were to reverse the order, "I know, therefore I believe," the results of this ordering would put our knowing before God's reality, in our lives. Knowledge, in this case, would be sovereign to God, a preposterous circumstance.
Faith takes many forms. It can be raw superstition. It might be a pagan religion. It might be experienced at a rock concert. It might be an attack of "conscience." We are created by God, whether we care to admit it or not, and in that creating, we - mankind - were given a conscience and emotion and the desire, from time to time, to raise our hands and cheer. All this is nestled in and around the foundation of worship.
Next time you watch a music concert on the television, turn the sound off and just watch the crowd. If you have ever been exposed to a robust praise service, hands raised in unison, voices singing, hearts and minds focused on the stage and the event, itself, you will understand what I am saying. With the sound off, a concert crowd looks remarkably similar to a believers' praise service.
I said, pagan gods? Understand that because the creation has lost track of the only God, it has not, and cannot, abandon its desire to serve and worship [a] god. There were those in Corinth who actually believed in the existence of other gods, but had chosen to serve the only God. When Paul was in Athens, he used the stated notion of an "unknown god," as a catalyst for preaching the true God. In focusing on a "false" god, I believe that we often forget the obvious and that is, the inner desire of the pagan worshiper to praise and serve. Christ talked about sowing the seed upon fertile ground. Such could, very well, include the pagan worshipers in need of a god to serve. Our message of love and grace and the living Spirit is perfect for such people as these.
And what of superstition as an example of faith? Think about how superstition works. Something happens to us that is good, for example, and suddenly, we make note of what we were wearing, or how many times we drove around the block just before it happened, or the timing of the event. We take that observation and try to duplicate it in the hopes that the good whatever, will happen again. As a baseball player, maybe I refuse to shave, thinking that it has something to do with winning. A fisherman might go to a particular fishing hole at a specific time of day, hoping to recreate the events that lead to his last big catch. We know that this [superstitious] behavior is illogical and, even, a bit silly, but there are times when we do it anyway. Why? Because there is a part of man that wants to praise and serve that which he does not know. It is a part of our very creation.
Finally, there is the conscience as an expression of faith before knowing. Understand that the conscience only works in one "direction." It always pushes us to do the right thing, whether that is defined by some pagan consideration or by a more valid motivation. Paul tells us that "God is at work within us, both to will and to accomplish his pleasure (Philp. 2:13). What if he means to imply that God is at work within us all. I mean, before we came to the Light, all the good that we accomplished, were, actually, the works of God, all along (John 3:21). A thief never wakes out of a sound sleep, grieving because he forgot to shot someone, yesterday. Our conscience drives us to do what is "right," never driving us into evil deeds. I believe that the conscience is God within us, before we know of his presence and admit to his to will in our lives.
In short and before knowing God, we are all creatures of faith !! That is the lesson of the moment.
If this is true, if we are creatures of faith before knowing of God, when we deny faith, we work against our own well being. We work against our own person. Ever wonder why our Nazarene Master, told us to love others as we love ourselves ( Matt 22:39)? I have. I am not sure I have the answer, but, perhaps, it has something to do with the "fact" that our life is by and of God. In the most exacting of terms, our ontology is his ontology.
When we give CPR in a crisis situation, what are we doing? Imitating the heart beat and the breathing of the injured person. That person could very well be dead, but we are causing him to push blood through his veins and "breath." What is missing? Life !! I believe that in the physiology of life, there is God. He is our life . . . . . really. God breathed into man, the breath of . . . . . life . . . . . . . and man became a living being (Gen 2:7). Whether you are a biblical "literalist" or not, surely this passage is clearly telling us that God the reason for our life.
If Philip 2:13 is true of all, saint and sinner, we, as his creatures, are possessed by our creator. He is an existential part of our being, the reason we are alive. Maybe " survival" is not so much an "instinct" as it is a radical motivation of the God within. Maybe our conscience is the unknown god within, driving us to the light, and causing us to do good, along the way. Maybe our mistaken devotion to things other than the true God is the unknown god trying to reach out to the Revealed God. If we love others as we love ourselves, we provide for others just as we provide for ourselves, even before we know of the Living God.
In Genesis 1:27, the biblical writing refers to the creation of man in a trilogy, of sorts. God created man in his image. In his image, God created man (and the author is talking about "mankind" in this passage, not a particular man). On the third occasion of this proclamation, the author becomes quite original: male and female, created he them.
I believe that all three "legs" of this trilogy are describing the same circumstance. If so and in this passage only, mankind as a community of individuals is the image of God. That will not make sense to one who does not believe in the trinity of God. Assuming his trinity, God is a community of "persons," is he not? The father loves the son; the son loves and serves the father, and the spirit is the perichoretic influence that binds the trinity into "one" and joins it to his creation.
I love others as I love myself, because (and in addition to what I have written above) man responding to man is the very expression of the image of God. When we function in community ("female" "male" created he them is certainly a statement of "community"), we do so because we are the image of God. I love my neighbor, because, in that love, I admit to the image of God and function because of that divine motivation.
All of mankind participates in the image of God. But not all of mankind knows of this God. Faith, indeed, comes before knowing. It is the ground upon which we sow the seed. The soteriological experience for all of mankind is the shared experience of God, in Christ, on the cross, reconciling his creation unto himself (Col 1:19), even before his creation knows of this event.
Allow me this license: in the act of reconciliation, God is complete when united with his handiwork. David intuitively knew this. Rather than express his sin as an act against his neighbor, he acknowledged, "Against thee and thee ONLY, have I sinned."
The God within (again Philip 2:13) is our motivation. When we sin, it is in direct rebellion to God, himself, as a partner in the flow of our very lives. Conversely, when I share good will with my neighbor, God is at work, in that function, reconciling the God within, the life of the person, unto himself - the inward presence uniting with cosmic reality that is the God of everything.
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