Thoughts on Faith

Faith is more than intellectual assent to propositions and concepts about God. For faith not only attains to God as God is revealed in the articles of faith, it attains to God in the divine Self, that is, to God as God really is, but known in the darkness of unknowing.


Because Faith is adherence to what we do not see, tha act of faith is elicited under the impulse of the will. In the act of faith we submit to authority as it teaches us what God has revealed. Submission to authority which proposes the truths of revelation must not be so overemphasized that it seems to constitute the whole essence of faith. Faith must not be reduced to an act of obedience. Such reductionism could lead to credulity that revels in the unintelligible, as in the case of the person who said of the Trinity: 'Wish there were four of them, so that I maight believe in more of them.' Reducing faith to obedience trivializes faith and strips it of any real content. It can lead also to a forced suppression of doubt rather than an opening of the eye of the heart by deep belief. Doubts about faith need to be faced and dealt with, not suppressed. Most often, they do not indicate an unwillingness or an inability on our part to accept the propositions of faith, but simply a sense of our weakness and helplessness in the presence of the wondrous majesty of God. We can never express the full reality of our experience of God. After we have spoken all the words we can, ther is always so much more of the experience left over.

-Thomas Merton

So, I have to ask the question is it really faith if it has not been realized in experience?