What Is The Opposite of Faith?

Francis Schaeffer used to explain modernity's approach to reality in terms of a two-story house. On the ground floor was physical reality, things we can measure and weigh and experiment upon. This was the floor of things we can know. On the second floor was metaphysical reality, things we cannot measure or quantify, things like God. This was the floor of things we must believe in. The problem, as Schaeffer diagnosed it, was that the goal of most modernists was to ensure that a staircase was never constructed between the two floors. There should be not real interaction between what goes on downstairs and upstairs. Science was king on the academic work week and "God" could take the evenings and weekends (especially Sunday). In this schema, everyone got along fine until some folks tried to build that staircase. These instigators came in the form of both religious theists and religious atheists.

Postmodernity quickly figured out (proving Schaeffer to be quite correct in his assertion) that you simply cannot have it this way. The house cannot exist without the staircase. The two floors cannot be disconnected because the physical makes sense of the metaphysical and the metaphysical makes sense of the physical.

Yet, as I listen to the way the common person speaks, the modern paradigm is still in place. Very often, "to know" and "to believe" are antonyms. Knowing is reserved for things of which we can be certain, which we have verified by using experimentation or analysis. Belief is reserved for the things of which we can have no certainty, things like "God." We would rather "know" than "believe" because knowledge can be tested while belief cannot. Knowledge becomes a matter of the head, belief of the heart. Knowledge is privileged while belief is privatized.

Christians have not been exempt from this type of thinking. With the war waged against Christianity by some modernists, Christians have retreated to heart-driven, privatized expressions of faith. They have become content to live life in a two-story house with no staircase. One example is the hymn "Blessed Assurance," written in 1873 by Fanny Crosby. When considering what assures her that her faith is certain (i.e. how does she know that Christ is risen?), she states, "You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart."

Is this the best answer she could come up with? The gospels all present the resurrected Christ as an historical fact to be reckoned with by all peoples in all nations for all times. It presents it not as metaphor, but as fact. It is something we must believe in by knowing (with our entire persons, not just our heart) that it happened. Crosby bifurcates knowledge and faith by placing the onus on the heart. Here, faith is exempt from knowledge and the skeptic has no access to it. The historical resurrection is kept in the upstairs. Faith and knowledge become divorced, living on different floors of the house.

But this dichotomy so typical of modernity (and the Christian response to it) is false. Christian theology has known better and where it fell into the trap of modernism, it should have known better. Even since the onset of modernity, Christianity's best expressions have never pitted knowledge against belief. In fact, these two go hand-in-hand. Faith or belief (they are the same word) cannot exist without knowledge of some sort. And knowledge cannot be acquired without faith in the truthfulness of some basic presuppositions.

We believe in the redemption accomplished for us by the triune God because we know of the accomplishment. We know of this accomplishment because we believe that it is true. We know and believe that it is true because it is recorded for us in scripture, the only infallible source of written divine revelation.

This argument is certainly circular, but that does not mean it is untrue. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1) and thus, we can never hope to achieve a certainty that is measurable according to the rubrics of the physical sciences (which, by the way, require a faith all their own). But this does not mean that the house has no staircase. Faith does have certainty, but this certainty is not separate from the faith itself. With the gift of the measure of faith given to each one of us (Rom. 12:3, Eph. 2:8) comes the certainty. Through this certainty comes knowledge which is not the opposite of faith but rather a component of it.

In short, the opposite of faith is not knowledge. The opposite of faith is doubt.

Faith in Christ should lead us to pursue a deeper and fuller knowledge of him, a pursuit which will require all of our being. Faith in Christ will not cast out knowledge, but sanctify it and put it in its proper place. Faith in Christ will, however, cast out doubt. It will bring certainty. It will deliver assurance. So when we cry, "I believe; help my unbelief," we are not asking Jesus to take from us our knowledge, but to take away our doubts. When He does this (and he does respond to this cry!) ironically for the modernist, He does it by instilling in us a deeper knowledge of him and his finished work for us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit given to us, the Helper who deepens our knowledge and faith and dispels every lingering doubt.