the certainty of faith by herman...

FAITH

Herman Bavinck

TheCERTAINTY

OfFAITH

Herman Bavinck

TheCERTAINTY

OfFAITH

PAIDEIA PRESSSt. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

First published in Dutch as De zekerheid des geloofs.Translated by Harry der Nederlanden.

Translation and special content copyright 1980 by PaideiaPress Inc. © All rights reserved. Published by Paideia / Premier,P.O. Box 1450, St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7J8. No part of thispublication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form without the written permission of thepublisher.

ISBN 0-88815-081-4Printed in Canada.

Table of Contents

1.The Loss of Certainty 7

2.What Is Certainty? 11Science and Religious Truth 14The Task of Theology 17The Certainty of Faith 19Testimony as the Basis of Certainty 23The Power of Certainty 28

3.The Search for Certainty 31Certainty in Non-Christian Religions 32Certainty in Roman Catholicism 35Certainty in the Reformation 38Certainty in Orthodoxy and Pietism 41Reactions to Pietism 45Greater Uncertainty 49

4.The Way to Certainty 51Scientific Demonstrations 53Insufficiency of Proofs 60The Liberal Solution 64Experience as the Ground of Certainty 66The Failure of Experience 69The Appeal of the Gospel 73Faith as Ethical Choice 77Faith and the Word of God 81The Dimensions of Certainty 84Certainty a Danger? 87The Confirmation of the Sacraments 89The Fruits of Certainty 90

1. The Loss of Certainty

The centuries preceding the French Revolution(1789) are in many ways different from the epochthat followed. The radical change of direction in-troduced into the life and thought of the nations bythis tremendous event shattered the continuity ofhistory. We can project ourselves into the thoughtand life of those preceding ages only with great dif-ficulty. They were the ages of authority and objec-tivity, whereas in our era the subject proclaims itsfreedom and asserts its rights in every area ofhuman existence.

Admittedly, by taking its starting point in faith,the Reformation dealt a stunning blow to theauthority that had previously encompassed all oflife. In the Reformation the believing subject aroseagainst the oppressive authority of the infalliblechurch and boldly shook off the painful yoke of anold tradition. Nevertheless, in the principles of theReformation, Christians remained bound to God'sWord as it came to them in the Old and NewTestaments. And in the protestant church the

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8 The Certainty of Faith

authority of that Word was initially so unshakablethat people rarely doubted it—not even in theirheart. There was faith and there was certainty. Noone felt the need for an inquiry into the final groundof faith, into the deepest foundations of certainty.People were convinced they possessed the truth,and no one questioned the writings on which thefaith was grounded. In times of vital religious lifeyou don't doubtingly examine the foundations ofyour hope. You speak as one having authority andnot like the Pharisees.

After the middle of the eighteenth century thissituation gradually changed. The subject came intoits own. It became aware of its true or presumedrights and slowly broke all the ties binding it to thepast. In an unlimited sense of freedom it eman-cipated itself from everything the past held sacred.All authority that demanded recognition andobedience had to answer first the foundationalquestion: By what right do you demand myobedience? Critical reason had been awakened,launching an inquiry into the ground of allauthority. Naive, simple, childlike faith all butvanished.

Doubt has now become the sickness of our cen-tury, bringing with it a string of moral problemsand plagues. Nowadays, many people take into ac-count only what they can see; they deify matter,worship Mammon, or glorify power. The number ofthose who still utter an undaunted testimony oftheir faith with joyful enthusiasm and complete cer-

The Loss of Certainty 9

tainty is comparatively small. Families, genera-tions, groups, and classes have turned away fromall authority and broken with their faith. Evenamong those who still call themselves believers,how many must screw up their courage into a forced,unnatural belief? How many believe as a resultof habit, laziness or lack of spirit? How many actout of an unhealthy attempt to recover the past orout of a misleading conservatism? There is muchnoise and movement, but little genuine spirit, littlegenuine enthusiasm issuing from an upright, fer-vent, sincere faith.

Nowhere is this more true than amongtheologians. They are the most doubting,vacillating group of all. They have plenty ofquestions, doubts and criticism to offer. But whatwe expect from them more than from anyone else—unity of outlook, consistency of method, certaintyof faith, eagerness to give an account of the hopewithin them—for these traits we often look in vain.

This phenomenon is not confined to a fewtheological schools; it touches all parties who don'tbury their heads in the sand but participate in thegreat battle of the spirits. The question regardingthe rights of faith and the ground of certainty is thedominating question, not just in practical life butalso in universities. The more the Christian faithretreats from dealing with every possible question,restricting its (material) content, and the more itapplies itself to building a rigorous foundation,deducing all else logically, from these fundamental


principles, the more it will become , inwardly weakand divided. Those seeking direction in this area aremet by a motley array of options and opinions.

Nevertheless, it is vital to faith and to the life offaith to study the area of basic principles veryclosely, because the questions raised here are offundamental importance to everyone. There is nomore important question than the one concerningthe ground of our faith, the certainty of oursalvation, the rootedness of our hope in eternal life.What good is knowledge, power, fame and honor ifwe cannot answer the question about our only com-fort?

Thus, our area of inquiry is circumscribed as .holyground, for it must be entered with reverence andfear. Here we touch the most intimate depths of thehuman heart. Here more than anywhere else weneed a childlike and humble spirit, but at the sametime a frank, unbiased attitude, in order to under-stand the life of religion in its inner essence and topurge it of all untruth and error. Wisdom and caredictate that in pointing out the way to obtain thecertainty of faith, we first consider what this cer-tainty of faith is and the different ways men havesought it.

2. What Is Certainty?

The question regarding certainty of faith is notonly of scientific, theological but also of practical,religious importance. It is of concern not only to thetheologian but also to the layman. It belongs notonly in the study but also in the living room. It isnot just a theoretical, academic issue butpreeminently one of life and practice.

No matter how wicked and fallen anyone may be,at sometime in his life he will encounter moments ofpassionate seriousness. Everyone is at some timeseized by the mystery of life, the power of death, thedread of judgment or the fear of the Lord. As oneobserver put it: "Happiness leads us into paganism,but suffering leads us to Christ." When the drunkenstupor in which we often live wears off, when thehappy glow dulls and the conscience awakens, whenwe are overcome by the mystery of life or the pain ofsuffering, then we all become conscious of death andthe grave, of judgment and eternity. Then no onecan maintain indifference or hide behind the shieldof neutrality. In this respect, people are better than

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we are sometimes inclined to think. There are noatheists, no people without a heart or conscience. Ormore precisely, God never leaves Himself without awitness. Whether it be through blessings orthrough trials, He speaks to the conscience of eachand every person.

True, many seek to stifle this voice and sear theirconsciences with a cauterizing iron. And many havedoubtlessly become very adept, persisting in theirfalse assurance or disdainful indifference untotheir deathbeds. But history also gives us incon-testable evidence that the human has not been ex-tinguished even in the most hardened sinner; thevoice of the almighty and omnipresent God sets upa responsive chord somewhere deep in the heart."There is no peace," says the LORD, "for thewicked" (Isa. 48:22).

By nature, each of us spoils this peace. No onestands blameless before the accusation of his con-science. No one is in himself assured that things willgo well in life and later in death. The assurance ofsalvation is not something you can inherit; no one isborn with it. Neither is it the fruit of human effortnor a reward for duties conscientiously performed.We seek it in vain in the treasures of this earth,in life's joys, in the praise of the masses, in the fameof scholarship, in the acclaim of the arts, or inanything here below.

In order to live comforted and die happily, weneed certainty about the invisible and eternalthings above. We must know what we are and where

What Is Certainty? 13

we are going. We must know that our personhood ismore than a ripple in the ocean, that the moral bat-tle stands far above the natural order, and that thehighest and purest ideals of the soul are notillusions but reality. We must know how we can beliberated from the accusations of our conscience andfrom the weight of sin. We must know that God isand that He is our God. We must be sure we arereconciled to Him and can therefore approach deathand judgment without terror. In all this, ourgreatest need is for certainty. It is the deepest,although often unconscious, need of the humansoul.

Mankind has sought for certainty all through theages, although along the wrong roads and with thewrong methods. Every religion, no matter howdistorted, seeks for the highest and holiest knownto man. Every religion is born out of and sustainedby the desire for eternal survival. Believers valuetheir religion above all other blessings. Everygenuine follower holds his religion as the central andonly unconditional necessity. To him religion islife in its deepest essence. Religion is the only wayfor persons to attain what they desire for this lifeand the next. Whatever is considered the most real,the highest, the truest kind of life is the content andsubject of religion. In religion we assure ourselvesof our unconditional and enduring existence.


Science and Religious Truth

When confronted by life's deepest problems,science has often taken a stance that conflicts withthe seriousness of these problems. This is unworthyof science itself. Science is often content to charac-terize these questions as important for lesser menand for the unsophisticated but of no significance tothe scientific community. This belief, however, isnothing but a proud and vain illusion. In no way dowe wish to belittle the great accomplishments ofmodern science; it has made astounding discoveriesand achievements. It has enriched and eased humanexistence immeasurably. We all gratefully enjoy theknowledge and power it has given us over nature.But although it may have a lot to offer our sensesand our understanding, it leaves the heart un-satisfied. In the hour of suffering and in the face ofdeath, what good comes from the conquest ofnature, the blessings of civilization, the triumphs ofscience and the enjoyment of the arts? What gooddoes it do a man if he gains the whole world andloses his own soul?

Science is mistaken if it passes by these seriousproblems of human life with an indifferent shrug.The consciousness of good and evil, the awarenessof sin, righteousness and judgment, the accusationsof conscience, the fear of death and the need forreconciliation are just as real as matter and energy,as size and number. In fact, they are realities oftremendous import, for they rule the world and


mankind, life and history. To act as if they don'texist betrays a lack of love for the truth. To lookdown on them with disdain betrays a lack of self-knowledge. And to dismiss them as outdatedimages and foolish delusions demonstrates an ex-tensive superficiality. If science relegates all theseawesome realities to the realm of dreams, we atleast have the right to ask on what grounds it doesso. We don't simply take science at its word.

If science asserts that there is no God, no goodand no evil, no judgment and no punishment, noheaven or hell, then let it give us sufficient, incon-trovertible proof. We should be absolutely sure ofthe truth of this denial—so sure that we can con-fidently live and die by it. At stake is ourirrevocable eternity, so we need firm, unshakable,divine certainty on this point. Therefore, in thisconnection a sharp, unsparing, unrelenting critiqueof science is appropriate. Science may say what itwills about guilt and punishment, death and the af-terlife, but it cannot ask us to hang eternity on aflimsy spider web. When our highest interests, oureternal weal or woe is at stake, we must be satisfiedwith nothing less than infallible, divine certainty.There must be no room for doubt.

But it is not hard to see that science can never of-fer us such certainty. Science may be right in reject-ing a scepticism that elevates doubt into a newdogma, but no part of its vast area of research canyield us anything more than human and thereforefallible certainty. This is especially true when it


ventures into the area of religious and ethical,philosophical and supersensible truth. For then itimmediately finds itself at odds with the powerfultestimony of the whole of humanity at all times andall places. Every human soul is beset by arestlessness that no scientific reasoning canremove. These ultimate questions arise in the heartsof both the learned and the unlearned. The world'sgreatest geniuses have wrestled with them;philosophy had its start with them, and thesequestions gave birth to all religions.

Moreover, science in the popular sense of theword exceeds its competence and powers when ittries to study and solve these deepest of humanproblems. Science may honor the mystery of beingbut it can never explain it. Precisely at the pointwhere it would serve us most, it has to admit its im-potence and leaves us mute. It knows nothing of ourorigins, of our essence, of our destination, and can-not, therefore, provide us with the bread that willstill our hunger or with the water that will quenchour thirst. Nor can it speak the word that will givelife to our souls. Before and behind, to the left andto the right, above and below, science discoversmystery upon mystery. After only a little inquiry itkeeps bumping into the unknown, the knowledge ofwhich is indispensable for us. It finds itselfsurrounded by an invisible world which it cannotenter. No wonder that those who once looked toscience to save us are turning away in disappoint-ment to seek in art and idealism, in the deification of


man and hero worship, in the occult and Easternreligions what science cannot provide but theirsouls need. This only confirms the truth that ourhearts were created for God and cannot rest untilthey have found rest in Him.

The Task of Theology

Of the sciences, it is theology more than any otherthat consciously deals with these mysteries ofhuman life. It has the glorious task not only ofshowing us the way through but also out of this lifeso that in life's vicissitudes and in the hour of ourdeath we may have certainty about those thingsthat are fixed. It must lead us to rest in the arms ofGod. A theology must demonstrate its right andtruth, not only in the area of science, but also andmore powerfully amidst the awful realities of life—at the sickbed and deathbed, in suffering and want,in distress and death, to the guilt-laden conscienceand to the heart thirsting for reconciliation andpeace. If theology stands powerless in the face ofthese situations and is unable to provide any con-solation, then it is unworthy of its place among thesciences.

Generally speaking, we surely cannot expect thesciences in the first place to provide us with comfort-ing truths. We cannot ask the natural scientist orhistorian to spare those images and concepts withwhich we have grown up and which have become


dear to us. Aside from any practical use, truthalways has enduring value. Truth is always life,always sets us free, always crowns us as kings torule over whatever it touches with its light.

As a science, theology also is subject to theserules. It may not proclaim as truth what cannotsurvive the test of truth, no matter how rich it maybe in comfort—false comfort—for the pious heartnourished on such "truth." Nevertheless, there isalso a practical side to theology that makes it akinto medicine. The theoretical knowledge of the doc-tor is doubtlessly very important, but his worth andthe worth of his science only comes into its ownwhen he heals people. Similarly, theology mustprescribe medicine for the ailments of the soul. Itmust be able to say how and in what way we can befreed from our guilt, reconciled with God, attain topatience and hope amidst life's tribulations, andfind reason to sing praises in the face of death. Atheology that does not concern itself with thesethings and only dedicates itself to critical andhistorical studies is not worthy of the nametheology. And a theologian who is acquainted withall the latest issues of his science but who standsspeechless at a sickbed and knows no answer to thequestions of the lost sinner's heart isn't worthy ofhis title and office.

A theology professor once told me that in hisstudent days he was introduced to all sorts of scien-tific issues, but was never given the answer to onequestion: How do I get to heaven? Yet, the answer


to this question provides the church and theologywith their reason for existence. This is whatpreaching and family visiting are about. Moderntheology, whose achievements we must not un-derestimate, did not flounder because of the scien-tific acumen of its enemies. Its impotence becameevident in practice. It lost in the pulpit and infamily visiting because it had no comfort to offer foreither life or death. Not the school but the church,not the seminary but the pulpit, not apologetics butthe sickbed and deathbed showed up its poverty.History and experience show us every day what ismost expected from theology: it must nurture ourcertainty of faith. Otherwise, rather than seek helpfrom an established science that can wax eloquentabout illness but which cannot heal, the sick willturn to the first quack who comes along.

The Certainty of Faith

But what must we understand by this certainty offaith which is so important to theology? Certainty isnot the same as truth, although the two are closelyrelated. Truth is agreement between thought andreality and thus expresses a relation between thecontents of our consciousness and the object of ourknowledge. Certainty, however, is not a relationshipbut a capacity, a quality, a state of the knowingsubject. One's spirit may assume different states inreaction to different statements or propositions. If


it knows nothing whatsoever about the matter, itmay be completely indifferent. If in weighing thepros and cons it can come to no decision regardingthe truth or falsity of the matter, it may be cast in astate of doubt. If for whatever reason it leans moreone way than another, it may find itself in variousstates of opinion, surmise, or trust. But it can alsoachieve a state of complete certainty with regard tosome statement. Certainty exists when the spiritfinds complete rest in its object of knowledge.

Each of our faculties finds rest in what it bynature strives toward. The will finds complete restonly in the good; our sensibility in the beautiful.So the mind or spirit rests only in the true—thatis, more profoundly conceived, only in God, whoHimself is the truth. Error and lies, therefore, direct-ly conflict with the original nature of the spirit.Even in a fallen state the spirit honors the lie onlyunder the semblance of truth. Only the truthsatisfies and answers to the need of the spirit. Thereit finds rest. Certainty is rest, peace, blessedness,while doubt, surmise and opinion always involve acertain degree of discomfort and uneasiness. Cer-tainty is the normal and natural condition of thespirit as health is of the body.

Therefore, even the search for truth is beautifuland a precious gift. But even more beautiful andprecious is finding it, enjoying it and walking in itslight. Doubt, on the other hand, is never the truecondition of man, but is abnormal, like disease.Sometimes, due to the error and lies that beset our


lives, doubt is necessary, just as a fever may begood for the body and a thunderstorm good for theatmosphere. But in itself it is always a painful evil.He who doubts is like a wave on the sea, but he whobelieves is like a rock.

There are, however, different kinds of certainty.The Greek philosophers already distinguished be-tween the certainty provided by the senses and thatprovided by reason. Within the latter realmAristotle further distinguished between the im-mediate certainty derived from the first principlesof science and the mediated certainty derived fromdemonstration and proof. These three kinds of cer-tainty are recognized by all but the most hardenedsceptic. We all feel certain about the things we canperceive with the senses. Nor do we doubt the mostbasic, self-evident, undemonstrable principles of thevarious sciences, such as the axioms on whichmathematics is based. Similarly, we are also com-pletely certain about the truths that in science areinferred through logical deduction from anestablished premise and which are therefore basedon sufficient proof.

But beside these types of scientific certaintythere exists another kind—the certainty of faith.People may differ widely regarding its value, butthat it exists is beyond doubt. Even philosophy hashad to take faith into account. It was ImmanuelKant (1724-1804) who, beside empirical and logicalcertainties, also made room for moral certainty(Gewissheit). The way in which Kant accomplished


this is not our way, but we may be thankful tophilosophy that through one of its most perceptivethinkers it has recognized the existence and rightsof another form of certainty than the strictly scien-tific.

One would, indeed, have to deliberately blindoneself to doubt the reality of such certainty, for inthe area of religion and morals no one bases his cer-tainty on scientific proof. No one maintains theexistence of God, the immortality of the soul, themediatorship of Christ, the authority of Scriptureand many other beliefs on the basis of rationalargument. People seem to carry within them theknowledge that science may not and cannot have asay in such matters. All higher religions, therefore,claim to be based on revelation, and none of them isthe product solely of rational understanding. Proofscome after the fact in every religion; they don't leadthe way but trail behind. They are conceived forthose who don't believe.

When speaking with an unbeliever, a believer can-not be content to assert: I believe and therefore it istrue. He must seek grounds, not for his own faith,but to make it more acceptable to the outsider, tosilence criticism, and remove all excuses for un-belief. Apologetics is the fruit, never the root, offaith. The arguments by which the apologist seeksto promulgate and confirm his faith are often ratherflimsy. If it had to rest on these arguments, it wouldbe built on a very weak foundation. But it is rootedmuch deeper than in these after-the-fact reasonings.


We do not obtain and maintain our deepest convic-tions, our world and life view, by way of scientificdemonstration. These are not a product of under-standing or of the will. These beliefs are locateddeeper, in the depths of the soul, in the heart. Theyare part of man himself; they are, as it were, part ofhis essence; they are him, as he was born, raised andmolded in a particular environment. J. G. Fichte(1762-1814) said that the philosophy a man choosesdetermines what kind of man he will be. The shapeof one's thought is often nothing more than thehistory of his heart.

Testimony as the Basis of Certainty

This certainty, already moral in the wider sense ofthe word, can better be called the certainty of faith.But how does it originate? Does a man sit downand, reflecting on his moral nature, postulate someabstract dogmas? Of course not. Normally certain-ty of faith is born in childhood, when one's con-sciousness through faith adopts the moral andreligious concepts recognized as authoritative by aspecific community. A child then identifies its ulti-mate well-being with these concepts.

This certainty of faith differs in two respects fromthat derived from observation and thought. Viewedobjectively, the latter appears stronger. Scientificcertainty rests on grounds valid for all rationalbeings; its dependability can be demonstrated to


any creature endowed with reason. The genuineresults of science have a power to compel ourreason. Anyone who isn't convinced by scientificproof casts doubts on his sanity.

This is not the case, however, with certainty inreligion or ethics. Just as faith cannot be under-mined by scientific argument, it cannot be convin-cingly established by it. It always rests onrevelation, authority, a divine word, whether true orpresumed, and is therefore always only a fruit offaith, a faith that—for whatever reason—recognizesthis authority and bows before it in obedience. Inthis respect scientific certainty is actually moreuniversal and stronger than the certainty acquiredthrough faith.

Nevertheless, the kind of certainty that is validand appropriate in science is wholly inadequate inreligion. Scientific certainty, no matter how strongand fixed, always remains based on humanargument and can, therefore, always be overturnedby further and better investigation. Such a doubt-ful, fallible certainty is insufficient in the area ofreligion. Here we need an infallible, divine certainty,one that transcends all human doubt and can neverlet us down. We can count on it for time and eter-nity. Besides, scientific certainty transferred to thedomain of religion would make religion a -matter ofreason. This would demand a level of intellectualdevelopment possessed by only a few. It wouldmake us subject to a scientific hierarchy in our mostpersonal concerns—a hierarchy that would exceed


pre-Reformation Rome in intolerance and tyranny.Freedom of conscience would cease to exist.

Such scientific certainty imported into spirituallife would ultimately produce the opposite of whatreligion by nature and by everyone's convictionought to be. Religion is in the first place faith: thatis, humility, trust, dependence, obedience, sim-plicity and childlikeness. But in religion, scientificcertainty would engender pride instead of humility,intellectualism instead of simplicity of heart, andself-elevation instead of childlikeness. Knowledgepuffs up but love edifies. Therefore we should notcomplain but be grateful that besides the scientific,there is another form of certainty, namely, the cer-tainty of faith, which does not depend on falliblehuman insight but on unshakable divine authority.

If everyone accepted such divine authority inreligion and there could be no doubt about whereand how it was to be found, then no one could rejectas unreliable and uncertain the knowledge acquiredby faith from such an infallible testimony. Certainlyno one objects that a large part of our knowledgerests upon the testimony of others and can,therefore, only be obtained by way of faith. Faithcan be conceived of in an even broader sense so thatit includes our trust in the testimony of our ownconsciousness. Then the assumptions and prin-ciples of science as a whole and of the particularsciences can have certainty for us only on the basisof faith. That our sense perception is reliable, thatthe outside world has an objective existence, that


the laws of thought correspond with those of beingand that the so-called axioms are the firm foun-dation for all knowledge—these and many otherpostulates cannot be proven but are established bythe immediate testimony of our consciousness priorto all proof. Anyone who refuses to proceed on thisbasis blocks his own way to the truth and falls vic-tim to doubt.

But also in the narrower and truer sense of theword, faith as trust in another's testimony assumesan important role in science. Every man, even themost learned, is limited in his gifts and energies, intime and place. What he can investigate freely andindependently for himself makes up only a tiny partof the boundless domain of science. He owes by farthe largest part of his knowledge to the in-vestigation of others, and he accepts theirtestimony on trust as being true. Even moresignificantly, beside the natural sciences, which arebuilt on observation, there is the science of history,which has no choice but to build on testimoniesregarding the past. Although they remain subjectto criticism, these testimonies always require alarge degree of trust on the historian's part. Anyonewho demands mathematical or experimental proofin history is forced to challenge its scientific natureand will never achieve any degree of certainty.

There is no science without personal trust andfaith in the testimony of others. Therefore, justbecause religion and theology don't rest on personalobservation but on divine testimony and can only


be established for us by faith, this does not in itselfprove anything about their truth. Why should theknowledge we gain from the testimony of others beof less value than that gained from our own in-vestigation? The same limitations that plagueothers also expose us to all kinds of mistakes anderrors. Everything depends on whether the personson whose testimony we rely are trustworthy anddependable. If so, then the knowledge we gain ontheir authority may possess more truth than whatwe gain from our own fallible observation.

Since in religion not a fallible human being butGod Himself steps forward as a witness, then fromthis point of view there is no science more certain ofits subject matter than theology. Its basis andstrength consists in the Deus dixit, so says theLord. What human authority can be compared tothat of the Almighty? And on whose word can manrely more fully with mind and heart, in sufferingand death, for time and eternity, than the testimonyof Him who is Himself the truth?

Given the existence of a divine authority, theproblem in religion is not that it deserves our faithand trust. Everyone would concede this in the ab-stract. The problem comes as soon as we ask wherethis divine authority is to be found and how it maybe recognized, for then mankind becomes endlesslydivided. In the history of mankind numerousreligions have appeared alongside and after oneanother, each one claiming to be the truth. Evenwithin the same religion, adherents are divided

about the nature and authority, the content andscope of revelation. This may not, however, lead usto doubt whether truth can be found. For to sodoubt would do violence to our rational and moralnature, which can never escape the impact of God'smajesty. But it should instill in us a deep humilityand an honest desire to seek the truth only where itmay be found by a blinded, erring humanity.

The question regarding the certainty of faith,therefore, becomes two-fold. It can be addressed tothe truth of the religion we ought to confess, or toour personal share in the salvation promised by thatreligion. There is a certainty that pertains to objec-tive religious truth and a certainty that pertains tothe subject's share in the benefits promised by thattruth. The two kinds of certainty are doubtlesslyvery closely interconnected, but they should, never-theless, be distinguished and not confused. The actof faith by which I recognize the truth differs fromthe one by which I am assured of my own salvation.

The Power of Certainty

While scientific certainty rests on rational andtherefore more universal ground than the certaintyof faith, the latter far outstrips the first in subjec-tive power—that is, in the strength of the tie bywhich the soul embraces its object in faith. Once atestimony has been recognized and accepted asdivine, obviously it binds and rules man more



powerfully than any other word. The convictions offaith are the deepest, the most intimate, the dearestand at the same time the most tenacious of all. Nowars are more terrible than those fought forreligion. No greater hate exists than that arousedby religion. But also no devotion, no commitment,no self-denial, no love, no faithfulness, no patience,no virtues in general are as marvelously rich andsublime as those that blossom forth from a life offellowship with God.

Faith, to name only one of these virtues, countsits martyrs in the thousands, even in the millions.Science has but a few. The famous Johann Kepler(1571-1630) practiced astrology contrary to his con-victions in order to make a living. He excused hisconduct with the remark that the needy mother(astronomy) would have to live off the foolishdaughter (astrology). Three times Galileo (1564-1642) recanted his scientific convictions about theCopernican system before the Inquisition. His fearof execution was greater than his love of science.Who wants to die for the proposition that the earthturns? Ultimately it makes very little difference andcan always be corrected later. Who will put hispossessions, his name, and his life on the line forapurely theoretical truth? Scientific certainty can'tstand up to the torch and stake.

But the certainty of faith is much different. Itpossesses far greater intensity; it is ineradicable,because it is rooted in the human heart and involvesevery fibre of our existence. If a person is opposed


to you on the basis of principle, he is almost im-possible to convince otherwise; in fact, it is im-possible to reason with him. A man's religionalways rules him, even in the most nonpartisanstudy. It is at the basis of all differences that dividemankind.

Therefore, the true believer considers nothing toocostly for the preservation of faith, whether it bethe rack, the branding iron, the cross or the stake. Itis more precious than home and country, thanspouse and children, than one's own life, than thewhole world. For he who loses his faith, loses him-self, his soul, his eternal salvation. But he whokeeps his faith also keeps himself even if he shouldlose his life.

The certainty of faith is therefore the most per-fect rest, the highest freedom of the spirit. It doubtsnot. It is heroic and fearless, though there be asmany devils as shingles on the roof. Faith fears Godalone and no one else. It is even more certain of it-self than of the sun shining in the sky. It can doubteverything except itself. And with at least as muchright as Descartes posited his cogito ergo sum (Ithink therefore I am), the believer posits credo, ergosum, ergo Deus est (I believe, therefore I am,therefore God is).

3. The Search for Certainty

Because certainty of faith is of such great valueand significance, it is not surprising that mankindhas always sought it. Without this heart's rest, manlacked peace of soul. He tried to achieve certainty inmany ways. No sacrifice was too great, no punish-ment too severe, no life too valuable. He tried to ob-tain it by observing laws and rituals, with bloodyand unbloody sacrifices, through scourging andkilling the flesh, and in wild orgies as well asrigorous asceticism.

The history of religion reveals such profound,awesome struggles and sufferings that naturaldisasters, social revolutions, and wars pale in com-parison. Every page of this inner history tells us oftears, sighs, prayers, pleas, struggles and temp-tations. Uncertainty, doubt, fear, terror andanxiety eat at the heart and life of every person. Thehymns of all nations are filled with moving lamen-tations. The futility of the world and life has beenexpressed in the most eloquent tones. The greatestand noblest of the human race have been subject tothe most fearful inner struggles.

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Some of the most beautiful poetry also drew itssubject matter from this suffering. Philosophy wasborn from pondering the riddle of death. The originand goal of the arts and sciences is to make lifeeasier to bear. And religion taken as a whole is onegigantic attempt to support man, with the help ofthe Deity, in the fearsome struggle against harsh,unrelenting nature. The devotees of pleasure andsensuality as well as artists and scientists often hidetheir nagging anxiety behind a mask of indifference.Through pleasure and work they seek diversionfrom the unrest in their souls. These are means toescape the emptiness of their existence and the ac-cusing voice of conscience—in a word, themselves.Blaise Pascal (1623-62) spoke the truth when he saidthat the sum total of all activity and business, thediversions and pleasures we observe in mankind"arises from one single fact, that they cannot stayquietly in their own chamber" (139).

Certainty in Non -Christian Religions

Although it is a temptation, we cannot possiblyexamine and judge the various religions from thispoint of view, however briefly. But one phenomenondoes deserve our attention, if only in passing. Cer-tainty regarding one's own state and future is notunique to Christianity; it also occurs in otherreligions. The basic mood of heathen religion wasdoubtlessly timid, anxious fear (religio, deisidai-

The Search for Certainty 33

monia). Outside of redemption in Jesus Christ, allmen live in fear of death, in servitude, without God andwithout hope. Nevertheless, the heathen world producesnot only voices of fear, but also of trust and repose.

All religious faiths have inspired martyrs, thosewho testified with their blood. One famous exampleis Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.). In 399 B.C. he wascharged in Athens for deviating from the statereligion, for importing new gods and for pervertingthe youth with his teachings. In the speech he madein his defense he held that he had seen his whole lifeas a service to the deity. If the judges wished topardon him on the condition that he give up hisvocation—the teaching of philosophy—he wouldhave to refuse, choosing to obey God rather thanman. He was not afraid of death but of doingsomething unholy and unrighteous. So he went intodeath confidently, knowing that he was going to thegods and was being set free from life's troubles.With imperturbable composure he then drank thecup of hemlock and died as a martyr to his faith.

This example would be easy to support with manyothers. They all teach that certainty is not the sameas truth. Truth always brings certainty, but cer-tainty is no proof of truth. The human spirit canfind false rest in an error presumed to be the truth.We like to believe in what we wish were true. Cer-tainty in itself, however, does not set one free. Onlythe truth can free man from the servitude of sin anddeath. If the Son has made you free, you shall befree indeed.


Nevertheless, these examples of steadfast trustshould shame us Christians who have received amuch greater grace and may walk in a muchbrighter light. Christendom does not alwayspresent a more attractive picture in this respect. Weare not thinking here of nominal Christians who liveon without a care, forcefully repressing anythoughts about death and eternity. Nor are wethinking of those modernistic movements that havesprung up within historical Christianity whichreject all special revelation and thereby rob faith ofits original meaning and its central place in the lifeof the believer. In these movements one can nolonger speak of the certainty of truth and, thus, notof the certainty of salvation either. These peoplemay surmise, guess, think, even hope that all will gowell with them in this life and the next, and theymay dare to die in that hope. They may even be ableto muster an equanimity that does not fail themeven in the hour of death. But the clear con-sciousness that they are the Lord's both in life andin death; the unshakable conviction that, becausethey love God and have been called according to Hiswill, all things will work together for their good;the steadfast assurance of the hope of eternal life;rejoicing in persecution and in the face of death—these you will not find among them. Their songs arefilled with doubt, melancholy and hope, but aredevoid of bold, enthusiastic faith.

We must admit, however, that even those whogenuinely accept God's special revelation do not


always possess certainty of faith. Often we finddoubt instead of faith, care instead of steadfasttrust, complaints instead of enthusiasm and praise.Those who are assured of their share in Christ andwho rejoice in the hope of the glory of the children ofGod are few indeed.

Certainty in Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church, following St.Augustine (354-430), even denies the possibilitythat a Christian can be sure of his eternal salvationapart from a few exceptions and then only by aspecial revelation from God. The certainty at-tainable by keeping the decrees of the church is, andremains, nothing more than an opinion, a surmise,an opinio conjecturalis. No matter how much it mayseem so, this certainty can never become an un-shakable conviction, a complete, ineradicable cer-tainty. There is no room for such in Rome's system,for it does not see salvation as assured in Christ andsealed in the heart of the believer by the testimonyof the Holy Spirit. Salvation depends on good worksand as such is always only conditional. The RomanCatholic Church never allows the Christian tobecome independent and to stand on his own feet. Itnever sets him loose but always retains a hold onhim, even years after his death in purgatory. Thechurch alone can open and close the gates toheaven.


In Catholicism, therefore, the Christian faith doesnot turn on the question: How do I know that Itruly believe and how can I be sure of my salvation?It concentrates on a much different question,namely: How do I keep the decrees of the churchand how, according to its judgment and pronounce-ment, do I earn eternal life? As long as the laymandoes what the church says, he need not worry; thechurch takes care of the rest. But in his attempt towin eternal life by good works the CatholicChristian can take one of two directions. He canmake it very easy on himself and, if not in theoryyet in practice, he can ask himself: How little can Iget by with? He can also take eternal life seriouslyand demand from himself a strict observance of allthe church demands, and even further, compel him-self to do more than is required.

As a result, in Catholicism there are always twokinds of Christians: those who occasionally go toconfession and mass, observe the required fasts andfor the rest live quite a superficial, carefree life,trusting in the church for their salvation; and thosewho are dissatisfied with such externalities and at-tempt to live a purely religious life throughmysticism and asceticism, in separation from theworld and denial of the flesh, thus to come beforethe face of God.

Far be it from us to immediately denounce the lat-ter with the protestant judgment that since suchpiety issues from a false principle—righteousnessby works—it is therefore worthless to God. For no


matter how much truth that judgment may contain,before we utter it we must remind ourselves thatthe Catholic righteousness by good works is vastlypreferable to a protestant righteousness by gooddoctrine. At least righteousness by good worksbenefits one's neighbor, whereas righteousness bygood doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride.Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to thetremendous faith, genuine repentance, completesurrender and the fervent love for God and neighborevident in the lives and work of many CatholicChristians. The Christian life is so rich that itdevelops to its full glory not just in a single form orwithin the walls of one church.

Nevertheless, Catholic piety, even in its bestform, is different in character from that ofprotestantism. It always remains unfree, uneman-cipated, formal, legalistic. Complete inner certaintyof faith is lacking. It always leaves room for thequestion: Have I done enough, and what else shouldI do? Rome deliberately keeps the souls of believersin a restless, so-called healthy tension. Spiritual lifefluctuates between false assurance and painful un-certainty. Catholicism does not understand theword of Holy Scripture that the Spirit testifies withour spirit that we are children of God and that allwho are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.


Certainty in the Reformation

The Reformation, however, brought about manychanges. This powerful movement was born out of adeeply felt need for the assurance of salvation. Invain, Martin Luther (1483-1546) sought it in goodworks. He found assurance in God's free grace, inthe sinner's justification by faith alone. When hehad discovered this treasure, Luther stood upagainst the entire Christendom of his time withheroic boldness. His faith was so firmly anchoredand his hope so sure that with them he dared standalone before all his opponents. God was for him;who could be against him? Certainty was a charac-teristic not only of Luther's faith but also of thefaith of all the Reformers.

This is not to say they never experienced temp-tations and struggles; it is wrong to suppose theyalways rose above all doubt. They all passedthrough periods of fearful anxiety and deepdiscouragement. Notwithstanding his great faith,Luther often had terrible struggles with the deviland with reason. Frequently he had doubts aboutthe rightness and blessedness of his reforminglabors. Philipp Mélanchthon (1497 - 1560), too, wasoften oppressed in spirit. John Calvin (1509-1564)testifies, no doubt from his own experience, that •abeliever can harbor many doubts and cares. But thedifference between the Reformers and their laterdisciples was that they did not foster or feed such acondition. They saw no good in it and were not con-


tent to remain in doubt. They struggled to come outof doubt and they begged to be freed from it. TheReformers rose above it by the power of faith. Notdoubt and fear, but steadfastness and certainty wasthe normal condition of their spiritual lives.

Their courage was rooted in humility, their self-assurance in trust in God, their freedom and in-dependence in childlike dependence on His gracealone. Their emotions did not rule their reason,while reason and will did not deny the rights of theiremotions. Their hands were never idle. Head, heartand hands worked together in exceptional harmony.They were not pietists with only an eye and heartfor the religious life. They were not mystics whoretreated into isolation and left the world to its fate.They were not intellectualists and moralists who failedto do justice to the richness of emotional life.Despite differences in inclination and character, theReformers were all of a deeply religious nature.Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely for this reason,they kept their eyes open to the needs of family,societal, economic and political life. All unnatural,unhealthy pietism was foreign to them. Theirreligious lives were sound at heart—clear and plain,yet passionate and deep.

Their piety had a much different face than that ofRome. They understood the essence of Christianityin a wholly new and original way. Returning to therefreshing, living source of Scripture, they drewfrom it a spirit and power that changed thetopography of Christian Europe. It was the piety of


the psalmists, the prophets and the apostles thatagain lived in them and spoke through their words.They were imitators of Christ who, though God'sSon, became the Son of Man, and counted nothinghuman strange to Him.

Their description of the faith also answers to thisstandard. With them faith is not hope and opinion,not guess and conjecture, not even knowledge andassent, but certain knowledge and firm trust, a con-sciousness and conviction so strong and final it ex-cludes all doubt and fear. Just listen to the humblebut at the same time bold language in theHeidelberg Catechism of the Christian who gives anaccount of the hope that is within him. He is firmlyassured that he is a living member of Jesus' churchand that he will eternally remain so. He lives in thechildlike trust that not only others but he per-sonally has been forgiven and granted eternalrighteousness and salvation by God out of puregrace, and only on the merits of Christ.

In this confession the Christian has received avoice. He stands in the freedom of the children ofGod. God's Spirit testifies with his spirit that he isa child of God. He believes and therefore he canspeak. Here the Christian life has gained its in-dependence. It is dependent on no other creature; itis bound only to God and His Word. Here faith findsnothing and no one in the world, only God.


Certainty in Orthodoxy and Pietism

This joyful note echoed on into the time of theCanons of Dordt. But then gradually it weakened,and uncertainty and fear entered the language offaith. The faith of the sixteenth century became theorthodoxy of the seventeenth. People no longer con-fessed their beliefs, but they only believed theirconfessions. Among most of the people this or-thodoxy prepared the road for rationalism. Religionbecame a matter of reason, the truth regardingeternal things was now dependent on historicalproofs and rational argument, and the certainty offaith became confused with rational insight. On theother hand, within the small circles of the faithful itevoked another reaction; they were not satisfiedwith merely rational knowledge but sought theessence of salvation in experience. This movementgradually devolved into pietism.

As more and more people with genuine faith sawthe bastardized forms of historic and temporal faithdeveloping, they began to lose their own certaintyand belief. There had to be an essential differencebetween these different faiths, a difference like thatbetween life and death, between genuine trust inGod's grace in Christ and purely rational assent totruth. But there was a great risk of confusion, self-deception, and false security. To point out the dif-ference between true and false grace, between theborn-again at their worst and the others at theirbest was a difficult, exacting task. Accordingly, the


believer was prompted to turn inward in order toassure himself about the reality of his own faith.

In this self-examination he was soon guided bythe meditational works of devotional writers. Theytraced the life of the soul from its most intimatebeginnings, analyzing its most hidden motions, anddescribing it in a long series of subtle but often con-fusing signs. Never before or since has the hiddenlife of fellowship with God been studied more deeplyand earnestly.

Arguing against the cold orthodoxy of their time,they said that knowing is not enough; real faith isexperience. It isn't enough to hear the domain ofspiritual things described by others; one must haveseen it with one's own eyes. To talk about thedisease like a knowledgeable doctor doesn't meanmuch; one must have experienced the disease aswell as the healing. The first is mere cold, historicalword-knowledge. Only through experience does onefirst understand the truth. Experience discovers inthe words of Scripture an entirely new spiritualmeaning; it shows us a truth behind the truth, notbecause it wants to say something else, but be-cause we have then experienced and benefited fromit in our hearts.

Gradually the list of requisite experiences onheaven's way was expanded. It began with a deepfeeling of misery, a painful experience of guilt, and afatal thunderbolt from the Sinaitic law. Anyone whohas not heard the judgment of doom proclaimed bythe law has no need for the gospel's declaration of


pardon. The sick, not the healthy, need the GreatHealer. Jesus came to call the sinners, not therighteous, to repentance. Believing parents, bap-tism, Christian nurture, confession of faith, theLord's Supper—these do not make such an ex-perience superfluous. Instead of enshrining thenotion that those so blessed are included in God'sgrace, they should serve as warnings so we do notdeceive ourselves, as many do, about eternity.Everyone, including covenant children, must passthrough the judgment of God's law to know himselfin his lost state and to learn with the publican to cryfor grace out of the depths of misery.

Such a feeling of lostness may last a long time oronly a short while. Even if a ray of light penetratesto the soul, opening the eyes to redemption in ChristJesus, one may not immediately believe and throwoneself on the promises of God, for this incurs thedanger of a presumed, stolen faith, and stolen goodsdo not prosper. First the right and courage tobelieve has to be given by God. So all sorts ofspiritual preparation had to precede the act of em-bracing God's promises in faith.

Faith was not immediately certain of itself rightfrom the beginning. There was a difference betweenthe essence and the well-being of faith, between ashelter-seeking trust and an assured trust. The firstyears of faith were full of sighing and lamentation,praying and hoping. Certainty was attained only af-ter a series of experiences spread over many years.It was not given with faith itself, nor did it issue


from it. Certainty was often added from the outside,mechanically, by special revelations. Sometimes itoccurred through the sudden intrusion of some Biblepassage. Or the soul might suddenly be inundatedby a glorious light, prompting the believer to saywith Jacob: I have seen the Lord face-to-face andmy soul is saved. Occasionally the Lord Jesusshowed Himself directly to the seeking soul andfilled it with heavenly joy. Or the believer might,like Paul, be drawn up into the third heaven and ledinto the inner chamber by the King. Only then hadhe attained the highest rung of faith, and a placeamong the established, assured believers.

But few ever made it this far. Most continued tostumble forward along life's way in sighing andlamentation. They were a poor, wretched peoplealways preoccupied with their own misery, seldom ifever rejoicing in the redemption that was theirs inChrist Jesus and never coming to a life of joy andgratitude. They preferred to be addressed asAdam's polluted offspring, as sinners under God'sjudgment; they drew comfort from the promisesGod gave to the worm Jacob and the people ofIsrael.

Because there was no light and happiness in theirsouls, everything around them looked dark andgloomy too. They spoke of earthly life as a life oftrouble and grief. The world was to them nothingbut a vale of tears, a desert, a Meshech. They wouldhave preferred to withdraw from it completely andrestrict themselves to the narrow circle of like-


minded people. Family and society, science and art,state and church were given up to unbelief andrevolution as wholly spoiled and unredeemable. Thespiritual lives of these people were nurtured onlythrough small group discussions and by reading oldauthors. For the rest they waited quietly, patientlydischarging their duties until the time would cometo put off this body of sin, or until the swift returnof Christ.

Reactions to Pietism

During the seventeenth century the faith of thebest and the most pious had devolved to this level inall Reformed churches in the Netherlands. But thissituation couldn't be endured for long. Such alargely fearful and isolated life couldn't be the true,complete Christian religion. Those lamentationsweren't worship, those sighings weren't faith, andthat world-flight wasn't the victory over the world.As a result, a widespread longing sprang up forsomething different, something better. Variousmovements tried to point to a better way to achievecertainty. They can be reduced to two main lines:the Moravian Brethren in Lutheran circles and theMethodists in Reformed circles.

The Moravians wanted to win souls and lead themto their greatest happiness not by the law, but bythe gospel; not through thunder from Mt. Sinai butthrough the loving voice from Golgotha; not


through the stern figure of Moses but through thefriendly figure of Jesus. Nikolaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) wanted nothing to do with the so-calledBusskampf and Durchkruch (penitential struggleand breakthrough) of the pietists. He called themmiserable Christians; Zinzendorf didn't want asighing, lamenting faith but a singing, rejoicingChristianity. To bring this about, all that wasneeded was the proclamation of the dear Savior. Alifelike description of His endless love for sinnersrevealed in His suffering and death, in His bloodand wounds, would be enough to make an im-pression on the receptive heart. And this impressionis the saving work of Christ, the renewal and impar-tation of life through His Holy Spirit. Those so af-fected by the gospel of the cross rest in Jesus'wounds, enter into a marriage covenant with Himand are freed from the guilt and domination of sin.From then on they would lead happy, thankful, un-burdened lives, fed and strengthened by theremembrance of Jesus' words, by a rich cultus (wor-ship) and by a treasury of emotional hymns.

Methodism chose another route. Because theyexperienced the guilt of sin more deeply than didthe Moravian Brethren, the Methodists felt it wasnecessary to shock the soul out of its false security.Faith ought to be preceded by a deep sense of guiltevoked by passionate speeches, by terrifyingdescriptions of death and hell, and by emotional,stirring songs. But immediately thereafter, gracewas preached and there was an offer of salvation.


From the descent into hell of self-knowledge, thesoul ascended into the heaven of knowing God.Methodism compressed all experience of salvationinto one moment. The deepest misery and thehighest blessedness lay side by side. He who satdown in the sinner's seat as a lost soul was in thatsame moment found by Christ. He sat down guiltyand deserving hell, and he stood up pardoned andhaving inherited heaven.

Faith was therefore an immediate, full certainty,because it originated suddenly out of deep woe andderived its total certainty from the contrast withthe state that preceded it. Faith was born in thebright light of awareness. The Methodist knows theday and the hour of his rebirth. John Wesley (1703-1791) was converted on May 24, 1738 at 9:15 P.M.Anyone who came into the certainty of faith by thisroute never need doubt his own condition. Therewas no longer any need for continual self-examination, looking inward to test the reality ofone's faith. One knew that one had passed fromdeath into life and now had more important thingsto do. Justification was for once and always,finished, but sanctification lay before him. Andaround him lay a world full of lost souls who neededto be saved in the same manner. Converted himself,he now had no higher calling than to convert othersand to win as many souls for Jesus as possible.

Both movements have exerted a strong influenceon Christianity. They awoke Christians from theirself-reflection and called them out of their isolation


back to the battle with the world. Under theirleadership, home and foreign missions received apowerful impetus. These congregations also tookthe initiative in organizing Sunday schools andmany other kinds of associations. As a result ofthese movements the distribution of Bibles andtracts, evangelism, philanthropy, and many otherChristian actions were made to serve the spread ofthe Kingdom of God. All of Christianity was shakenout of its slumber and stirred into new, vital life.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that bothmovements suffered from a narrowness of Christianvision. Neither paid sufficient attention to the firstarticle of the Apostle's Creed, namely, that God isthe Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. The earth-ly terrains of art and science, literature and politics,family and society were not recognized in their fullmeaning and significance and were therefore alsonot reformed and renewed on the basis of Christianprinciples. Resting in the wounds of Jesus or beingconverted and then going out to convert othersseemed to be the entire content of the Christian life.Sentimentality and an unhealthy sensibility oftencharacterized the first state and frenzied andthoughtless activity the other. Consciousness wasoften suppressed for the sake of emotion and will,and there was no harmony between man'scapacities and powers. The freedom of the childrenof God—dominion over the world, the grateful en-joyment of every good gift given by the Father ofall light, the faithful exercise of the earthly calling,


the open eye, the broad view, the spacious heart—none of these came to fruition. The Christian lifewas often seen to be alongside, sometimes above,and occasionally even at enmity with human life.Here Christianity was not like a leaven that mixeswith the dough and leavens the whole.

Greater Uncertainty

A great uncertainty resulted from the mixture ofthese different elements into the life of faith. It wascontinually being driven in different directions—or-thodox and pietist, Moravian and Methodist,rationalist and mystical—preventing it from takinga consistent course and growing steadily in thegrace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.Even more damaging to the spiritual life than thesedifferences in religious viewpoint, however, was thecutting judgment of philosophy on man's capacityto know, and the impact of historical research onthe Holy Scriptures as the source of truth.

Since the time of Immanuel Kant, a philosophicalnotion has been gaining ever wider acceptance:man, bound as he is by a finite, limited, sense per-ception, can never gain a genuine knowledge of in-visible, eternal things. Historical criticism hasadded its seal to this position by announcing theuntrustworthiness and unreliability of not only theconfessions but also of the Scriptures of theprophets and apostles. Thus, we can find no more


certainty—not outside of us, not within us. All that iscertain is what we see with our own eyes and touchwith our own hands. As soon as we go beyond this,there is nothing that can step forward withauthority to demand man's subservience. Everyman is his own measure for those things he cannotsee, and one man's opinions are as good asanother's. Therefore let us eat and drink fortomorrow we die. Or, at least let everyone seeksalvation in his own way, for religion is a privatematter. In this domain no one has access to thetruth.

This philosophy of unbelief is gaining ground—even among those who confess Christ—faster thanone might think. And large masses live on in thisframe of mind, inwardly swayed this way and thatby doubt, tossed up and down like billows on thesea, finding no peace or joy. Often those who carrythe name of believers hide the uncertainty in theirhearts behind a noisy concern for all kinds of things.And the theologians spare no effort to blaze a paththrough the maze of claims to the knowledge ofeternal things. How can we gain this certainty offaith which is essential for peace of heart?

4. The Way to Certainty

An important distinction between science andreligion is that the first can be satisfied with humancertainty but the latter demands nothing less thandivine certainty. The object of faith must be thewholly reliable, infallible, eternal truth so that wecan count on it in life and death, for time and eter-nity. In most earthly matters we can tolerate lesseror greater degrees of probability. But in religion,which in its deepest ground always concerns man'seternal salvation, total certainty is an indispensablerequirement. The basis of our hope for eternity can-not be a human word, a result of scientific inquiry,an ideal shaped by our imagination, or a propositionbuilt on human reasoning, for all these are shakyand fallible. They cannot support the building of ourhope, for soon it would collapse into ruin. Faith—religious faith—can by its very nature rest only on aword, a promise from God, on something thatproceeds from His mouth and is revealed to maneither naturally or supernaturally.

It is therefore no coincidence that all religions ap-51


peal to revelation. They may trace their origin backto a special revelation or they may live on the basisof continual revelation, but they never claim to reston human investigation, only on divine authority.This flows forth from the nature of religion.Revelation is the presupposition, the foundation,the flip-side, the necessary correlate of religion. Areligion that no longer dares to come forward inGod's name and authority loses its very essence. Ithas become mythology or philosophy of religion.Moreover, it has thereby lost its influence onpeople, who always expect more from religion thanhuman opinion. A theology that no longer dares totrace its dogma to a Deus dixit (so says the Lord)has undermined its foundation, lost its stability,and will soon tumble into ruin. Revelation, divineauthority, is the only pillar on which religion canrest.

This is not to deny, of course, that religion hasalways horribly abused this authority. Nowhere hasso much deception been practiced, on a large orsmall scale, subtly or crudely, than in the area ofreligion. Demagogues have exploited this divineauthority to further their own selfish ends. Priestshave set themselves up as mouthpieces of God's willto hold people in bondage and make them serve thepriests' advantage and power. Superstition, witch-craft, fortune-telling and many other barbaritieshave entwined themselves around the stem ofdivine authority like parasitic plants. The injusticesand atrocities committed throughout history in the

The Way to Certainty 53

name of religion are countless. Broad and deep isthe river of blood and tears shed by all religions tothe greater glory of God.

But all this detracts nothing from the fact thatdivine revelation and divine authority are the basisof religion. Rather, these acts tend to confirm thistenet, for men fought one another to the deathbecause they were convinced they were serving thecause of God and promoting the interest of thehighest good. This again points to the fact that, indistinction from science and art, religion demands adivine certainty. The human soul can find completerest only in God; it is fully satisfied only by an in-fallible authority. The preacher is, therefore, power-ful only when he brings the Word of God. Without ithis proclamation has no influence and power. Whobut God gives him the right to climb into the pulpitabove the people, to hold up to them the rule of faithand life, and to bind their eternal weal or woe totheir acceptance or rejection?

Scientific Demonstration

If this is so, it raises a more important and moredifficult question: Where and how can that divineauthority be found which properly demands ourrecognition and obedience?

In answering this question we begin with theunadorned admission that it is impossible to com-pletely solve this dilemma in the abstract. In science


one cannot begin to isolate the proof introduced fora given proposition so that all other conflictingpresuppositions held by the subject remain out ofplay. All proof presupposes a starting point com-mon to those for and against, a foundationrecognized by both. It is impossible to reason withsomeone who denies all principles. Both the proofsas well as the presuppositions on which they restvary from science to science. They are different inmathematics and in the natural sciences; differentin the philosophical and in the historical sciences.They differ in composition, in number, in power andin the degree to which they depend on the subjectand his attitude.

Mathematical proof presupposes the least; itthereforehasthe most universal validity,

possessing a very compelling character. Logicalproof proceeds from a great many more presup-positions and as a result often leaves the other par-ty unconvinced. Historical proof makes an evenstronger appeal to the subject; as a result, it is oftenweak, in many cases producing no more than adegree of probability. But whatever proofs thesciences introduce, they always build on the unityand coherence of human nature. Hence, they alsobuild on faith in the reliability of the senses, in thevalidity of the rules of logic, in the existence of aknowable truth and in the veracity of God. They arebased on many metaphysical, logical, psychologicaland ethical presuppositions which are pre-established, self-contained, self-evident and un-

provable, but which are the vehicles of all proof.Those who would delve beyond them in order tobegin with doubt alone undermine the foundationsof science and make all certainty impossible.

This is even more true in the area of religion. Noone has been raised devoid of all religion andmorality so that he can now stand neutral and un-prejudiced to all religions. To attempt to prove thetruth of any religion to such an abstract, bloodlessbeing who exits only in the imagination wouldtherefore be a futile waste of rime. Everyone learnsto speak a certain language as a child, and in thatlanguage he receives all kinds of religious and moralconcepts, which as a rule he retains to the end of hislife and which rule all his thinking and willing.

The modern method, which seeks to study allreligions without making any prior judgments so asto select one at the end, runs into all kinds of in-superable practical and theoretic al al objections.Everyone immediately sees the impossibility ofsuch an attempt to rid oneself of all convictions andpreconceptions planted in the heart by birth andbreeding before and during scientific investigation.Even in a thoroughgoing unbeliever the religiousimpressions of childhood continue to exercise someinfluence. And even theological faculties, althoughthey may have been converted into faculties of reli-gion,* continue to feel the influence of their Roman Ca-tholic, Lutheran, or Reformed origin and environment.


*A change from confessional theology to the comparativestudy of religions. (trans.)


Moreover, the method of arriving at the purereligion through a comparative study of religionsalso deserves to be theoretically condemned in thename of science. Whoever studies the variousreligions under the auspices of any scientificdiscipline proceeds from the belief that they aresomething other, something more than a pathologyof the human spirit. He proceeds from the truth ofreligion as such, and thus from the existence of God,from the value and right of metaphysics, from theidea of unity and development, plan and purpose inthe history of religions. In order to study thereligions, compare them, judge them according totheir true, distinct values, we require a standard, anidea of religion, no matter how vague and general,which precedes such study and evaluation, andwhich guides and rules it. A purely positivistic con-ception of science is untenable not only in theologybut also in the science of comparative religion.

The study of religions has, furthermore, achievedone important benefit: it has shed clear light on thesuperiority of the Christian religion over all otherreligions. There are, it is true, a few scatteredgroups in Europe and America who give precedenceto Buddhism or Islam and have formally switchedto these religions. And much greater are the ranksof those who feel they don't need Christianity, canlead rich lives without it, and hate it all their lives.In fact, untold numbers are turning their backs onChristianity in humanistic pride or in practical in-difference and are seeking satisfaction in paganism.


Yet, none of this detracts from the fact that thereligious and ethical makeup of Christianity is farsuperior to that of all other religions. Nowhere elseare nature and history, man and world, heart andconscience conceived with such intimate truth andso true to reality as in the Christian religion. Ourself-knowledge and our knowledge of the world con-tinually verify the knowledge of God revealed inHoly Scripture. This is the light on the path thatleads through creation, and which is itself clarifiedand confirmed by all of nature and the whole historyof mankind. We have no idea what we would bemissing, into what dire spiritual poverty we wouldsink if the Christian religion and all its influence andimpact were suddenly excised from our society andculture. If the Christian religion is not the truereligion, there is every reason to despair of truth inthe area of religion. Practically and concretely thequestion regarding certainty of faith comes down tothis: In what way can the truth of Christianity bedemonstrated and impressed on our souls so we areconvinced?

There are primarily two ways that are recom-mended. One is the way that first demonstrates thetruth of natural theology through the proofs ofGod's existence and of the independence and im-mortality of the soul; this approach then derivesproof for the truth of Christianity from thereliability of the apostles, the prophecies andmiracles of Holy Scripture, the teachings and life ofJesus, the continuance and spread of the church,


etc. This method seeks to convince us byreasonable, scientific methods.

This way is not forbidden, impossible or un-profitable. Even the prophets, apostles and JesusHimself used it to move their listeners to faith.Jesus' miracles are signs of His Sonship and Hedemands belief in His person, that the Father is inHim and He in the Father, on the basis of the worksHe did (John 10:38). Christian theologians havealways made use of these proofs in order to silenceopponents and clear a way for faith. They give thedefenders of Christianity the weapons with which torepel all kinds of scientific attacks. These proofsenable them to skilfully defend themselves againstcriticism that subjects the object of their faith toscience. And Christians are able to show that asmuch, and usually more, can be said in support offaith than of unbelief.

It is therefore wrong to deprive oneself of theseproofs because of doubt and distrust, retreatingbehind the bulwark of mysticism and agnosticism.Anyone who despairs beforehand of his cause ren-ders himself unfit for the battle and prepares fordefeat. In the scientific arena, too, believers arecalled to give a reason for the hope that is in themand, trusting steadfastly in the rightness of theirown cause, to stop the mouths of their opponentsand repulse their attacks.

Christianity does, after all, have a historical side.It encompasses God's eternal thoughts as theyhave entered into temporal forms. Its focal point is


the incarnation of the Word and it rests on arevelation with a long, rich history that comprisespart of the world as a whole, and as such is ac-cessible to historical study. Although the proofsmay be insufficient to move someone to believe inthe truth of Christianity, on the other hand belief inthat truth would certainly have no right to exist , ifthis revelation could be proved to be unhistorical.For faith is not only trust, it is also knowledge andassent and cannot live by cunningly devised fables.

The proofs for the divine testimony of the HolyScriptures at least possess the power to make itclear that to believe is not unreasonable or nonsen-sical. We certainly don't have recourse tomathematical proofs, but these are not available inany area of history. History is not a mathematicalproblem. Nevertheless, the inward and outwardcharacteristics of revelation do without a doubt addup in number and force against its opponents.

Numerous arguments have been introduced overthe years to challenge the genuineness andreliability of the Holy Scriptures, but many soonappeared to be unconvincing and had to be takenback. Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) declared thatthe time was past in which we could see in the oldestChristian writings a tissue of deceptions and distor-tions, for the reports we have about the origin ofChristianity are correct in broad outline. Egyptianand Assyrian archeological discoveries haveestablished beyond doubt that all claims about thelack of culture in Moses' day and the impossibility


that the decalogue had been delivered at that timeare completely untenable. If in the Scriptures wewere dealing with ordinary history, and sinful self-interest and human hardness of heart played no role,the proofs for their truth would generally be re-garded as sufficient. The blame for man's unbelieflies not in God and His revelation but in man him-self.

Insufficiency of Proofs

Nevertheless, because of the subjective in-clination of the human heart, all proofs are insuf-ficient to move man to believe. The word of theGospel itself lacks the power. How then could thisbe strengthened by human proofs for the truth ofthat word? These proofs are usually of a moreor less scientific nature and are the result of a greatdeal of study and reflection. Before they werediscovered, they could, of course, do no service.Now that they do exist, they are usually known andunderstood only by the highly educated. Moreover,closer investigation and more serious reflection mayrob them of all or part of their strength. They aretherefore of importance in any scientific struggle,but for religion they have only a limited value, forno person's religious life is based on or nurtured bysuch proofs. For this we can be thankful. Therevelation given us in God's Word is for everyone,for the learned as well as the common man. Its


truth may not hinge on scientific investigationswhich are accessible only to the wise and learned.

This is why revelation possesses a wholly uniquecharacter. It is history; it consists of words and factsthat have obtained a place in the life and history ofmankind. But its entire development is ruled by onespecial, divine idea. Revelation is an organism witha life of its own. At work in it are powers that arenot earthly but heavenly, not temporal but eternal,not human but divine. It is flesh in its wholemanifestation, but that flesh is inhabited by theWord, which is with God and which is God Himself.It is not just a witness about events in the pastwhich no longer concern us; as a witness of themiraculous deeds of God in days gone by, it is aword that even now still goes out from God to man,calling him back to His fellowship.

Just as history in general is no mere sum of in-cidents but an organic unity of interrelated eventstied together by a single idea, so the words and factsthat belong to the sphere of special revelation com-prise a system ruled by one thought, one plan, onegoal. Anyone who doesn't understand this thoughtdoesn't understand revelation. That person cuts theheart, the soul, the life out of the organism and isleft with nothing but a dry skeleton which fallsapart and is destined for the charnel house. Thenthe words and facts, which derive their value fromrevelation, lose their meaning and significance,because they then must be explained on a naturallevel and judged by human standards. The


inevitable result is that the unity of Scripture, theunity of faith, the unity of the church, and the unityof theology disappears.

If the history of revelation is not grasped anddescribed from the viewpoint of its own idea, it alsostops being history in the ordinary, natural sense ofthe word. The Holy Scriptures constantly disap-point us if we subject them to the same demands weput on other historical sources. Certainly the booksof the Old Testament do not enable us to write anordinary history of Israel. The Gospels are just asunsatisfactory for a continuous narrative of the lifeof Jesus. And the Epistles constantly let us down ifwe use them to acquaint ourselves with the lives ofthe apostles or the history of the church during thefirst century. All these writings are composed fromthe viewpoint of faith. None of them is the productof a so-called presuppositionless, scientific,historical investigation. All are the testimonies ofbelievers. Anyone who tries to write a regularhistory of Israel, of Jesus, or of the apostles apartfrom the idea of revelation will find himself constant-ly forced to resort to hypotheses, to fill the gapswith conjecture, to emend, criticize and register thesources in order to achieve a continuous whole.

From this special character of revelation it direct-ly follows that reasonable scientific proofs are in-sufficient to establish the truth of the Christianreligion beyond a reasonable doubt in the same wayas that of ordinary historical events. All thoseproofs only touch the facts externally and do not


penetrate to their heart and essence. In the words ofNathasius, they lead us to the empty tomb but notto the living Savior. At most they lead to ahistorical faith. In the Roman Catholic scheme thisis enough to receive supernatural grace throughbaptism, and even within Protestantism it is notdevoid of all significance; nevertheless, it is not thegenuine, true faith.

Historical faith reduces revelation to ordinaryhistory that took place in the past but no longerconcerns us. It removes from the Word of God thatwhich is the core and what today still makes it anevangel, the good news of salvation. It is nothingmore than a rational assent to some past events,without any involvement of heart and without achange of direction in one's life. The RomanCatholic Church also claims such faith is insuf-ficient for salvation. According to the RomanCatholic confession, this faith must be supple-mented by love and receive its form and featuresfrom love in order to justify and sanctify man. Thissupplement, however, introduces no real change in-to the essence of faith. It leaves the ordinaryhistorical character of faith unchallenged; in aquestionable manner it shifts the onus from faith tolove, from the gospel to the law, from religion tomorality.

Over against this the Reformation took theposition that revelation was not merely a narrativeof past events but a word of God to us. Therefore,faith wasn't just assent to the truth of historical


reports but a heartfelt trust in the good news ofsalvation. The Reformation thereby restored therevelatory character to revelation, and the personalrelation between God and man to faith. It againmade them religion.

The Liberal Solution

For all these reasons we have cited againsthistorical proofs, many theologians followingFriedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), began tochampion another method to demonstrate the truthof the Christian religion and to lead people to thecertainty of faith—the method of experience. Thismethod held that the revelation given us in Scrip-ture, particularly in the person of Christ, carries aunique character. It is not a product of scientificpropositions that can be made acceptable to reasonby proofs. Nor is it a mere doctrine requiring onlyintellectual agreement. No, Scriptural revelation islife; it has a religious-ethical content, which servesto make a man wise unto salvation, to make him in-dependent from the world so he can stand in thefreedom of the glory of the children of God.

The truth of that revelation can therefore berecognized only by the conscience, by the heart, bythe will. It must be practically experienced, ex-perientially known; one must feel it in the soul.Don't the Scriptures say only the pure of heart willsee God? Only those who are born again will enter


the Kingdom of Heaven? Only those who do the willof the heavenly Father will confess that Jesusdoesn't speak from Himself but that His teachingsare from God.

The gospel of Christ does not address itself firstof all to man as a moral being. It confronts him withthe ethical choice of either remaining subject to theworld and sin or sharing in the new life of freedomissuing from the influence of Christ's image in theScriptures and in the church. Those who join in thefaith of the church and allow themselves to be in-fluenced by the image of Christ will have a savingexperience. The gospel comforts the conscience,brings peace to the heart, strengthens the will, andendows the whole person with the power to live anew life. This experience assures one of the truth ofthe Christian religion, of the revelation of God'sgrace in Christ, and of one's own citizenship in theKingdom of Heaven.

Among those who base the truth of Christianityand the certainty of salvation on such an experi-ence, there is a marked difference in the character aswell as the content of their experience. Some have inmind an experience that is the fruit of a specialoperation of the Holy Spirit. Others regard it as aproduct of the image of Christ as it speaks to us inthe Scriptures and lives on in the church. Stillothers see it as not much more than a furtherdevelopment of the religious, moral experiencesthat everyone undergoes in his heart and consciencefrom time to time.


Similarly there are also great differences aboutthe content of such experiences. There are thosewho seek to construct an entire confessionaldogmatics on it, for example, a Lutheran one.Others infer from it the religious-ethical truth ofScripture or the doctrine of the person and work ofChrist. Still others believe this experience onlyestablishes the inner life of Christ, that is, theethical greatness of Jesus, apart from His miracles,His supernatural birth, His resurrection and ascen-sion. Harnack even asserted that the person ofChrist does not belong in the original gospel.

Experience as the Ground of Certainty

These diverging viewpoints on the nature andcontent of religious experience make it clear that wemust carefully distinguish here between truth anderror, and be on guard for misunderstanding. Upondeeper reflection, we become increasingly convincedof this, for if we take experience to mean sense per-ception—as we do when we speak of the experi-mental sciences—then there is no place for ex-perience in religious knowledge. The real content ofthe Christian faith, whether it be taken in a broaderor narrower sense to include only moral truths oralso the person of Christ, the trinity, the incar-nation and Christ's propitiation, is entirely beyondexperience. It cannot be seen or heard, measured orweighed. And it is completely impossible to


establish the truth of that faith by experiment.If experience is taken in the sense of inner ex-

perience, it is true beyond doubt that the Christianfaith brings with it a wealth of experiences. Guiltfeelings, concerns about sin, accusations of con-science, fears about death and eternity, the need forredemption, hope in Christ, peace in His blood,reconciliation with God, fellowship with Himthrough the Holy Spirit, consolation of the heart,joy of the soul, foretastes of eternal life and manyother humbling and comforting experiences—to agreater or lesser degree these ZIT all part of the lifeof those who follow the Christian way of salvation.The Christian faith awakens a whole world ofemotions in the human heart, ranging on the scalefrom groans of utter brokenness to the jubilantsong of blessed exultation.

But all these experiences presuppose, accompanyand follow faith. They are not its ground and do notprecede it. Anyone who does not believe the Scrip-tures' teachings on sin and does not acknowledgethem as a revelation from God, also will not be over-come by a sense of guilt. Anyone who does not con-fess Christ to be the Savior of the world will notseek propitiation for sin in His blood. Similarly,anyone who does not believe in the Holy Spirit willnever taste His fellowship. And anyone who doubtsthe existence of God cannot rejoice in being Hischild and heir. Those who come to God must, inshort, believe that He exists, and that He rewardsthose who seek Him.


All these truths, which constitute the content ofthe Christian faith, are also by their very nature im-possible to experience personally. They are, afterall, not innate ideas; we cannot dredge them up fromthe hidden treasure of our hearts simply bythinking hard. We can only learn about them if weare told by someone else. No one knows by naturethat God is the Almighty, Creator of heaven andearth, that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son,conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virginMary, that He suffered under Pontius Pilate, died,was buried, descended into hell, arose, ascended in-to heaven until He shall come again to judge the

livingand the dead, that the Holy Spiritregenerates man and leads him into the truth, thatthere is one holy, catholic church to which in graceGod has given the gifts of the communion of thesaints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection ofthe body and the life everlasting.

It was a common practice to derive the resurrec-tion from the experience of God's children. And thepower of the resurrection is indeed revealed inbelievers. The new, spiritual life flows to them fromthis source. They are born again to a living hopethrough the resurrection of Christ. Faith, theforgiveness of sins, the hope of glory, dying inChrist are built on the resurrection, and without itthese experiences would be no more than vainillusions.

Nevertheless, it is self-deception to think that thereality of the resurrection of Christ can be deduced


from the new life of the children of God apart fromthe Scriptures. The Christian knows that he owesthis new life to Christ's resurrection only from theapostolic witness. This is the only way he can cometo know it here on earth. The inner experience of thepower of Christ's resurrection presupposes faith inthat resurrection. Without it, the believer could notrecognize this experience for what it is.

The Failure of Experience

The method that seeks to derive the objective factsof Christendom from the religious experience ofthe church by reasoning from effect to cause oughtto be rejected. The Holy Scriptures never point usin that direction. In I Corinthians 15, Paul doespoint out to the church of Corinth the indissolubleunity between the blessings believers share in andthe resurrection of Christ. But he does so only afterestablishing and confirming it with the witness ofScripture and the appearance of the risen Savior.The Holy Scriptures never make a believer depen-dent only on himself. They always bind him tothe objective word—to the law and the witness. Ifthey do not speak according to this word, they haveno light of dawn. If they have rejected the word ofthe LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have? Thechurch is built on the foundation of the apostles andprophets. Paul threatens with God's curse anyonewho preaches another gospel.


One cannot counter by recalling the words of theSamaritans, who said they no longer believed simplyon the basis of what the woman at the well had toldthem, but because they had heard Christ Himself andknew that He truly was the Savior of the world. Wemay, to be sure, conclude from this that in thegospel it all comes down to personal faith, in-dividual conviction. But in no way does this suggestthat faith is independent or should gradually makeitself independent of the witness of the apostles.The apostles have a much different task relative tothe church than the woman at the well had inrelation to her fellow townsmen. They soon metJesus themselves; they heard His words and sawHis deeds. But we do not meet Jesus; we cannothear or see Him except in the witness of theapostles. Our fellowship with Christ is bound to ourfellowship with their words.

John does testify that believers have for Christ'ssake received the anointing of the Holy Spirit andtherefore know all things and don't need anyone toteach them. But this also does not mean thatbelievers can bring forth the truth out of them-selves through reasoning. The believers to whomJohn was writing had already heard theproclamation of the gospel. They knew its contentand perhaps they had no need of anyone to teachthem more than what accorded with the contents ofthe gospel. They had only to stick with what theyhad heard from the beginning, and they wouldremain in the Son and the Father. What the


apostles saw and heard, they proclaimed; so thatthose who believed might have fellowship withthem and with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

In essence, all the truths of the Christian faithcome to man from the outside. They are known tohim only through revelation, and they become hispossession only when he accepts them like a child infaith. Faith, including genuine, saving faith,therefore always involves knowledge. Not an im-mediate, direct knowledge, not a knowing from faceto face, not seeing. Not a knowledge gained throughpersonal investigation, argument and proof,through observation and experiment. But aknowledge gained from a reliable witness. Not untilwe know and acknowledge truth in this way can itevoke trust and stir up different kinds of experi-ences in the heart. As long as the Christian faithretains its uniqueness, this knowing and assentingelement cannot be denied. Only when faith is com-pletely robbed of its Christian character and con-tent can it lose this element, but then it also stopsbeing a religious concept. In rationalism, which stillclings to the trilogy of God, virtue, and immortality,the focal point is no longer faith but works, notreligion but morality.

The inadequacy of the method of experience isabundantly clear because at various timeseverything or nothing can be deduced from it, andnot without justification. All religions awakenreligious emotions and experiences. If they give usthe right to conclude to the truth of that faith and of


its content, in philosophical language, if judgmentsof value are the ground and proof of judgments ofbeing, then the Buddhist can conclude to the truthof nirvana from his experience, the Muslim mysticsimilarly to the reality of his sensible heaven andthe Roman Catholic to the right of the cult of thevirgin Mary. And all of them could agree with Zin-zendorf, giving this ultimate ground for their faith:Es ist mir so, mein Herz sagt mir das (It is so to me;my heart tells me).

When we get down to essentials, this experientialmethod resembles that of pietism, which reversedthe order and made experience the foundation offaith. There is a difference, however. Pietism usedits method against dead orthodoxy and did not in-tend to throw doubt on the objective truth of theChristian religion. In recent times, however, thismethod became attractive because the certainty offaith had been lost and this was seen as the onlyway to restore it.

This method arose after Kant restricted man'sknowing capacities to the sensible world and afterhistorical criticism had thrown doubt on the truthof Scripture. It is a child of unbelief but harbors thesecret hope of nevertheless being able to salvagesome faith. It is a secret hope that science willrespect the inner sanctity of the soul and leave theplant of religion to subsist there undisturbed. Itconcedes everything—the whole world, nature,history, and almost the whole man with his sensesand perceptions, memory and imagination, under-


standing and reason—to positivistic science, as longas it is permitted to retain a small, modest placesomewhere deep in man's heart for faith. To thisend it surrenders bulwark after bulwark, allowingman to apply his self-emancipation and seculariza-tion even to the largest part of theology anddogmatics. In the thought of its most consistent in-terpreters it is left with nothing more than a fewuniversal religious concepts.

The Appeal of the Gospel

This experiential method, thus, does not lead toits intended goal. It attempts to uphold thereligious character of revelation but makes its con-tent dependent on the believer's experience, therebyrisking the danger of losing all objective truth.Nevertheless, we must be grateful for the reminderthat Christianity is not science or philosophy butreligion. There are indeed no scientific proofs orphilosophical arguments that can move man to ac-cept the gospel. Generally speaking, the rule ap-plies, as we have said, that you can't argue withsomeone who is principially opposed to you.

This is especially true in the area of religion,because the gospel presents itself as standingabove and in opposition to the natural man. It ismeant for him, but it does not accord with histhoughts and inclinations. It claims to be of divineorigin and therefore demands a different inclination


than is man's by birth. If man could be compelled toaccept God's Word through scientific reasoning, thegospel would not gain but lose force. It wouldthereby be robbed of its special character, of itsdivine origin, of its religious content, and of itssaving purpose, and it would be reduced to an or-dinary, fallible, rational and human level.

If neither rational argument nor moral experiencecan explain how the Christian faith comes intobeing, the question arises whether there isn't a bet-ter way in which man may be led to trustingly em-brace the truth revealed in Christ. And then weought first of all to remind ourselves that thegospel, however it may be viewed and misinter-preted, despite all opposition, still continues to bepreached from century to century, and regardless ofall differences in interpretation has as its principalcontent that Jesus Christ came into the world tosave sinners. This is how the gospel encounterseveryone who has come into contact with it, be itearly or late, be they young or old. Whether he ac-cepts or rejects it, it comes to him calling for faithand repentance. This is an unalterable fact. That thegospel is made known to us, confronting us with thecall to believe and repent, does not depend on ourwill but on a decree of God. It is He who ordains usto be born to Christian parents, raised in a Christianenvironment, and without any merit on our partmakes us acquainted with the way of salvation in Christ.

To sum up, there exists one holy, catholic churchwhich, as the pillar and bulwark of the truth, main-


thins the mystery of godliness: God is revealed inthe flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by the angels,preached among the heathens, believed in theworld, lifted up into glory. The church's witnesswould doubtlessly be stronger and its impact morepowerful if all Jesus' disciples were one, as theFather is in Him and He in the Father. Then theworld would almost be forced to confess in spite ofitself that Christ was sent by the Father. But evennow, despite all its inner divisions, the church is apillar and bulwark of the truth amidst the world.What divides it, no matter how serious, is alwaysless than what binds it together and unifies it. Themore self-conscious and bolder that unbeliefbecomes, the more the Christian church closesranks against the common foe. What it has to saveand defend is one spiritual, holy possession. And tothe world its confession sounds like the voice ofmany waters saying that there is no other name un-der heaven given to men by which they must besaved than the name of Jesus.

The Spirit of the Lord is operative in that con-fession, convicting the world of sin, righteousnessand judgment. God does not leave Himself withouta witness to anyone in nature. He does not proveHis existence and does not make it dependent uponour investigation, but He witnesses to Himself inour hearts and consciences, through nature andhistory, life and destiny, and this witness is sopowerful that no man can avoid it, no one can con-tinue to resist it.


There may be all kinds of objections to be raisedagainst the existence of a personal God. Accordingto our limited insight there may be numerousphenomena and events that don't agree with it.Nevertheless, it is an established fact for everyhuman being. This is also true of the gospel ofChrist. It exists; it is brought to us in many waysand in widely differing circumstances; it reaches outto us at every moment during our life's journey.

And this brings us to the second thing that weshould remind ourselves of: the gospel never stopsmaking an impression on our hearts. The only in-fluence proper to the Word of God, considered in it-self as word, is, by the nature of the case, a moral in-fluence. It can make an impression withoutmolding the will and changing the heart. Never-theless, it is not an empty sound or a clanging cym-bal. It never returns void but does everything theLord has sent it to do. It is in itself a light upon thepath and a lamp unto the feet, even though becauseof the blindness of his eyes man may not be able tosee it. Although it does not make his truth depen-dent on reasoning and proof, the Word of God doesnot sidestep them either. Precisely at the momentwhen we in our wisdom think we have shoverfoolishness, it is revealed as the wisd om--of God. It does not direct its 1'1;science, to our reason to be shat

accepted as truth or rejected at,it wish to be judged by our start'

before our tribunals. But it lifts


our insight, asserts itself as a judge of our thoughtsand desires, and summons us with all that we areand have before His tribunal. It directs itself to thewhole man, to his understanding and reason, to hisheart and conscience, to man in his hidden depths,to the core of his being, to man in his relationship toGod. It assumes nothing on his part other than thathe is a sinner who needs reconciliation and peaceand salvation. And it promises and gives these tohim by way of faith and repentance.

In both respects the gospel answers to the mostperfect and beautiful idea of religion we can form forourselves. For on the one hand it is nothing but thegood news of grace and salvation. It doesn't pose asingle demand—not of age or generation, of race orlanguage, of class or wealth. It poses no conditions,it asks nothing, it demands nothing, it is no law butthe opposite of all law. It is broadly human andcompletely universal, because it presupposesnothing but what is common to all men, namely, theneed to be freed from the misery of sin. In accord-ance with this, on the other hand, the gospel con-fronts man with nothing but a moral choice, thechoice to accept the gift of God's grace in faith or tospurn it in hardness of heart.

Faith as Ethical Choice

That the difference between belief and unbelief isnot merely one of insight but of ethical choice is


testified to by the conscience of everyone who livesout of the gospel. Everyone is from time to timeplagued by a sense of guilt and misery. In the bestand most sacred moments of life the question in-voluntarily arises whether the gospel might not bedivine truth. An unbeliever is never sure. How cansomeone who puts his trust in man believe with un-shakable certainty that Jesus Christ did not comeinto the world to save sinners? Who would risk hisname and reputation, his possessions and life forsuch a negative faith? Who would dare, who wouldbe able to go forward joyfully to martyrdom withsuch a denial on his lips? A negation inspires nomartyrs, which shows that its deepest ground andorigin is not in rational reflection, in philosophicalreasoning, or in critical doubt, but in hardness ofheart. And this moral guilt of unbelief again sup-ports the truth of the gospel. For no religion can bethe true religion if, when I scorn it, it does not in myconscience make me guilty before God.

The choice for or against the gospel involves amoral decision because the promises embraced inthe gospel exclude all compulsion. No one is made tobelieve against his will. Faith is a function of under-standing that has been moved to acknowledge thetruth of the gospel by the will. The whole man istherefore involved in believing—with his reason,with his will, with his heart, in the core of his being,in the deepest part of his existence. Knowing him-self to be guilty and lost, man, in faith, surrendershimself wholly to God's grace in Christ. He ceases


fighting the war he has long been waging in his con-science against the witness of the Holy Spirit. Heleads all his thoughts captive to the obedience ofChrist. As we said earlier, what is at issue in religionis always the highest interest, the highest good manrecognizes for himself, for his own life, for thepreservation of his soul. The Christian religionteaches us that the highest good for man is found inGod alone, in fellowship with Him, in heavenlysalvation. Faith is a thoroughly personal matter, aretying of the bonds that tie the soul to God, arenunciation of all creaturely things to place allone's trust in God, whether in life or death. Faith isan inattention to the things one sees in order to takeinto account those that are invisible but yet eternaland imperishable.

The nature of faith also makes it clear thatanother power is necessary to move man to faiththan the moral influence proceeding from thegospel. In order to believe, freely, willingly and withone's whole mind, one needs a new heart and achanged will. Who can initiate these changes? Theword can serve as medium, and the rational andmoral proofs may serve to recommend faith toman's conscience. But ultimately, even takentogether, they are not able to effect in man's heartthe faith that turns him away from all createdreality and allows him to put his trust in God alone.The Scriptures place this witness in the forefront,prior to all experience. Flesh and blood do not revealthe mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but only


the Father of Jesus, who is in heaven. It is his goodpleasure to hide these things from the wise andlearned, and to reveal them to children.

At first glance this might seem illogical, yet it isvery reasonable. Just as knowledge only occurswhen the known object and the knowing subjectagree, so true knowledge of God is possible onlythrough faith, which He Himself quickens in ourhearts. No one knows the Father but the Son and towhom the Son wishes to reveal Him. This shouldnot discourage us and prompt us to ask: Then whocan be saved? All men, even the most lost andfallen, are offered the great consolation that in Godall things are possible.

The experience of all believers confirms thistestimony of Scripture. No matter how they maydiffer and how their beliefs may diverge, in theirprayers and praises all believers confess before theface of God that they owe their faith and hope toHis grace alone. They cannot explain how they ob-tained it in any other way. All origins are hidden inthe veil of mystery; all birth is from darkness intolight. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear it,but you don't know where it's going. Thus it is witheveryone born of the Spirit of God. The man blindfrom birth could only testify, One thing I know:once I was blind, but now I see. So the man who hascome to Christ in faith sees and judges andevaluates everything differently. What once wasfoolishness to him, he now honors as divine wisdom.What he rejected as an offense, he now considers his


highest joy. Although everything may oppose it,although everything may seem to contradict it,although the whole world and his conscience shouldaccuse him that he has grievously sinned against allGod's commandments and still is inclined to all evil,the believer can only testify that out of pure graceGod gives him the righteousness of Christ andreckons it to him, as if he had never sinned, as if hehad himself accomplished the absolute obediencethat Christ has attained for him. Thus, faith is anact of moral energy, an act of the highest spiritualpower; it is God's work par excellence because it isHis most precious and most glorious gift. Faithclings to God as though seeing the Invisible,knowing His love, depending on His grace andhoping in His faithfulness.

Faith and the Word of God

From this center the believer feels himself to be incommunion with the saints; he is ever more in-timately bound to the whole truth, to the full, richwitness of the apostles and the prophets, to the en-tire Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. This bondof the soul to the Scriptures undoubtedly possessesa myatical character, as does all love and all in-clinations of the heart, but it is not thereforeirrational and ungrounded. It is true that faith byno means accepts as divine truth only what it hasitself experienced or can infer from its own inner


experience, because the emotions generally, andeven more so in believers, trail far behind faith.God's revelation in the Scriptures has been givennot to a single member of the church but to thechurch of all ages, all times and in all circumstancesto be a source of the truth and a means of grace.

But faith does not blindly accept everything thata philosopher or artist, church or priest presents astruth. Nowadays many seek to tread a middle way,drawing on the subjective certainty and comfort ofreligion while surrendering its objective truth andknowability. This makes religion a private matter, apsychological need: whatever someone considersuseful and necessary to believe at a given time andplace is deemed to be true.

But if religion in the objective sense doesn't existor is unknowable, its subjective certainty is anillusion. If Christ did not rise from the dead, allpreaching is futile and so is all faith. To be accept-able to faith, a word must present, confirm and sealitself as a word from God. From its very inceptionand as the Reformation returning to Scripture againclarified it, faith has a religious character. It is notfirst a historical knowledge which later is sup-plemented and completed by trust or love. From thevery beginning it is a religious state, a practicalknowing, a knowledge that applies to myself, anappropriation of the promises God made to me.

But such appropriation is possible only if a wordpresents and confirms itself to me as a word fromGod. If Scripture were nothing more than a


narrative of past events it could be accepted only onhistorical grounds by an historical faith. Butalthough it is also history, in that history it is morethan a narrative, it is a word from God that comesto man calling him to faith and repentance. As such,it can be known through genuine faith. Whoever ac-cepts its testimony confirms that God is truthful.Promise and faith are correlates; they addressthemselves to one another. The more the Christiandevelops, the more he roots himself in that Word,learning to know it better and to value it more. Inthe same act of faith he also embraces Christ, whoselikeness comes to him unadulterated in the Scrip-ture's witness of Him.

Therefore, faith is not the ground that carries thetruth, nor is it the source from which knowledgeflows to him, but it is the soul's organ; it recognizesthe objective, self-subsistent truth. Faith is thepail with which the believer draws the water oflife from the wellspring of God's Word. In all per-ception and thought, agreement between subjectand object is required. It isn't enough for the sun toshine in the heavens. Man also needs eyes in orderto see the sun by its own light. It isn't enough thatthe visible world is the embodiment of thought.Man also needs a mind to follow those thoughts andreceive them into his consciousness. Similarly, thebeliever is nothing more than a normal human beingwhose eyes have been opened to the eternal andheavenly things, whose heart has again learned tounderstand the mysteries of the Kingdom of


Heaven. The Christian does not construct hisknowledge of the truth from faith, but through faithhe penetrates ever deeper into the mysteries ofsalvation. The Word of God is always the solidground on which he stands, the rock to which heclings, the starting point of his thought, the sourceof his knowledge, the rule of his life, the light on hispath and the lamp for his feet.

The Dimensions of Certainty

But the certainty of truth is not enough for aChristian. He also needs the certainty of salvation.He will only be able to rest and glory in the freedomof the children of God when his faith is certain notonly of the object on which he depends but also ofhimself. These two kinds of certainty, easilydistinguished, cannot be separated. They areclosely interrelated; the one does not exist withoutthe other.

In this way faith is like knowledge. A charac-teristic of knowledge is certainty not only of its ob-ject but at the same time also of itself. If we reallyknow something for certain, at the same time wespontaneously and immediately know that weknow. Genuine, true knowledge excludes all doubtregarding itself. It reaches this certainty not byrational argument, and not by self-reflection orby logical inference; the light that knowledge shedson the known object immediately reflects back on


itself and expels all darkness. This is also true offaith. Faith that really deserves the name brings itsown certainty.

Within faith we can again distinguish betweenwhat our fathers called the outgoing and the return-ing acts of faith, between the shelter-seeking andthe assured trust of faith, between the being andthe well-being of faith. But as fine as these dis-tinctions may be, they must not be made intodivisions. Faith is not an assemblage, which like amachine is put together from different parts andgradually molded into a unit. Nor is it a gift that isimposed from the top upon our own nature, alwaysremaining inwardly alien to it. But it is a restorationof the right relationship between God and man, thereturn of the trust a normal child places in hisfather. In the state and attitude of the soul whichthe Holy Scriptures call faith, certainty is includedby its very nature—certainty first of all regardingGod's promises given us in the gospel, but also cer-tainty that by grace we too share in these promises.

The latter form of certainty does not come to faithfrom the outside; it is not mechanically added on; itis not joined to it by a special revelation. This cer-tainty is contained in faith from the outset and intime organically issues from it. Faith is certaintyand as such excludes all doubt. Whoever is strickenby guilt and crushed and honestly seeks refuge inChrist is already a believer. To the degree that heexercises a shelter-seeking trust he also possessesan assured trust. How else would a sinner convicted


of his own guilt ever dare to approach God andevoke His grace unless in the depth of his heart,without being consciously aware of it himself, heshared in the certainty of faith and the hope thatthe Father of Jesus Christ is merciful and great inloving kindness?

Sometimes this is pictured as though the sinner,convinced like Esther of his sinfulness, turns to Godwith the words on his lips, "And if I perish, Iperish." The trust that flees to God for shelter is notan uncertain experiment nor a doubting calculationof chances; it means standing on the promises ofGod that He will not cast out anyone who cries toHim in Christ for grace and forgiveness. Theassured trust is thereby included in this shelter-seeking trust. And both develop together. Thestronger the shelter-seeking trust becomes, thestronger becomes the assured trust. And if the lat-ter is small and weak, we may confidently concludethat the first too is needy and incomplete. Faith,therefore, does not attain certainty regarding itselfthrough logical reasoning nor through constantlyexamining itself and reflecting on its own nature.Kant's Critique of Pure Reason hardly helps toestablish our certainty. But certainty flows to usimmediately and directly out of faith itself. Certain-ty is an essential characteristic of faith; it is in-separable from it and belongs to its nature.

Nevertheless, even in the most sanctifiedChristian, faith is often mixed with doubt; thisdoubt, however, does not originate in the new man


but in the old. When, in the light of the Spirit, theobject of faith places itself before the eye of thesoul, that same light illuminates faith and raises itbeyond all doubt. Just as the Israelites in the desertwere healed not when they looked into themselvesbut when they looked up at the raised snake, so thebeliever becomes sure of his salvation when he ex-pects it not from his faith but through faith fromGod's grace. This certainty is and will always be acertainty of faith, very distinct in source and naturefrom scientific certainty, but no less fixed and un-shakable for that. It doesn't rest on humanreasoning, but on the Word, the promises of God,the gospel, which poses no conditions but onlyproclaims that everything has been accomplished.All we have to do is enter into that accomplishedwork and rest in it for eternity.

Certainty a Danger?

Often the Christian church has not dared toproclaim this rich, free gospel and has tailored it toman's opinions. Already in Paul's day many wereafraid grace would be abused and made an occasionfor the flesh, that people would begin to sin more sograce might abound. In numerous ways thegospel has often been transformed into a law, God'sgift turned into a demand, and His promises madeinto conditions. In the Roman Catholic Church goodworks had to come first, and in the protestant


churches many kinds of experiences were necessarybefore one could truly believe and appropriate thisrich gospel of God's grace. The priests or the guard-ians of the spiritual life only granted believers theright and the freedom of spirit to believe as the endproduct, the fruit of a series of good works orgenuine inner experiences. Faith was separatedfrom its object—the grace of God in Christ—by along list of activities, and it was duty-bound to con-stant examination of and reflection on its owndevelopment. Seeking in vain within itself and inthe tossing waves of experience that which it couldonly find outside of itself in Christ, faith lost its cer-tainty.

By its very nature and essence faith can find restin nothing but a word from God, a promise from theLord. Any other ground makes it shaky, because itis human and therefore shifting and unreliable.Only a word from God can give life to our souls andprovide an immovable foundation for the buildingof our hope. When all human things obtruding be-tween God's grace and our faith are eliminated, andwhen our faith fastens on God's promises directlyand immediately, then faith will be certain and un-shakable. Then faith no longer rests on a subjective,changeable foundation but on an objective, abidingfoundation. The unshakableness of the foundationis conveyed directly to the person who, rescued fromlife's shipwreck, plants both feet firmly on it infaith. When the plant of faith is allowed to take rootin the ground of God's promises, it will naturally


bear the fruit of certainty. The deeper and firmerthe roots anchor themselves in this ground, thestronger and taller it will grow, and the richer willbe its fruit.

The Confirmation of the Sacraments

These promises are offered to us in two forms:audible and visible, as preaching and as sacrament.The sacraments are signs and seals of the word andare therefore subject to the word. Apart from theword they have no value whatsoever and stop beingsacraments. They cannot, therefore, signify or con-vey grace that isn't already included in the wordand presented through the word by way of faith.They also presuppose faith in that word. Anyonewho doesn't accept that word in faith derivesnothing from the sacraments, and by using them heonly leaves himself all the more without excuse.Sacraments have been ordained only for believers,for they don't effect what isn't there, but onlystrengthen what is already there. They do so bytheir very essence, for they are bound to the wordand signs and seals to confirm it.

The sacraments exercise this confirming andstrengthening power in two ways. First, they sealfor the believer the promises of God that He will bea God unto them and unto their seed. He remembersHis covenant, and He gives them all the blessings ofsalvation—the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.


He will not abandon good work begun in them butwill carry it to completion. Second, through thesacramental confirmation of God's promisesbelievers are strengthened in their faith. Along withthe certainty of God's promises and theirfulfillment, the strength of faith also grows. Con-sciousness follows being. To the extent that thechild grows up into a man, he puts away childishthings and ripens into clear self-consciousness andwalks in the full light of knowledge. The emotionsretreat into the background and all of life becomesilluminated by the steadfast certainty of faith. Thisonce prompted Paul to say that God's Spirittestified with his spirit that he was a child of God.For as many as are led by the Spirit of God arechildren of God.

The Fruits of Certainty

The nature of this faith, therefore, makes itimpossible that those whom it engrafts into Christwill not produce fruits of thankfulness. Those whobelieve in righteousness by works always seem to beafraid that a faith that rests solely on God'spromises will be morally harmful. But such fear isentirely groundless and idle, for in a certain sensethere is no such thing as a dead faith without works.All faith, even normal, everyday faith, and similarlyin religion the so-called historical, temporal andmiraculous kinds of faith, bear fruit, but fruit after


its own kind. If we are away from home and receivea message that our house or family has been struckby disaster and we believe it, that does not leave usunaffected. It immediately sets us in motion andsends us speeding home. The demons, say theScriptures, believe there is one God, and becausethey believe and cannot deny it, they shudder.

Historical faith, too, which used to bind allChristendom generally to the truths of the gospel,was not without fruit, for the broad cross-section ofthe people were captivated by it and preserved frommany horrible sins. Although it is true thathypocrisy was widespread in those days and manyevils were committed in secret, that hypocrisy was,nevertheless, a homage paid by error to truth, andby sin to virtue. It certainly was no worse than thehorrible frankness with which the most awfulabominations are shamelessly committed in con-temporary society.

Consequently, every faith bears fruit according toits object and its nature. Depending on whether theobject of our faith is good or bad news, a promise orthreat, a story or prognostication, gospel or law, itwill differ in character and so will the fruit that itbears in our lives. If this is true of all faith, howmuch more true it must be of the faith rooted in aspiritual renewal of the heart, which truly receivesthe gospel as good news, depending only on God'sgrace in Christ. It cannot produce careless and im-pious people; it bears fruit according to its ownnature, fruit that glorifies the Father.


In that fruit the reality, the soundness, the powerof that faith is once again revealed. Experiences andgood works can never prove the truth of faithbeforehand. All genuine experience and all virtuousworks are not the roots, but the fruits of faith. Notuntil the promises of the gospel have been ap-propriated in faith do they exert an influence on ourhearts and lives through our consciousness. Theemotions follow understanding, and the will is ledby both. Faith is the source of emotional life and thepower animating the works of our hands. If faith,however, does not come first, no genuine experienceand no true good works can follow.

As long as we aren't certain and firm in our faithand we still doubt, we will continue to experienceanxiety and fear and will not have the boldness andtrust of children of God. We will still be far toomuch concerned with ourselves to be able to devoteour attention to works of love toward God and ourneighbor. The eye of the soul remains turned inwardand does not have a broad, liberated vision of theworld. We are still more or less subject to the spiritof fear. We still feel far from God and do not live outof fellowship with Him. Secretly we still harbor thethoughts that we must please Him with our statureand virtues, and we still act out of legalistic prin-ciples; we remain servants, not children.

But if in faith we fasten immediately onto thepromises of God and take our stand in His richgrace, then we are His children and receive theSpirit of adoption. This Spirit is appropriate to our


sonship; it testifies with our spirit that we arechildren of God. Then we feel like children; we havethe stature and experience of children and as a mat-ter of course also do good works, not for wages likeservants, but out of thankfulness.

If we are children, we are also heirs, heirs of Godand co-heirs with Christ. The reversal of the order ofsalvation—that is, the separation of faith from itsonly proper object—also had the result in the pastthat the faithful concentrated more and more onthemselves, meeting together in conventicles todiscuss spiritual matters, leaving the world to itsfate. Pietistic Christians preferred to withdrawfrom the turbulence of life into their own intimatecircles. The religious, spiritual life was the only truelife. It shunted all other activity into thebackground by deeming it of lesser worth. One wasindeed bound to a spouse, a family, a job in societyand had to devote some attention to them, but onedid so reluctantly. One's life in the world formed asharp contrast to one's spiritual life; the formeralways seemed more or less to involve serving theworld. In any case, it was life of a lower order. To sitin quiet contemplation or to relate to the circle ofthe faithful what God had wrought in one'ssoul—this was really living, this was the ideal, thiswas the Christian's real destiny.

Such a conception of the Christian's earthly taskissued from the reversal of the order of salvationthat we mentioned earlier. A Christian was asighing, burdened person who could come to cer-


tainty and rest only at the end of his life after aseries of inner experiences. Certainty became thegoal rather than the starting point of all hisstriving. To be saved was the object of all hisdesires. Unsure about his own state, he had enoughwork looking after himself and lacked the courageand strength to turn his eyes outward and assumethe work of reforming the world. It was sufficient ifat the end of his troublesome life he might be takenup into heaven. He preferred to leave the earth tothe servants of the world.

This tradition overestimated and overemphasizedthe one thing needful, which, on the other hand, isoften lacking in the busyness of contemporary life.While these nineteenth century Christians forgotthe world for themselves, we run the danger oflosing ourselves in the world. Nowadays we are outto convert the whole world, to conquer all areas oflife for Christ. But we often neglect to ask whetherwe ourselves are truly converted and whether webelong to Christ in life and in death. For this is in-deed what life boils down to. We may not banishthis question from our personal or church life underthe label of pietism or methodism. What does itprofit a man if he gain the whole world, even forChristian principles, if he loses his own soul?

But this does not suggest that the meaning of theChristian religion may be limited to the saving ofindividual souls. The situation appears much dif-ferent to those who in agreement with the Scrip-tures and with the confession of the Reformation do


not place faith at the end, but at the beginning ofthe way of salvation. This way doesn't strive forfaith, but lives out of faith. It is the way that doesnot work in order to believe, but believes in order towork. Such a Christian has found his standpoint inthe promises of God's grace in Christ. The foun-dations of his hope are fixed, for they lie outside himin God's word, which will never be moved. Hedoesn't need to constantly examine the genuinenessand strength of the foundation on which thebuilding of his salvation has been built. He is a childof God not on the basis of all kinds of inner ex-periences but on the basis of the promises of theLord. Assured of this, he can now freely lookaround and enjoy all the good gifts and the perfectgift that descends from the Father of lights.Everything is his because he is Christ's and Christis God's. The whole world becomes material for hisduty.

Religious life does have its own content and in-dependent value. It remains the center, the heartfrom which all the Christian's thoughts and actsproceed, by which they are animated and given thewarmth of life. There, in fellowship with God, he isstrengthened for his labors and girds himself for thebattle. But that mysterious life of fellowship withGod is not the whole of life. The prayer chamber isthe inner room, although it is not the whole house inwhich he lives and functions. Spiritual life does notexclude family and social life, business and politics,art and science. It is distinct from these; it is also of


much greater value, but it does not stand irrecon-cilably opposed to it. Rather it is the power thatenables us to faithfully fulfill our earthly calling,stamping all of life as service to God. The Kingdomof God is, to be sure, like a pearl more precious thanthe whole world, but it is also like a leaven thatleavens the entire dough. Faith isn't only the wayof salvation, it also involves overcoming the world.

The Christian, as he is drawn in Scripture and ashe speaks in the Heidelberg Catechism, stands andworks in this conviction. Reconciled with God, he isalso reconciled with all things. Because in theFather of Christ he confesses the Almighty, Creatorof heaven and earth, he cannot be small-hearted andconstricted in his affections. For God Himself soloved the world that He sent His only begotten Sonso that whoever believes in Him shall not perish buthave everlasting life. And this Son came to earthnot to condemn the world but to save it. In Hiscross heaven and earth are reconciled. Under Himall things shall be gathered together with Him ashead.

The history of all things proceeds according toHis counsel toward the redemption of the church asthe new humanity, toward the liberation of theworld in an organic sense, toward the new heavenand the new earth. Even now, by rights, everythingin principle belongs to the church, because it isChrist's and Christ is God's. As a priest in the tem-ple of the Lord, he who believes this is king over thewhole earth. Because he is a Christian, he is human


in the full, true sense. He loves the flowers thatgrow at his feet and admires the stars that sparkleoverhead. He does not disdain the arts, which are tohim a precious gift from God. Nor does he belittlethe sciences, for these, too, are a gift from theFather of lights. He believes that everything Godhas created is good and that, taken in thanksgiving,nothing is condemned. He labors not for success anddoesn't work for wages, but he does what comes tohand, seeing, by means of God's commandments,though ignorant of what the future may bring. Hedoes good works without thinking twice and bearsfruit before he realizes it. He is like a flower thatspreads its fragrance unawares. He is, in a word, aman of God, perfectly equipped to all good works.And while for him to live is Christ, in the end to dieis gain.

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