CHAPTER XII

FAITH AND PRAYER

If the outward source of salvation, for Paul and the many Christians who have followed in his steps, was Christ, the inward and coöperating factor, equally necessary, was Faith. "By faith are ye saved," the great apostle taught his converts; and there is no directer way to grasp the meaning of this term than through a study of the experience that we call "Salvation by Faith." Just as the doctrine of the Atonement resulted from an attempt to explain the ultimate causes and conditions of this experience, so the PaulineLutheran dogma of Justification and Sanctification by Faith was an interpretation of the event itself in terms of the then current theological and psychological conceptions. Our aim should be, not to accept as inerrant and unalterable these speculations of a former day, but to revert to the personal religious experiences which gave birth to them and to interpret those indubitable and significant facts in terms of our modern scientific knowledge.

What is the nature and value of faith?

Paul is the type of earnest, aspiring man for whom a sensi tive conscience and a keen sense of sin are not enough to overcome temptation; they need to be reinforced by a great loyalty and a new assurance. The long struggle to live up to outward standards left him discouraged and lacking in inward power; what he needed, and found, was an influx of new life, to lift him to a higher plane. It was the getting of a new man"; it was "the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" that

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"freed" him "from the law of sin and death." 1 His redemption from inner discord had come, with an intense emotional crisis, when he yielded his heart to the Christ whose followers he had been persecuting. So for him always, to be saved-made safe from falling - required the giving of the heart to Christ. If a man was willing to die, as it were, with Christ, to his former lusts and passions, and to lay hold of the Christ-life, or, in Paul's language, let Christ live in him, Christ's victory over sin might be his also.

What Paul thereafter opposed (and what should always be contrasted with salvation by faith) was not salvation by good conduct, but salvation by mere external compliances. The surrender of heart and will to Christ, which he demanded, involved purity of life, involved a flat abandonment of all the old lusts; good conduct was its outcome and test "faith without works is dead." The secret of success was the substitution of the positive forces of loyalty and optimism for the paralyzing sense of impotence and struggle; the mind was henceforth to be centered on Christ and the old life forgotten. In the old endeavor to fulfil a casuistic list of rules there had been no inspiration, but a perpetual realization of failure; the attainment of spirituality seemed hopelessly far off. But with the new hope attainment became possible at a bound. So to many another it has happened that godliness has been best won, at a certain critical point, by grasping the higher life through the imagination, and claiming it, though yet unrealized, as an actual possession; the joyous expectancy of success turning the scales in favor of the new habits.2

1 Rom. 8: 2.

2 The value of the method, as preached, in varying theological terms, by so many followers of Paul, in bringing a new force of hope into a life, is well illustrated by this extract from one of John Wesley's sermons: "You think, I must first be or do thus or thus [to be saved]. Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. If you seek it by faith, you may expect it as you

The psychology of the situation would be explained to-day somewhat as follows: The unhappy sinner, in many cases, has the power to live aright locked up in his heart, but unable to get control of him because it is blocked by the realization of his sinfulness; the formation of new habits is interfered with by his very concentration of thought upon his previous failures. Suddenly he is told that he need not think of his temptations any longer, that he has but to let go, yield himself to some one who is his Saviour, or to the Holy Spirit in himself, and the power of right living will be his, he will be saved. The suggestion of the possession of power is potent enough to make the power actually sufficient. The mind is fixed upon the goal instead of upon the obstacles, is freed from the demoralization that comes from a remembrance of past weakness, and lives in the atmosphere of attainment.1

That this experience was not understood, that it was deemed miraculous and materialized into an outward transaction, wherein God, that his justice and mercy might both be satisfied, imputed the sinlessness of Christ to whosoever should accept his offer of forgiveness, has not wholly undermined its efficacy as a vital means of deliverance from sin. The interpretation put upon it is of small importance compared with the fact of its existence. While men are prone to sensuality and selfishness, to inner discord and unhappiness, are; then expect it now. It is of importance to observe that there is an inseparable connection between these three points: expect it by faith, expect it as you are, and expect it now."

1 Cf. J. H. Leuba, in American Journal of Religious Psychology, vol. 1, p. 74: Faith "means greater suggestibility to the circle of ideas the subject is intent upon realizing, and deliverance, if not from the presence, at least from the power, of those other tendential ideas against which he has been struggling."

William James's memorable description of the salvation-by-faith experience may be found in his Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 205 ff. His particular contribution lay in pointing out the important rôle played by the subconscious life in producing these experiences of abrupt and passive salvation.

they will need the help of outward influences to turn them to the right life; and theology, though naturally, before the very recent development of the science of psychology, far astray in its comprehension of the phenomenon, has in its blind fashion clung hold of this valuable method of Salvation by Faith, and through it brought to many purity and peace.

The true importance of this method, however, has been greatly obscured by its veil of prescientific conceptions; and we are only to-day, with our better understanding of its essential nature, beginning to appreciate what can be accomplished by it for health of mind, even for health of body. More or less gropingly various sects of recent growth are making use of it "Mind-Cure," "Faith-Cure," "New Thought," "Christian Science." In varying phraseology, and with widely different theoretical explanations, by all of these cults the same fundamental psychological truth is exemplified and made of practical service.

But what should already be clear is, that this faith, which is so efficacious in spiritual, and even in physical hygiene, is something very different from, and much more important than, an assent to doctrines, i.e., to statements concerning supposed historical or cosmological facts. Faith, in its good sense, is not credulity; it is not rightly opposed to free inquiry, to the historical spirit, or to intellectual conscientiousness. An acceptance of beliefs of any sort has never saved any one's soul; "it is not on any estimate of evidence correct or incorrect, that our true holiness can depend." We cannot too earnestly oppose all demands for acceptance of doctrines which would not of their own obvious reasonableness command assent. Such a "virtue" would really be a vice; and if Faith could only be taken to mean that, it would be our duty to refuse it.1

1 Cf. T. H. Green, sermon on Faith: "If faith were really belief in the occurrence of certain miraculous events upon transmitted evidence of the

There are, indeed, other legitimate uses of the term besides that which we are considering. It may be used in the sense of trust in a person and what that person says. There are those whose vision is deeper than ours; it is often necessary and sweet to rest our judgment upon theirs. Multitudes of Christians thus pin their faith to the beliefs that Christ held and taught. But such a leaning upon another must be only provisional; we cannot ultimately surrender our judgment, or follow blindly a leader, however dear and worthy of our reverence.

In a slightly different sense, faith may mean the adoption of a belief as a working hypothesis, in lack of sufficient evidence to convince the intellect one way or the other. Such a faith is, again, often necessary, and of great value; but it must remain open to challenge and criticism, be freely discarded if evidence against it appears, and never assume a certainty that it does not actually possess.1

In the best sense, however, in the sense in which faith actually saves, it is not a belief in alleged facts (which would ultimately require evidence of the truth of those facts to justify it), but a moral state, a disposition of the heart and will, which is quite independent of the existence or nonexistence of any outward facts. It is not the acceptance of doctrines on scanty evidence, it is the laying-hold, through the imagination, on a higher life; the keeping of the mind set on it when lower passions obtrude themselves and mar the vision; a steadfast refusal to let the concrete failures and senses of other people, its certainty would after all be merely a weaker form of the certainty of sense. Such a faith is neither intrinsically worth maintaining, nor in the long run can it maintain itself, against the demands of reason. Reason will not be kept at bay by being told that certain truths are above it, when these 'truths,' if they are anything at all, are propositions concerning matters of fact to which from their nature the principles regulating all knowledge must be fully applicable."

1 The ethics of faith, in these two senses, will be discussed below, in chap. xxv.