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→The natural and the supernatural aspects of Faith
The other aspect of Faith is not by intrusion or introjection, but by infusion and irradiation. This too is of the grace of God. Whereas the first aspect had come to us at our extremity from without, this aspect comes to us from within and around, pervading the so-called natural structures that we experience every day, that are so supportive of stability, confidence, trust and hope. Good parenting, solidity of home and provision, loving faithfulness among friends as we grow, continual exposure to the truth of the Word of God (and truth is always therapeutic), strengthens our faith, and our expectation for the continuing faithfulness and involvment of a loving and good God. Faith seems so natural, so in accord, with our experience, that we could even be surprised that it could have been otherwise. Here we experience, most often, not a crisis of faith, but the need to give ourselves more fully to Him in whom we are believing. Under this aspect, God is to be appreciated and acknowledged for being our good and heavenly Father. The Old Testament presents us with the reality of this aspect of faith. Amidst even the miraculous events as the parting of the "Red" Sea, and the many deliverences Israel experience so beyond their natural ability to effect, little is said, is acknowledged consciously, of the quality of faith itself. It is air that a fish is most conscious of, not his home in the water.
The other aspect of Faith is not by intrusion or introjection, but by infusion and irradiation. This too is of the grace of God. Whereas the first aspect had come to us at our extremity from without, this aspect comes to us from within and around, pervading the so-called natural structures that we experience every day, that are so supportive of stability, confidence, trust and hope. Good parenting, solidity of home and provision, loving faithfulness among friends as we grow, continual exposure to the truth of the Word of God (and truth is always therapeutic), strengthens our faith, and our expectation for the continuing faithfulness and involvment of a loving and good God. Faith seems so natural, so in accord, with our experience, that we could even be surprised that it could have been otherwise. Here we experience, most often, not a crisis of faith, but the need to give ourselves more fully to Him in whom we are believing. Under this aspect, God is to be appreciated and acknowledged for being our good and heavenly Father. The Old Testament presents us with the reality of this aspect of faith. Amidst even the miraculous events as the parting of the "Red" Sea, and the many deliverences Israel experience so beyond their natural ability to effect, little is said, is acknowledged consciously, of the quality of faith itself. It is air that a fish is most conscious of, not his home in the water.
==Faith: the Access to Reality==
Christianity demands Faith and insists that Faith be turned into sight. " Do you believe, Thomas, because you have seen. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe." Throughout the New Testament, this theme occurs, belief in Jesus, belief in the HeavenlyFather, belief in the readiness of God to still waves, cause you too to walk on water, to return a dead girl back to her grieving, believing mother, to see small insignificant things as a seed grow, as if miraculously of itself, into a startling display of fruit to eat and protection for birds, all of this, with only the sky to limit, comes into our lives, according to Jesus, if we have Faith. Reality is gained by the exercise of Faith, a reality unattainable by the ordinary means frequented by men.
But this reality attained, so extrordinary in this sordid and marred sin-infested world, is seen to be the "normal" reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, just waiting to enter in. Entirely right in the presence of the Kingdom of God and the King Himself for the dead boy to get up from his bier to run to his mother, entirely right that that adultress be pardoned, strengthened, challenged, and hold her head up high once again, entirely right the demons come out of the tormented boy to be commanded to go to the place that God has prepared for them, all entirely right at the entrance of this new reality of the Kingdom of Heaven among us, and the King Himself, Jesus. The overwelming of reality, by Reality.
As God is palpable in Jesus, so the Reality of the Kingdom of God is palpable, and can be seen, on this earth. The entrance to the Garden was by faith, but the reality of the garden is as tangible as was Jesus eating fish with his disciples after he got up from the dead. As much as the New Testament presents Faith as the entrance to the Kingdom, so does it insist that Faith, perhaps not fully in this world, shall turn to sight in the end... and on the way. "It is not apparent what we who are called the children of God shall yet be, but we know that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He really is."
==Faith as a virtue==
==Faith as a virtue==