"Faith" is not an affirmation of a creed, an intellectual acceptance of God, or believing certain doctrines to be true or orthodox (although those things might well be good). Yet that seems to be what many Christians have whittled faith down to. Such faith does not usually change your heart or your lifestyle. I'm convinced that much modern atheism is a result of such a heady and really ineffective definition of faith. We defined faith intellectually, so people came up with intellectual arguments against it and then said, "I don't believe in God."
Both Jesus' and Paul's notion of faith is much better translated as foundational confidence or trust that God cares about what is happening right now. This is clearly the quality that Jesus fully represents and then praises in other people.
God refuses to be known intellectually. God can only be loved and known in the act of love; God can only be experienced in communion. This is why Jesus "commands" us to move toward love and fully abide there. Love is like a living organism, an active force-field upon which we can rely, from which we can draw, and we can allow to pass through us. Read 1 Corinthians 13, Paul's masterpiece on the eternal state of love, as if you are reading it for the first time, and you will see that he equates confidence in God and confidence in love as the same thing. I am afraid you can believe doctrines (e.g., virgin birth, biblical inerrancy, Real Presence in bread and wine, etc.) to be true and not enjoy such a radical confidence in love or God at all. I have met many such merely intellectual believers.
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Gateway to Silence
Spirit of Love in me, love through me.
Fr. Richard Rohr
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