Is Faith a Feeling?
Is Faith a Feeling?
Episode 4 • Featuring Craig Parton
Appears in this episode
According to many Christians today, faith isn’t based on external facts or evidence, but instead is thought of as an internal subjective feeling, intuition, or experience. But is this idea biblical? Does the Bible actually say that faith is related to our feelings? Where do other religious traditions stand on this issue? Shane Rosenthal investigates these questions and talks with Craig Parton, author of Religion on Trial.
SHOW NOTES
• Related articles by Shane Rosenthal: “Is Faith a Feeling?” (published at Beautiful Christian Life), “What is Faith?”, and “Why Should We Believe the Bible?”
• Related books: Religion on Trial by Craig Parton, Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, God in the Whirlwind, by David Wells, and 1984 by George Orwell.
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• Click the image below to begin the next episode: #5 Religion on Trial
Is Faith a Feeling?
This great republic of ours which gave birth to and codified the ideas of virtue and liberty also, unfortunately, birthed an illegitimate child: pragmatism ...
Pragmatism is that system of thought that finds the good, the true, and the beautiful in 'whatever works'. That which works is what is right and true. We can't be bothered with transcendent principles of truth and morality from which the ultimate telos is derived; it doesn't fit into my little universe which I'm the center of. And if my idea of right and wrong differs from your idea of right and wrong, it doesn't matter; mutually exclusive and contradictory perhaps, but my morality and ethics work for me and your morality & ethics work for you. Can't we all just get along?
When truth and morality become a matter of preference (or feeling), what need is there for Christianity? If truth is relative, then there's no such thing as sin, is there? And if there's no such thing as sin, Christ's life and death were both exercises in futility. What's more, salvation is irrelevant, meaningless & unnecessary.
We need to think things through. This is what most of Shane's man-on-the-street interviewees need to learn. But then again, learning requires thinking. And that seems to be in short supply these days - even among us Christians ...