The Fear of Faith?

Jay: Last week we ended with a mention of the incident where Jesus walked on the water. Matthew, alone among the Gospels, recounts that Peter tried to walk on the water too:

Immediately He [Jesus] made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone. But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (Matthew 14:22-32)

Here is Mark’s version of the event:

Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray.

When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and *said to them, “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened. (Mark 6:48-52)

And here is John’s:

So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, and after getting into a boat, they started to cross the sea to Capernaum. It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea began to be stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat; and they were frightened. But He said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. (John 6:15-21)

So Jesus stayed on shore to disperse the crowd (according to John, Jesus was afraid the crowd was about to crown him king) while the disciples went off in the boat to sail to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Evidently, Jesus intended to walk all the way across the Sea of Galilee, but when he saw the boat in trouble he walked over to it. What seemed like an apparition struck fear into the disciples, but they ended up being reassured and unafraid.

We’ve talked about the relationship between faith and grace and works. These passages add another component: Fear. The link between fear and faith is clear in these passages, most strikingly in the story of Peter’s attempt to walk on the water and Jesus’s admonition: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Does the addition of the fear factor change our thinking about faith? Does it make faith any clearer?

Donald: Faith extends beyond what is reasonable. We worry about pinning our faith onto something that seems unreasonable. Is “worry” another factor to consider? Is there a continuum, such that it is not unreasonable to doubt the exceptionally unreasonable?! Is doubt then justifiable?

Jay: There are some among us who will brook no doubt; who hold that doubt is a sin.

Chris: What about “will” as a factor in faith? We talk about God’s will being done, but this is perhaps precisely what we fear! We’d rather our will be done! Yet consider: Peter willed himself to walk on the water, knowing full well that he could not.

Donna: I think fear and faith cannot co-exist. If you have faith, you have no fear, and vice-versa. If you have faith, you do not fear God’s will. If you have no faith, you do not fear your own will. So our decisions hinge on whether we have faith or fear.

Chris: Faith is not always logical to us. Then we turn to Isaiah—“God’s ways are not our ways”—but we tend not to trust things that are not our way; that are beyond our knowledge and experience.

David: This story of the boat on the Sea of Galilee seems to assert that there is no continuum, there are no stages, of faith: You either have it (and walk on water) or you don’t (and sink). You can’t have 50% faith and only sink to your waist. It’s all or nothing. What Peter was (what we all are) ultimately afraid of was not that his own will to walk on water would not be done but that he would die! This seems to me a different story from the fig tree and mustard seed story, which said that with enough faith you can move mountains. This story says simply that with faith, you need not fear death. It is a spiritual message—you will continue to live, but in the new heaven.

Jay: So with faith, you are either all in or all out? There is no in-between? It seems then that to possess faith as tiny as a mustard seed is the same as having all possible faith, since it enables one to move mountains.

David: I think that’s right. Perhaps a mustard seed of faith is 100 percent, maximum faith.

Donald: We long to maintain a constant, maximum, level level of faith, but most of us vacillate between faith and doubt. We may admire or even envy people who seem to achieve that constant, consistent level, because they seem serene and untroubled, but it’s not as though the rest of us (in contrast) are chronically and deeply depressed.

Dave: Both the boat and the fig tree stories show how difficult it is to have faith. Jesus was acknowledging that difficulty. It’s easy to have doubts, and he recognized that we are bound to face them at some point in our spiritual journey. .

Chris: Peter did not lack faith, or he would surely not have stepped out of the boat. The problem was that he had fear and doubt as well as faith. At first he walked on the water, but at some point, he lost faith, let his doubt and fear take over, and started to sink.

Donna: This is the spiritual battle between Satan, who sows the seeds of fear and doubt, and God, who says “Fear not!” The outcome depends upon which one we listen to, which one we are leaning towards. “O ye of little faith!” addresses that.

Rheinhard: As Christians, we ought to learn from our decisions—right or wrong—as we go through life. Faith can be applied at any time, for the short or the long term, but we worry that the result might not be to our liking. We need to learn over time to put our trust in God.

Kiran: The passages say that Peter was struck with fear when he saw the wind whipping up a storm. They do not mention doubt. In contrast, there was doubt when…

… the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. (Matthew 28:16-17)

Was Peter afraid not of sinking but of Jesus? Did all his doubts about whether Jesus really was the Messiah suddenly stop, leaving him afraid to be in divine company and afraid that Jesus might choose not to save him? 1 John says that where there is love, there is no fear. Perhaps a lack of faith is lack of faith not in God per se but in God’s good will. We are afraid that God’s will might not be good for us.

Jay: The disciples have seen Jesus perform various healing miracles and have just watched him feed 5,000 people with a few loaves and fishes, and yet apparently it takes his walking on water to convince them that he really is God. Today, we still have doubts. Even in the face of miracles, we have fear and doubt.

Michael: I think faith and belief mean different things. Belief is something that accepts the illogical and therefore has no doubt. Faith incorporates doubt. Indeed, doubt is essential to faith. I think we are closer to God in our down, our doubting, moments. Jesus plucked Peter out of the water at his (Peter’s) moment of greatest doubt, and the two were never closer.

Rheinhard: As God’s children, we already have faith in him. But there are times when we turn away from Him, when we lose focus. This is what Peter did on the water.

Donald: I can have faith in physical matters, but faith in spiritual matters is different. We in this group are all more or less confident of our faith. Testimonies are given sometimes in some Adventist churches. Is it for the benefit of the testimony giver or its receiver, the congregation? Do we meet in our group in order to maintain focus? How can we be expected to retain focus and faith when even the disciples could not?

David: Like the disciples, I think we do witness wonders—maybe even miracles; perhaps without realizing it. And when we do, our tendency is to doubt that it could have anything other than a physical explanation. “It was some sort of magic trick,” or “There is a logical explanation we just don’t have the science to tell us yet,” we tell ourselves to assuage our doubt.

Perhaps these stories of the doubting disciples are intended to comfort us—to show that it is OK to doubt. Jesus just wishes that we didn’t!

Dave: If we had a memory the size of a mustard seed, perhaps we would not forget the miracles as miracles!

Chris: We are told to be like children, who have less experience, less knowledge, less baggage than adults. Our baggage muddies the water of life as we drag through it. The baggage of the disciples included many, many things more mundane than the miracles they saw. So on balance, their judgment tended to be negative despite the miracles. Their overall experience of life threw clouds over the miraculous parts of their experience.

David: The limited experience of a newborn gives it absolute faith that if it hollers, it will be fed. The much vaster experience of the homeless beggar on the streets of Detroit gives him or her little faith that s/he will be fed. Faith is harder to retain as we go though life—IF our faith is in a God of magic who will feed us on demand.

Dave: Children take life as it comes; whereas adults tend to view it with some suspicion, because in their experience life might be loaded with problems around the corner. If we spend our time looking for and solving problems, what are we missing out on?

Donna: The Mennonites avoid problems and keep their childlike faith in part by avoiding modern ways and very much by not sending their children to college, where their faith would otherwise start to shrink as their focus is diverted from their spiritual life and towards their academic life. There may be something to be said for the Mennonite way.

Kiran: I have a friend who is child-like. He cannot deal with complexity. He seems narrow-minded and can only focus on one thing at a time. His personality seems shallow. On the other hand, he has a beautiful faith that the world is a beautiful place and that God is amazing and always comes through, is always there for him. Most of us succumb to the complexity of life and lose our child-like faith. We don’t want to appear child-like and shallow and would rather confront life’s complexities than cling to our simple faith.

Michael: It does not distress me that I am full of doubt. It just makes me more curious and makes me want to search for the answers. When Jesus called Peter “you of little faith,” was it intended as admonition? The walk on the water gave Peter an experience of Jesus as his rock. None of the other disciples had this experience.

Dave: I don’t think it was an admonishment; it was more like a gentle lesson: “This is hard, isn’t it, Peter?”

Donald: Are we conflating faith with knowledge and doubt with lack of it? I don’t know the answer to everything, but I don’t doubt. The philosophy of the Masai tribe of Africa enables them to hold and balance two conflicting ideas.

David: The Mennonites are trying to slow down the acquisition of knowledge, which was the reason for the Fall. The key is to accept that we live in (have fallen into, if you believe the Bible) the physical realm—that’s just an observable fact—but to accept also that the spiritual realm (from which we fell, if you believe the Bible) still exists. We must seek to live in both realms, and we can, by recognizing them as different realms with different rules. Great minds, from the Masai to Einstein, have had no difficulty accommodating physics and metaphysics, humanity and spirituality, God and science. It is vital to accept both. We have to live in the physical universe, which means we cannot walk on water. But in the divine realm, we can walk on water, if we choose to believe it. The key is not to accept one at the expense of the other. You can accept both.

Kiran: Physical answers to spiritual questions destroy faith. If there were a physical answer to every question there would be no need for faith. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, things for which there is no physical evidence. Faith in the divine is evidence of the divine. Doubt can help to cultivate faith. Doubts about the physical, logical possibility of a spiritual claim force one to decide whether to accept (have faith in) or reject the claim. Doubt does not kill faith; fear is what kills faith.

Rheinhard: College professors tend to be liberal and atheistic and to sow fear and doubt about belief in the Creation and in other aspects of Christian doctrine. That’s what we face.

Jay: I hope we can explore further our tendency to move along a sinusoidal curve of faith—our faith waxes and wanes. Is there an optimal, achievable, and even decreed straight line curve of faith? What pressures do various quantities of faith, grace, works, will, and fear exert on this curve? Are those quantities measurable?

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