Divine Faith – By John Lamont

Abstract

In this book Lamont addresses the question of the rational grounding of faith. Unlike many others, Lamont takes a self-consciously theological rather than a philosophical approach. He wishes to understand the internal logic of faith rather than seek a warrant for religious belief in evidences or arguments, what he calls 'motives of credibility', that are accessible to all, believer and non-believer alike.The starting-point of the discussion is an understanding of faith as believing God when he speaks to us, which assumes that God does speak to us in a direct way. Lamont argues persuasively that non-propositional views of revelation are unsatisfactory. Propositions are necessary to all personal experience and encounter, and non-propositional views of revelation would not bring us to the kind of specific truth claims that Christians make. Moreover since most if not all modes of communication -assertions, commands, promises and the like -are laden with propositions, it follows, since communication is central to personal relationship, that fellowship between the deity and humankind is dependent on a propositional view of revelation.Given that faith is understood as believing God when he speaks, the question is as to the rationale of such belief. Why and how, a posteriori, can we understand our coming to believe God? Lamont begins his exploration of these questions through an invaluable historical analysis that focuses in turn on Patristic figures, Clement, John Chrysostom, Origen and Augustine and, in his longest chapter, medieval and modern writers such as Aquinas, Scotus, John Owen and William Chillingworth. Lamont's historical soundings primarily aim to clarify and tee up his theological problem, but they also offer glimpses of surprising convergences, such as that between Owen -a Puritan -and St Thomas, which are of great ecumenical interest.There are, in Lamont's view, three theological threads that together constitute the problem of belief. Christians have asserted that faith arises from the action of God, divine grace; that faith is voluntarily chosen; and that it is reasonable. The tensions generated by these three propositions include those of how faith can be both a choice and an infused gift, and how it can be both rationally warranted and freely chosen. Lamont identifies three broad historical answers to such questions. One, associated with Aquinas and Owen, is that faith is not rationally grounded on 'motives of credibility'. Rather it is to be thought of as a property or virtue infused by grace through the action of the Holy Spirit. Faith in this view is not a potentiality Reviews 245