| Part 1 The Theory of Faith | Hirohumi Hoshika |
While many people shy away from religion because it is something they believe in that is uncertain, there are those who reject it for a slightly stronger reason. It is a rejection of the tendency for religion to be associated with a certain kind of "madness" or "fundamentalism."
People who feel this way about religion may believe that being very religious leads to undesirable antisocial tendencies, and that religious beliefs are healthy when held in moderation and do not violate societal norms. In other words, with apologies to the religious leader, it is good for religious people to retain their common sense and to have a certain degree of worldliness.
Indeed, even within the church it is not uncommon for "devout religious" people to be difficult to deal with from a social and communal point of view. However, even if this is the case, the above understanding of faith is not appropriate.
For those who feel that religion is unhealthy, I would like to consider a few things about healthy faith. First, about the distinction between knowledge and faith.
In Greek philosophy there is a concept called "the knowledge of ignorance". This means being aware of one's ignorance, in other words, being able to distinguish between what one knows and what one does not know. This principle gives Plato's portrayal of Socrates' speech a wholesome impression, but what if we think about faith in the same way?
If we can always clearly distinguish between what we know and what we believe, then our faith can be considered sound for the time being. Whatever is believed, if one is aware that it is merely a belief, it is not fanaticism.
When a person says that he "believes" in the existence of God and that while it may be an uncertain knowledge he "knows" about the historical Jesus, his faith is seen as sound. However, when he reverses the words "believe" and "know," saying "I know God" and "I firmly believe in the existence of Jesus," it gives the impression that there is something disquieting about his faith.
If these statements do not seem strange to you, and you do not see any difference from the previous statements, then I think you may have already lost sight of the distinction between knowing and believing.
To us, both God and Jesus are uncertain, but the nature of that uncertainty is different.
Common sense would suggest that God is a being beyond our ability to perceive, while Jesus, who was once with his disciples, is a being we can perceive. His uncertainty for us today is merely the uncertainty of all historical figures, and this is not limited to Jesus.
Therefore, seen in this light, it is appropriate to say that about God we "believe", about Jesus "know".
So if we can maintain this distinction throughout our faith, then our belief will be very clear and will not come to a point where it is seen as unsound. In practice, however, this distinction does not hold well. Two factors seem to be responsible.
First, the Bible describes events that seem neither heavenly nor earthly, making it difficult to make a definitive judgment about them.
Miracles of healing, such as Jesus' raising of Lazarus from the dead, and natural miracles, such as Jesus' calming of storms, no matter how astonishing they may seem, should be understood as earthly events, since they were recorded as things experienced by people at the time.
But what about the choir of angels at Jesus' birth, the voice of the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism, the appearance and ascension of the resurrected Jesus, and the visions of Jesus that appeared to Paul? Some of these things are of a nature that they were not witnessed by everyone who was there, and some of them are actually recorded in the Bible as such. It will not be easy to sort through all this and draw the line somewhere between knowing and believing.
Second, as a result of the above, the distinction between knowing and believing will be perceived differently among us, and as one might expect, it is difficult to determine which Christian believer or denomination's boundary setting is correct. When what one person considers to be a belief is another person's experience, no one has any standard for determining which is appropriate.
I once asked a pastor from a conservative church who is part of a denomination known as a "charismatic church": "Do you teach that the 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is something that if I received it, I would believe that it happened to me, or do you teach that the 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is something that you can clearly see happening to you?"
As a foreigner, once he understood the meaning of the question, he answered without hesitation: "The 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is not something you believe you have received, but an experience where you actually know it has happened."
Although I could not seek the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" as taught in that church, I thought the pastor's faith was "sound". This is because, although the criteria for what is faith and what is experience are different there from mine, the distinction between faith and experience is not lost.
At the same time, however, I also witnessed members of the church groaning for the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and trying to believe that some kind of experience constituted such a thing. I had an "unhealthy" impression of it. For what should have been a clear experience was being provided for by faith.
From this brief consideration, there are some principles that can be extracted about the “soundness” of faith. First, acknowledge that it is difficult to establish objective criteria for distinguishing between knowing and believing. Second, even so, the distinction between knowing and believing must be maintained for each believer.
It is OK for your understanding of what it means to believe and experience to differ from that of other people, and for your understanding to change over the years. However, in the distinction that you understand at any given time, you should not try to compensate for one with the other.
「聖霊のバプテスマ」が体験であると教えられている場合に、それが自分の身に実現したことを信じようとするのは危険なことである。あるいは、神が善であるという信仰から、自分の身に起こるすべてを良きこととし、その都度その良い理由を探すことも不適切な態度といえる。
これらにおいては信仰と体験の整合性を求めて、体験であるべき事柄を信じることで納得しようとしたり、信じていることを体験から保証しようとしたりしているが、それは信仰というよりは心理的な操作であり心の健全さを損ないかねないだろう。
また、イエスが歴史上に実在した人物であるということはキリスト教の大前提だが、その場合、イエスの史的不確かさは何らかの「知識」によって埋められなければならないのであって、信仰告白などの「信仰」においてそれを補うことはできないと理解されなければならない。Chapter 1 - Essay 1での、『使徒信条』に関する私の体験はこれにまつわる違和感だったのである。
しかしこういった事柄が「見ずに信じる者は幸いである」（ヨハネ20.29）というイエスの言葉についての誤解によって助長されている場合もある。教会で語られることの多いこの教えは、何の証拠もない中でもとにかく信じることが大事ということを教えるものなのではない。
ここではこの言葉が語られた文脈が重要である。
イエスにそう言われた弟子トマスは、その時点で、すでに他の弟子たちからイエスの復活についての証言を聞いていたのであり、イエスはトマスが彼らのその証言を信じなかったことに対してこれを告げたのである。
したがって、イエスの言葉の第一義は、見ていなくても聞いているならそれを信じなさいということである。
「見ることも聞くこともなく信じるのが尊い」と教えられているわけではない。「聞くことがなくてはどうして信じることができようか」（ローマ10.14）とパウロも述べるところである。