Article 1, Part 1. Faith in the one true and living God

Faith is so misrepresented by the world that it undermines faith and drives people to both extremes of skepticism and dogmatism. Is there a way to find certainty with the modesty fitting fallible human beings? I like to try. We must first better understand the role of faith and reason to save both. Reason—the justification of our beliefs—requires reflection on a knowledge that we already have. Our first article of faith plants our fundamental belief in a personal, living God who gave us a revelation to guide our reason on every topic. For this essay on part 1 of article 1, I want to notice two fundamentally different starting points for reason—one based on human nature and the other based on God’s word—then argue that we have to repent of the first to gain certainty in our belief.  A separate part 2 essay will address the Trinity.

Article 1: We believe in the one true and living God, the Father, the Word, the Holy Ghost.

Our faith is rooted in the one true and living God. There are fundamentally two types of people: people who know this one God, and those who don’t. By knowing him I mean having a vital relationship with him. This happens by being taught of God in new birth (Jn 6:45; Heb 8:10). Faith is given in the new birth and is the starting point for belief. Barely having faith is like a newborn that knows his mother but doesn’t have any maturity in that knowledge. That newborn cries at the first sign of hunger showing very little knowledge about her and faith in her. Some children of God grow very quickly in faith and knowledge after their new birth and are like David who said to the Lord “Thou hast made me to hope when I was upon my mother’s breast” (Ps 22:9). On the other extreme, Psalms 14 and 53 both begin by saying “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”. This means that no matter how much evidence and sound reason is presented to some people, they have already determined not to believe it. Belief in God does require faith which comes from God and is not innate to our cursed human nature. However, the gift of faith does not mean we’ll necessarily gain any level of confidence or certainty which comes from loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. People who are struggling with doubt are good people and we should try to lift them up and not question if they really even know God.

Since our faith in God is based on a personal relationship, the way we argue in favor of believing in God should be consistent with the way we argue for believing in a person—not a mere concept or idea. First comes personal (vital) knowledge, then we must listen to what he says and evaluate his faithfulness. But what do we choose to evaluate his character according to? Well, it has to be according to his own word—his own law—otherwise he isn’t really God.

The next point is that God is not just another being in the world; he is the absolute being who alone created everything else and therefore has perfect knowledge and power over everything without exception. He is self-existent, and his name is I AM (Ex 3:14). Just like his being doesn’t depend on anything outside of himself, neither does the truth of his words depend on any authority outside of himself. Everything exists the way he made it, and everything means what he says it means. Some would call on us to set aside God’s word and argue from neutral assumptions acceptable to all men. But to make an argument with someone, there has to be an agreed understanding of what truth is, otherwise what are we judging the proposition by? Therefore, the moment we set aside God’s revelation, we grant some concept of truth that is independent of God’s word and that’s not an acceptable starting point. Without the Bible, which is the verbal revelation of God, anything we may say about him would be ignorant conjecture and not suitable to convince anyone’s faith.

How ought we to speak up when someone is blaspheming? They offend God’s children and should be contradicted with sound doctrine (Tit 1:9-11). The rational justification of belief in God is two steps. First, apply the whole counsel of God in application to our situations in life. Second, show that denying divine revelation leads to foolishness by critically examining all the assumptions that are required to make arguments, do science, plan for the future, judge moral behavior, or whatever question comes up (1 Co 1:19-20). I don’t think there are any shortcuts to finding certainty. You really have to submit to the whole thing as a child (Mt 18:3) and then see the blessings and assurance that come with belief (2 Pe 1:5-11). God gets angry when people tempt him or demand a miraculous sign. So those that want to keep their own sovereignty (what’s in it for me?) and demand some kind of proof before submitting are denying God’s sovereignty from the outset and are never going to believe unless they get knocked to the ground in a “road to Damascus” type of moment. Just like we like our privacy and the option to choose to whom we reveal certain things, God does the same thing and doesn’t have to give anyone a sign.

In Sum, because we humans were created by God, proper reasoning is to align our beliefs with his word given to us (faith) instead of trying to prove God’s word by principles we have come up with in our own heart (foolishness). In loving God with all our mind, is not good enough to just say: I have my faith and that’s enough. We need to rationally justify both the Bible and our belief in God, but you can’t do it piecemeal, i.e. belief in God is justified by believing the content of scripture and the content of scripture is justified by revealing the secrets of our heartfelt relationship with God. Finally, it’s important to remember that anyone who pretends to ground reason in a better starting point is actually relying on very arbitrary assumptions that can be revealed by critical examination.