According to Wilken (and Augustine from whom Wilken draws his thought), why is faith unavoidable? Why is it beneficial? Cite some passages.
According to Wilken, faith is unavoidable because it is what holds civilization together. Everything we know is based off of our faith in someone’s authority as well as their honesty. To use Wilken’s example, one is never truly sure who gave birth to them, as they do not have the memory to see it. We only base it off of what our parents and others tell us. We choose to accept this knowledge due to the position of the people telling us that makes them a valid source of information on the matter as well as their trustworthiness in the matter. This same principle applies to almost everything we know. Therefore, if we didn’t have faith, the only thing we would believe are things that we see, which would in turn destroy our entire social fabric. If we think about it in the religious context, faith began with the people who God made himself visible to. These were people who “had the ears to hear,” which not taken in the literal sense, means that those receptive to God were the ones who saw or heard him. However, the phrase “saw or heard” is too simple. As Wilken noted, the Bible does not typically say that someone “saw” or “heard” God, but rather that “God appeared to him,” or something along those lines. Therefore, it takes an internal faith to feel God’s presence. Wilken provides the example of Abraham to support this point. He attributes Abraham’s ability for God to appear to him to the “eye” in his heart as well as the pureness in his soul. This is beneficial to the current believers in God, because the knowledge of our tradition becomes present in our day to day life rather than just a story passed from generation to generation. We can see the ways God appears to us in people who claim to be touched by God and like Wilken says, through our parents teaching us prayers, etc. This offers a great hope for the continuation of Christianity.
Brendan, I think you did a really nice job putting into context how faith is unavoidable in all aspects of society and how without it, our social fabric would collapse. I also appreciated how you related it to our relationship with God and religion, especially in your claim that “it takes an internal faith to feel God’s presence,” something I completely agree with. Faith is unavoidable in our lives, yet we make the conscious decision to believe in certain ideas or concepts; we put our complete confidence in things we cannot see or hear every day, yet some hesitate to put faith in God. They hesitate to make the internal decision to have faith, and therefore God cannot reveal Himself to them. I would have to agree that this is beneficial to the current believers in God, but challenge that it offers hope for non-believers as well, as it allows for the possibility for them to come to know God if they so choose. All it takes is for them to make an internal decision to have faith.
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