Sect. 37Etymology of the Various Words Used for Faith—the True Notion of FaithEtymology of the Various Words Used for Faith—the True Notion of Faith

I. The English word Faith is derived from the Latin Fides, and is akin to the Greek πίστις; Belief is akin to the German Glauben; Creed, Credibility are derived from the Latin Credere. We have, therefore, to examine the four words, fides, credere, πίστις, and glauben. Both fides and credere convey the fundamental meaning of trowing, trusting (Germ. trauen). Credere is akin to κρατεῖν, to grasp firmly and to hold; Sanscr. Krat-dha, to give trust, to confide. The noun Fides conveys also the meaning of trust, confidence, and fidelity. The notion of confidence or trust appears in the derived forms, fido, fidentia, fiducia; the notion of fidelity, i.e. firm adherence, in fidelis, fidelitas, and fidus.

Πίστις, so often used in Holy Scripture, comes from πείθειν, which, according to its root bhidh, bhadh, originally meant to bind, fasten, hold fast. It afterwards became specialized in the sense of binding by means of speech—that is, to convince, to persuade. We can thus understand how πίστις has all the significations of fides. It must, however, be remarked that when used to express some relation between God and man, πίστις is used in a passive or middle sense, (πειθέσθαι = to be bound, convinced, or persuaded, and to allow one’s-self to be bound, convinced, or persuaded), and that this use is noticeable everywhere in the Sacred Writings. Hence πίστις involves, first, on the part of the πειθόμενος, the believer, a willing listening and submission (ὑπακούειν, obaudire, obedire) to the commanding call of God, by Whom the hearer allows himself to be bound; secondly, a cleaving to God, to Whom the hearer allows himself to be bound by accepting His good gift, and by entering into a pact, fœdus, with Him.

In these are included fidelity and confidence, in a form peculiar to religious πίστις, namely, as a docile and confident submission to the Divine guidance. The two elements of πίστις, obedience and fidelity appear manifestly in the two expressions used to designate the contrary notions, ἀπείθεια, inobedientia, disobedience, and ἀπιστία, perfidia, faithlessness, and diffidentia, distrust.

The German word Glauben has the same root as lieben, loben, geloben, to love, to praise, to promise; viz. “lubh,” in lubet, libet = to wish to find good, to approve. Hence it has the radical meaning of accepting willingly and holding fast, approving.

It is plain that these various words, according to their etymology and theological use, do not exclusively refer to acts or habits of the intellect. They often express the affections and dispositions of the will, especially obedience and hope, as based on or aiming at some act of knowledge. As a rule, however, they express acts of the intellect only, in so far as these are dependent on or connected with acts of the will. In Holy Scripture πίστις and πιστεύειν, when used with reference to God, mean, purely and simply, to cling and hold fast to God, and consequently all the acts involved in clinging to God, or any one of them, according to the context. When applied to acts of knowledge, these expressions designate only those which have some analogy with acts of the will, such as to admit, hold, cling to, approve, consent, amplecti, adhærere, συγκατατίθεσθαι. The sense in which the “holding something for true” is called fides, πίστις, is manifold. Thus fides and πίστις are often used generically to designate every “holding for true,” every conviction; nay, they are sometimes used as the technical terms for conviction, like the German Ueberzeugung. On the other hand, “to believe” is often used as equivalent to mean, think, opine, as expressing a more or less arbitrary assent founded on imperfect evidence.

II. The special signification of the terms Faith, Fides, Πίστις, with which we are now concerned, is “assent on authority;” that is to say, the acceptance of a proposition, not because we ourselves perceive its truth, but because another person tells us that it is true. The notion of Faith implies that the assent is considered as something good and desirable. “Assent on authority” results from our esteem for the mental and moral qualifications of the witness, and is, therefore, accompanied by a willing acknowledgment of a sort of perfection in him, and also by a respectful and confiding submission to the authority which that perfection confers Hence Faith is not simply an act of the intellect, but an act commanded and brought about by the will acting on the intellect: the assent of the intellect to what is true is determined by the consent of the will to what is good. This consent implies an approbation given to the assent of the intellect, and a willing acknowledgment of the authority of the speaker.

III. The part played by the will in this sort of Faith resembles any other sort of deference to authority. It consists in submitting to a legitimate order or call to perform some action. The person who gives the order is the author of the action rather than he who actually performs it, whence comes the term Authority. In ordinary cases we are invited rather than commanded to assent on the authority of another. We may have some doubt as to his knowledge or veracity, and even if we have no such doubt, he has no power or right over us. But when the author or speaker is the Supreme Lord, Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Truth, He is entitled to exact complete consent of our will, and to set before us His knowledge, not merely as a basis, but even as a rule, of conviction. The act of Faith is, however, distinguishable from most other acts of submission to authority by the peculiarity that the authority which exacts it must also make it possible, and must co-operate in its production. This is brought about by the Divine Author constituting Himself the guarantee of the truth of what He communicates. The speaker, in virtue of the moral perfection of His will, guarantees that He communicates only what He knows to be true; and that, moreover, by virtue of the perfection of His intellect all danger of error is excluded, thus offering to the mind of the hearer a foundation for certitude, surer than the latter’s own personal knowledge.

IV. The manner in which authority asserts itself to and is received by a believer varies according to the nature of the authority and of the communication made. The nearest approach to Divine authority and Divine Faith is found in the relations between parents and their offspring. Parents have a natural superiority and dominion over their children, as being the authors of their existence; hence their authority, unlike that of any other person, is in itself, apart from any external legitimation, sufficient to command the assent of their children. And in like manner, the respect and reverence due to parents cause the child to take for granted their knowledge and veracity. The relation between God and man is a sort of spiritual paternity (cf. Heb. 12:9) whereby we are entitled to address Him as “Our Father.” Human parents, although their children reasonably assume their knowledge and veracity, may, however, deceive or be deceived. But our Heavenly Father is Infinite Wisdom and Truth itself.