Does (Saving) Faith Imply Belief? | Talbot School of Theology

Dr. Craig gives a virtual lecture for students at Talbot School of Theology on the nature of faith.

Hello! This is William Lane Craig. I’m glad for this opportunity to join my colleagues and friends at Talbot School of Theology for the presentation of this paper on the question, “Does Saving Faith Imply Belief?”

In recent years Christian philosophers have produced a burgeoning literature on the nature of faith.^[1] As is typical among analytic philosophers, their treatment of faith almost always proceeds along the lines of analysis of ordinary language expressions of faith and personal intuitions about faith. Many have then sought to apply the results of such analysis specifically to Christian faith.

Such a procedure is, however, all too quick.^[2] It cannot be uncritically assumed that an analysis of generic faith is directly applicable to Christian faith. By turning to the authoritative teaching of Scripture concerning faith, we avoid much of the uncertainty and subjectivity endemic to analyses based solely on ordinary language and personal intuition.^[3] Unfortunately, for whatever reason, most Christian philosophers writing on the nature of faith largely neglect the teaching of Scripture concerning faith, contenting themselves with at most quoting a passage or two of Scripture to ratify the results of their independent analysis of faith. So flawed a methodology threatens to deliver a theologically inadequate understanding of the nature of Christian faith.

Right at the outset, then, it is important to distinguish between secular faith, for example, faith in one’s dentist or faith that one’s son will return from war, and Christian faith or saving faith (fides salvifica), the sort of faith spoken of in Eph 2.8: “By grace you have been saved through faith.”^[4] By saving faith I mean the sort of faith which is instrumental to salvation, the sort of faith which is required for salvation.^[5] Secular models of faith, such as preoccupy Christian philosophers, cannot be assumed to be theologically relevant in so far as saving faith is concerned. We must rather turn to the teaching of Scripture to determine the nature of saving faith.

Scriptural Teaching

Obviously, of paramount importance for our interest in Christian saving faith is the NT witness to faith.  The NT term for faith, pistis, has many different meanings such as trust, trustworthiness, honesty, credibility, faithfulness, good faith, confidence, assurance, pledge, guarantee, credit, proof, credence, belief, position of trust/trusteeship, legal trust, protection, and security. Given so wide a semantic range, the word and its cognates thus pose a real challenge for NT translators. Complicating the problem considerably is the fact that “faith” and “to have faith” as ordinary language analyses have shown are often loaded terms in English carrying nuances which should not be imported uncritically into the Greek. For that reason it would be naive to translate every occurrence of the verb pisteuein as “to have faith” as though the verb had a uniform meaning which maps smoothly onto the English expression.

Pistis or its cognates are to be found in every NT book except the brief II Jn.  Significantly, in sharp contrast to usage in the ancient Greco-Roman culture, such words are used in the NT almost exclusively of divine-human relationships as opposed to intra-human relationships. Indeed, the essence of Christian salvation is to be found in such a faith relationship with God (Rom 1.16-17).

Saving Faith and Personal Faith

There is a scholarly consensus that the foundational meaning unifying the various meanings of pistis is trust/trustworthiness. In the NT such a relational faith is the heart of saving faith. Pisteuein with the prepositions en, eis, or epi is often used to convey the notion of trust in or belief in someone. “Salvation through faith in Christ Jesus [sōtērian dia pisteōs tēs ev Christō Iēsou]” (II Tim 3.15) nicely epitomizes Christian faith.

The fact that saving faith is a relational faith involving trust in God forces us to draw a further distinction between such relational or personal faith and propositional faith.^[6] Propositional faith has as its object, not a person, but a proposition. It is the faith that p, where p takes some proposition as its value. The question is whether saving faith implies propositional faith, that is, whether a person must believe (pisteuein) certain theological propositions in order to be saved. Propositional belief may not be a constituent of saving faith (that relationship of trust in Christ), but the question is whether saving faith implies propositional faith along with personal faith.

Saving Faith and Propositional Faith

An examination of the NT materials makes it clear that saving faith does imply propositional faith.

To begin with, there are theologically significant statements employing the expression pisteuein hoti [believe/trust that], which is a straightforward expression of propositional faith. Though few in comparison with the number of statements involving pisteuein + the dative or with the prepositions en, eis, and epi, sentences employing pisteuein hoti should not be overlooked. For example, Paul writes,

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that [pisteusēs en tē kardia sou hoti] God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart [pisteuetai] and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him [pas ho pisteuōn ep’ autō ou] will be put to shame’ (Rom 10.9-11).

Here Paul identifies the propositional belief God raised Jesus from the dead, as well as the confession “Jesus is Lord,” as central to salvation.

John uses pisteuein hoti more than any other NT writer. For example,

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that [pisteuēte hoti] Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing [pisteuontes] you may have life in his name (Jn 20.30-31).

Every one who believes that [pas ho pisteuōn hoti] Jesus is the Christ is a child of God (I Jn 5.1).

Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that [ho pisteuōn hoti] Jesus is the Son of God (I Jn 5.5).

The propositional truths here affirmed lie at the heart of the Christian faith. The very purpose of the Gospel of John is to induce propositional faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, leading to salvation [zōē](Jn 20.21). Indeed, Jesus says that unless one believes that he is the chosen one sent by God, one will not be saved (Jn 8.24). Saving faith thus implies correct propositional faith concerning Jesus’ identity.

In sum, when we ask about the nature of faith, we are asking after the nature of saving faith as described in Scripture. The essence of saving faith lies in that relationship of trust and commitment that is personal faith in God. But saving faith as described in the NT implies as a concomitant propositional faith in such truths as God’s existence, Christ’s being the Son of God, his resurrection from the dead, his Lordship, and so on. Without such propositional faith one cannot be saved but remains in his sins.

Does Faith Imply Belief?

With these Scriptural data in mind, let us turn to philosophical reflection on the nature of faith. In addition to other propositional attitudes, there are exactly three doxastic attitudes that a person might take toward a proposition p: belief, disbelief, and non-belief. The customary view has been that propositional faith involves belief in the relevant propositions, that is to say, faith that p implies belief that p, a view that is reflected in the standard English translations of pisteuein as “believe.”

Remarkably, however, a number of Christian philosophers have recently argued that propositional Christian faith may be and often is non-doxastic faith; that is to say, faith that p, where p is some Christian truth claim like God exists or Jesus rose from the dead, does not always imply belief that p. Accordingly, we need to introduce into our discussion yet another distinction between doxastic faith and non-doxastic faith. Whereas doxastic propositional faith implies belief that p, non-doxastic propositional faith does not.^[7] Call the view that propositional faith implies belief a doxastic view of faith. And the view that propositional faith does not always imply belief a non-doxastic view of faith. On non-doxastic views of faith saving faith as described in the Bible does not require even the belief that God exists, much less that Jesus is His Son or is risen from the dead. On non-doxastic views of faith, despite saving faith’s implying propositional faith, one can be agnostic about Christian propositional claims and yet still meet the conditions of saving faith.

Constituents of Propositional Faith

To understand how this can be so, it will be helpful to consider the elements that make up propositional faith. Daniel Howard-Snyder offers the following analysis of Christian propositional faith:

For you to have faith that p, for some proposition p, is (a) for you to have a positive cognitive attitude towards p, (b) for you to have a positive conative orientation towards the truth of p, (c) for you to be disposed to live in light of that attitude and orientation, and (d) for you to be resilient in the face of challenges to living in that way.^[8]

How does such an analysis fare as an account of Christian faith when assessed by Scripture?

The first element (a), a positive cognitive attitude towards p, is the most controversial element of the analysis. We shall therefore return to it after a brief word on the other putative elements of faith.

The second element (b), is a positive conative orientation towards p. Conation is a psychological term indicative of desire or volition. So having a positive conative orientation towards p requires desiring or wanting p to be true. A positive conative-evaluative orientation toward p’s being the case widely recognized in the literature as a constituent of faith is typical of scriptural faith. It hardly needs to be said that in view of the great good of salvation the beliefs conducive to salvation that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead are viewed by Christians favorably and that they want them to be true. This second element of faith underlines the fact that one may believe without having faith. The locus classicus for the distinction is Jas 2.19, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe [pisteuousin] and shutter.” Since the demons lack a favorable attitude towards God's existence it would be inept to translate this passage “even the demons have faith and shudder.” The demons, unlike James’ interlocutors, do not have faith without works – they do not even have faith! As Luke Johnson comments,

[. . .]pistis is reduced to mere belief. The patristic commentators picked up on exactly this point: James is referring to ‘simple assent,’ which is not the fullness of faith as response to God in action.”

The third element (c) requires that in order to have faith one be disposed to live in light of the afore-described positive conative-evaluative orientation. Howard-Snyder says,

The idea is that it is not enough that one simply has the requisite cognitive and conative-evaluative attitudes; they must motivate one’s behavior if one has faith.

This certainly seems to be a scriptural feature of saving faith. As James so famously says, “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (Jas 2.14-17).

The fourth element (d) is resilience in the face of challenges to living in the way required by (c). Howard-Snyder recognizes that faith is not immune to such challenges, that one's cognitive stance might grow weaker. For example, from belief to weak belief, from weak belief to belief that p is only slightly more probable than not, from belief that p is only slightly more probable than not, to assuming that p. Nevertheless, one still acts as one did before one is not disheartened or deterred or discouraged into inaction. It seems to me that resilience is not at all an inherent element of biblical faith. The scriptures candidly record instances of persons whose faith has failed such as Judas Iscariot, Hymenaeus, and Alexander who “have made shipwreck of their faith” (I Tim 1.20). Hymenaeus and Philetus who “have swerved from the truth by holding that the resurrection is past already” and “are upsetting the faith of some” (II Tim 2.18). And Demas who “in love with this present world, has deserted me” (II Tim. 4.10). Hebrews along with its roll call of persons resilient in their faith contains multiple graphic warnings against the danger of apostasy, “lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving [apistias] heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (Heb 3.12). These warnings were addressed to persons who had genuine faith (Heb 3.1; 10.39). So while the Scriptures abound in examples of resilient faith, it is plain that faith is not always resilient even to the weak degree that Howard-Snyder imagines.

Acceptance rather than Belief

Let’s us return to (a), the positive cognitive attitude towards p. This notion is difficult to parse.^[9] As an attitude, it is presumably a mental state, something like believing. So it is not like taking a stand which would be an action, not an attitude. As a cognitive rather than conative attitude, it has to do with thought rather than with desire and/or volition. The positivity of this state is not to be confused with the favorable evaluation of or desire for p that plays a role in (b). Rather, it seems to have to do with being oriented towards affirming p rather than denying p. If we take believing p and disbelieving p to be the paradigm cases of positive and negative cognitive attitudes, then a positive attitude would seem to be leaning in the direction of belief, while a negative attitude would be leaning in the direction of disbelief.

Howard-Snyder thus says that one can have a positive cognitive attitude towards the proposition that one is dying of cancer even though one does not have a positive conative evaluative orientation towards it.

Building on the seminal work of William Alston, Howard-Snyder maintains that the positive cognitive attitude towards p required by faith may not be belief. Appealing to the distinction between belief and acceptance, Alston had contended that accepting that p while not believing that p is sufficient for having faith that p.

This important distinction was rooted in Jonathan Cohen’s differentiation between belief and acceptance. According to Cohen, the crucial factor differentiating belief from acceptance is that

Believing that p involves a “disposition, when one is attending to issues raised, or items referred to, by the proposition that p, normally to feel it true that p and false that not-p,” whereas such is not the case with accepting that p.

…

Accepting that p “is to have or adopt a policy of deeming, positing, or postulating that p – i.e., of including that proposition or rule among one’s premisses for deciding what to do or think in a particular context, whether or not one feels it to be true that p.

Alston formulates the crucial condition distinguishing belief from acceptance as

2. If S believes that p, then if S considers whether it is the case that p, S will tend to feel it to be the case that p, with one or another degree of confidence.

Alston’s formulation of (2) allows for various degrees of belief, from “complete certainty at the top all the way down to a mere inclination to suppose that p.”^[10]  A handy measure of degrees of belief, he says, is “the different degrees of assurance that p is the case.”^[11]

Condition (2) is not met if S merely accepts that p. Accepting that p is like believing that p with the exception of (2). The crucial factor differentiating belief from acceptance is whether or not, upon consideration, one tends to feel it to be the case that p.

It will be helpful to have before us an illustration of acceptance as opposed to belief at work in an academic discipline.^[12] A paradigm case of mere acceptance may be found in pure mathematics. For example, the majority of set theorists accept the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the Axiom of Choice (ZFC) as the standard set theory. But do they believe the axioms of ZFC? If asked, for example, whether an infinite set exists, most set theorists would immediately respond in the affirmative. But when pressed by a mathematical Platonist whether they really believe that such a metaphysically extravagant object truly exists, many, if not most, would demur. Most practicing mathematicians would probably not consider themselves to have made such metaphysical commitments by means of their assertions. So it is common to distinguish between accepting a mathematical statement and believing a mathematical statement.

On the basis of this differentiation Alston argues that the positive cognitive stance involved in Christian propositional faith can be acceptance rather than belief.  In assessing the relevance of acceptance for Christian faith, Alston addresses two questions: (1) Do many sincere, devout, committed Christians accept rather than believe central Christian doctrines? And (2) Does Christianity require belief rather than acceptance?

In response to (1) Alston registers his “distinct impression” that a significant proportion of sincere, committed, devout, contemporary Christians accept but do not believe central Christian doctrines.^[13] Unfortunately, Alston’s discussion is predicated upon his exclusive focus on firm, sure belief as representative of propositional Christian belief.^[14] Indeed, it must be said that Alston’s portrayal of the Christian believer is a caricature. Some Christians, he says, have no more doubts about central Christian truth claims, “than they do about their physical surroundings and the existence of their family and friends.” But, he protests, “not all sincere, active, committed, devout Christians are like this, especially in these secular, scientistic, intellectually unsettled times.” How then can they be sincere, committed Christians? Alston acknowledges that one might answer such Christians do, in fact, “believe these doctrines but with less than full, undoubting confidence.” He later admits, “[O]ne can be in a condition that can be called belief even if it is a lesser degree of certainty or firmness than the strong belief on which I have been concentrating.” Nonetheless, Alston prefers to say that while such uncertain Christians do not believe these doctrines, nevertheless “they may accept them.” Alston muses that such a Christian

will undoubtedly receive less comfort and consolation from her faith than the unquestioning believer to whom the whole thing seems certain.

Thereby perpetuating the false dichotomy upon which his plea for acceptance is based.

Alston’s proffered examples of acceptance rather than belief among contemporary Christians are similarly based on playing off highly confident belief, “free of doubt” and supported by “rationally decisive evidence,” over against belief or faith which is less certain.^[15]

All this is somewhat beside the point, however. For, as Alston recognizes, the normative question (2) still remains: Does Christianity require belief rather than acceptance? Even if many doubt-ridden Christian philosophers merely accept rather than believe central Christian doctrines, is such faith defective? In order to answer that question, Alston devotes but a single paragraph to the scriptural teaching on faith. He asserts that many passages that are taken to involve propositional belief are better interpreted in terms of either propositional acceptance or non-propositional faith. For example, in Hebrews 11.6, “whoever would draw near to God must believe [pisteuō] that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him”, pisteuō is better translated as “have faith” than “believe.” But then “Propositonal ‘faith’ can involve either belief or acceptance.” This inference is much too quick. Even if we agree that given its context Hebrews 11.6 should be translated “have faith” that goes no distance at all to proving that in the author’s mind propositional faith did not involve belief – that mere acceptance would suffice. Alston has, in fact, said nothing to justify the claim that in Hebrews proposition faith can involve either belief or acceptance.

The only other Bible passage cited by Alston is from the longer ending of Mark, “he who does not believe [apistēsas] will be condemned” (Mk 16.16), which Alston would translate “does not have faith.” This passage shows that in the early church faith was regarded as essential to salvation. But it is unclear that mere acceptance suffices for saving, propositional faith.

Obviously, such an anemic treatment as Alston offers of the scriptural data on faith affords no conclusions.

Assessment of Non-Doxastic Views

We come now to some assessment of non-doxastic views of faith. Is such a view a plausible construal of saving faith, Christian faith, scripturally assessed? I take it as proved that Christian faith implies propositional faith in various Christian doctrines. The question, then, is whether propositional Christian faith involves belief. Although this may seem obvious to many of us, non-doxastic views of faith are typically so carefully hedged that they become difficult to refute. If, for example, it could be shown that some instance of biblical faith plausibly implies belief, the proponent of a non-doxastic view will remind us that in many cases faith does imply belief. Indeed, it may be that ideally or optimally the positive cognitive stance involved in faith is, in fact, belief. Nevertheless, it is claimed, saving faith need not involve belief.

The question then is whether belief in the relevant truths is a necessary condition of saving faith.

The first thing to note is that non-doxastic views of faith are incompatible with standard formulations of widely accepted so-called Reformed epistemology which I endorse. According to that epistemology, God has so designed our cognitive faculties as to produce belief in central Christian truths, so that beliefs thus produced are properly basic with respect to both rationality and warrant.

The Christian therefore both believes and knows the truths witnessed to him by the Holy Spirit. Every regenerate Christian enjoys the inner witness of God's Spirit. Indeed, only by willfully resisting the inner instigation of the Holy Spirit can one fail to believe the truths vouchsafed to one by the Holy Spirit. Even the noetic effects of sin are overcome by the work of the Spirit in the sinner's heart and mind so that unbelief is utterly unjustified. The unbeliever then does not possess saving faith.

Christian faith so understood faces, of course, multifarious defeaters in our secular age, and if faith is to be rational those defeaters will have to be in turn defeated. Christian faith is thus compatible with having doubts, even severe doubts, about Christian truth claims. This fact is especially evident on externalist construals of the instigation of the Holy Spirit. But even on internalist construals the witness of the Holy Spirit may not be indubitable or overpowering in the believer's experience. A believer struggling with doubts may have only weak belief in central Christian truth claims, a condition which is notoriously difficult to distinguish experientially from acceptance. On Alston's account only a tendency to feel it to be the case that p distinguishes belief from acceptance, a condition so nebulous, and I suspect susceptible to self-deception and mood swings, as to be useless in distinguishing belief from acceptance, a fact obscured by Alston's consistent focus on unrealistically sure belief.

I cannot say more by way of assessment of Reformed epistemology here, but for the present it is sufficient to note that this widely accepted religious epistemology stands opposed to non-doxastic accounts of Christian faith.

The second thing that should be said about non-doxastic views of faith is that they import into the literature of the ancient world and into the NT in particular a modern philosophical distinction between belief and acceptance which is alien to the mentality of the ancient world. No attempt was made at that time to distinguish between pisteuein in the sense of “to believe” and in the sense of “to accept (or assume).” The fact that NT commentators never discuss the question whether propositional Christian faith implies belief is abundant testimony to the foreignness of the distinction to ancient mentality.^[16]

Nowhere is this fact more evident than in Teresa Morgan’s lengthy examination of the ancient world’s mentalité with respect to pistis/fides. The main distinction she knows is between faith as trust and faith as propositional belief. She is oblivious to the modern distinction between faith as belief and faith as acceptance because such a distinction was not part of the mentality of the ancient world.

Given how alien the modern distinction between faith as belief and faith as acceptance is to antiquity, it becomes difficult to imagine how the proponent of a non-doxastic view of Christian faith could successfully make a case that the propositional faith described in the NT need not involve belief but only acceptance or assumption. It is very dubious that any non-doxastic propositional attitude was on the mind of any NT writer.

Third, a cognitive stance less than belief is too weak to give a plausible account of scriptural teaching. Nowhere in the Bible does God call us to assume or accept His existence. On the contrary, it affirms that all persons know that God exists. In Rom 1.18-20 Paul writes,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Since such persons know that God exists, it follows that they believe that God exists, even if they, lacking the favorable attitude and conation requisite for faith, do not have faith that God exists, much less faith in God. Whether their belief in God is properly basic, formed in the context of their observation of nature, or a natural inference from the created order around them is a question which may be left aside for now. What is important for now is that all men know that God exists even if they wickedly suppress that knowledge. Moreover, God’s existence is so plain to them and so clearly perceived by them that they are without excuse for their failure to acknowledge God so that the wrath of God rests upon them.

The Gospel of John is also noteworthy for the connection of pisteuein and ginōskein (to know). Morgan observes that they are twice paired in such a way that it is hard to distinguish their meaning:^[17]

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6.68-69).

“Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee; for I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee; and they have believed that thou didst send me” (Jn 17.7-8).

Moreover, ginōskein and pisteuein appear in such close proximity in Jn 3.10-12; 8.27–32; 8.43–46; 14.7–10 that Morgan also observes that around a dozen of the 34 passages in John where ginōskein has to do with theologically significant knowledge concern propositional knowledge. For example, “Jesus answered them, ‘My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me; if any man’s will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority’” (Jn 7.16-17).^[18] Such use of ginōskein with respect to propositional truths is decisive, since knowledge entails belief. If anyone wills to do God’s will, then he shall not merely accept or assume Jesus’ teaching without belief, but he will know and, hence, believe that Jesus’ teaching is from God.

Finally, we should be remiss if we did not discuss one of the most famous NT texts on faith, superseded only by Rom 1:16-17 and Heb 11, namely,

You believe that [pisteueis hoti] God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe [pisteuousin]—and shudder (Jas 2.19).

James’ statement is one of the most intriguing passages concerning the cognitive stance required by saving faith. As pisteuein hoti shows, it is propositional faith that is in view here. The proposition at stake recalls the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Dt 6:4), stating what would have been a fundamental and hallowed truth for James’ Jewish Christian readers that served to mark them off from virtually all pagans.

Pisteuein when used with respect to the demons’ cognitive stance can only be translated “believe,” for they lack the favorable attitude and positive conative orientation toward Jewish monotheism characteristic of faith, as is evident from their response: they shudder. Thus, their cognitive stance toward the proposition that God is one is that they believe it. Moreover, the demons would hardly be terrified as a result of belieflessly adopting or assuming a proposition, not to mention the fact that if anyone knows that God exists it is the demons. So we have firm grounds for understanding pisteuein with respect to demons to mean nothing more and nothing less than “believe.”

But now consider pisteuein with respect to James’ correspondents, whom he addresses as “brethren” who “hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1.2; 2.1). They share the same cognitive stance toward the same proposition as the demons. So although they no doubt do have a favorable attitude and positive conative orientation toward what they believe, their positive cognitive stance is the same as the demons’: they believe that God is one, and James commends them (however sarcastically) for it. Moreover, the context of Jas 2.4-26 shows that it is no less than saving faith that is at issue here. James’ discussion of the faith that justifies is a counterpoint to Paul’s, James insisting that mere belief is not enough for saving faith. Jas 2.19 is thus not just an offhand, isolated remark but a theologically significant comparison concerning the nature of saving faith. It tells us that saving faith involves nothing less than belief.

Summary

In summary, as Christian philosophers we are interested primarily in saving faith, specifically Christian faith, not secular faith. While saving faith is fundamentally personal faith in God or Christ with all that that involves, personal faith implies propositional faith with respect to various Christian truth claims. Propositional faith involves a positive cognitive stance of belief toward the relevant proposition, along with a favorable attitude and positive conative orientation toward the state of affairs described. Thus, saving faith is doxastic faith plus some additional feature, what in contemporary discussion has come to be called belief+ (belief plus).^[19]

Criticisms of faith as belief+ fail with respect to saving faith. Consider, for example, Howard-Snyder's four objections to the traditional view of faith. (1) In contemporary English, being in doubt about something need not be at odds with having faith that it is so. Such ordinary language arguments are nugatory when it comes to scriptural teaching. Saving faith requires various propositional beliefs, and so while compatible with severe doubts is incompatible with being in doubt as defined by Howard-Snyder. (2) One can have faith that p but lack a tendency to be surprised upon learning it is not so; but one cannot believe p while lacking a tendency to be surprised upon learning it is not so. Since saving faith implies belief, the Christian will have such a tendency if the argument is sound. But the argument is far too subjective to be probative. If a person's belief is weak he may not have such a tendency. (3) One can have faith that p even if one does not believe p but rather merely believes p is likely, or p is twice as likely as not, and so on. Saving faith requires that one believe p to some degree. If plausibly belief that p requires minimally that one is more confident that p than that not- p then believing that p is more probable than not may suffice for weak belief that p. (4) Acceptance is not belief, and it can stand in for the positive cognitive stance faith requires.  Acceptance is indeed usefully distinguished from belief, and it is too weak a cognitive stance to stand in for the positive cognitive stance required by saving faith.

Not only are non-doxastic views of faith incompatible with standard formulations of Reformed epistemology according to which Christians have beliefs with regard to central Christian truth claims which are properly basic with respect to both rationality and warrant, but more importantly non-doxastic views fail to do justice to the scriptural teaching on saving faith. The attempt to drive a wedge between faith as belief and faith as acceptance (or assumption) is to draw a distinction alien to the NT and results in an analysis of saving faith that is much too weak to account plausibly for the NT data, which imply that we know central Christian truth claims.

Non-doxastic views of faith are not merely mistaken but, I am persuaded, dangerous. While motivated by a laudable desire to be inclusive of those in doubt, these views, I fear, endanger such persons spiritually, for these views may lull unbelievers who are in fact merely nominally Christian into a false sense of security concerning their spiritual condition, when they are, in fact, unregenerate persons. We can make room for those struggling with doubts by emphasizing that belief comes in degrees measured by the believer’s confidence that what is believed is the case. Persons claiming to no longer believe but merely to accept Christian truth claims may in fact have very weak belief. When struggling with doubts, we can always cry out with the man who besought Jesus, “Lord, I believe! Help thou my unbelief!” Persons who have first come to accept Christian truth claims without yet believing them may be on the path that leads them eventually to saving faith, and we should do all we can to encourage them along that path.

Thank you for your attention.