Faith - Beyond the Power of Reason

The classic definition of Christian faith appears in 11th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Many Christians draw a distinction between 'natural human faith' and 'faith in God'. The former includes things like faith in natural laws such as gravity and inertia, so that we can assume that they will not suddenly stop working, causing us all to fly off into outer space. And we trust that vegetables and animals and even, to some extent, human beings, will grow and behave in accordance with these natural laws.

But Christians believe that faith in God is a gift from God. So far as I, an outsider, understand it, the central requirement of becoming a Christian is to have faith in the fact the Jesus is your Saviour, who by his death on the cross somehow atoned for the sins of humankind, and enabled us to be reconciled to God. This was an unmerited gift from God, made by His grace, and the human part is to accept it with gratitude, and try to be worthy of it. It is not a path that most Unitarians can take.

And yet, Unitarianism is often spoken about by Unitarians as a "faith" rather than a "religion". In his book The Unitarian Life, Stephen Lingwood calls us "a faith community for those on a spiritual journey, for those who believe there is still more to be discovered in religion. We believe in religious exploration - through the intellect and through the spirit. Through the intellect we explore religious questions in sermons, lectures, workshops, and dialogue. Through the spirit we explore through worship, music, ritual, meditation, and prayer." 

I rather like his distinction between intellectual and spiritual exploration. For me, having faith involves trust, whether it is the "natural human faith" mentioned above, or faith in Someone or Something beyond the natural world. It is not the same as belief, which you can do with your intellect. It is not by accident that people speak of "a leap of faith" - it involves jumping into the unknown and trusting that you will be caught. As in the Martin Luther King Jr. quotation above. "Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase." Yes.

I appreciate that many Unitarians would not agree with this view, as they do not believe that there is Someone or Something beyond the natural world. But faith is, by its very nature, beyond the power of reason, something that can only be discerned with the heart, not the mind alone. And on those grounds, I, an individual Unitarian, have faith in the divine, the numinous, the sacred other.