From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach to the people
and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.
To him all the prophets bear witness,
that everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
—from the first reading for Easter Mass during the day, Acts 10:39b-43
“The object of faith, understood Christianly, is not a doctrine, for then the relation is merely intellectual. Neither is the object of faith a teacher, for when a teacher has a doctrine, then the doctrine is more important than the teacher. The object of the faith is the actuality and authority of the teacher; that the teacher actually is. Therefore faith’s answer is absolutely either yes or no. Faith’s posture is not in relation to a teaching, whether it is true or not, but is the answer to a question about a fact: Do you accept as fact that he, the Teacher, actually exists?
Please note that the answer to this is a matter of infinite concern. Of course, if the object of faith is only a human being, then the whole thing is a sham. But this is not the case for Christians. The object of Christian faith is God’s historical existence, that is, that God at a certain point in time existed as an individual human being.
Christianity, therefore, is not a doctrine about the unity of the divine and the human, not to mention the rest of the logical paraphrases of typical religious thought. Christianity is not a doctrine but a fact: God came into existence through a particular human being at a particular point in history. …
That one can know what Christianity is without being a Christian is one thing. But whether one can know what it is to be a Christian without being one is something else entirely.”
Søren Kierkagaard, from Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 325-327, 372-373
–as found in Provocations, compiled and edited by Charles E. Moore
For further reflection: “[N]ot a doctrine but a fact.” People who enjoy study, finding out things, and organizing their thoughts can easily fall into thinking our faith is a lesson to learn, or a stance to understand. But our faith is actually a daily walk alongside Christ. “Jesus, how do you want me to respond to this person in this situation?” is the first question to ask. Working that out is how we come to know what it is to be a Christian. BEING a Christian is what then makes study and forethought fruitful.
Relationship, then the learning.
Your thoughts, comments, questions are welcomed. Leave a reply here or email me direct (see “ABOUT” above).