Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T11:13:56.123Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Authorship of Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

W. L. Sessions
W. L. Sessions
Affiliation:
Washington & Lee UniversityLexingtonVirginia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Let us think of faith theistically, or at any rate Christianly, as an all-embracing personal relationship between a human person and the divine person, God. Such a relationship essentially involves some act ostensibly ‘by’ the human person and directed towards God – for example, an act of believing propositions about God because one believes God because one loves (‘believes unto’) God. Among many puzzles about this conception of faith, there is one which concerns the authorship of faith; this problem may be initially expressed as a question: Who is the agent-cause or ‘author’ of the essential act(s) of faith? There seem to be religiously compelling reasons for each of two diametrically opposed views.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 81 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LIST OF SOURCES

Abraham, William J., An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985).Google Scholar
Auleén, Gustaf, The Faith of the Christian Church, tr. Wahlstrom, Eric H. and Arden, G. Everett (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, 1948).Google Scholar
Blanshard, Brand, Reason and Belief (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Brown, Delwin; James, Ralph E. Jr.; and Reeves, Gene, eds., Process Philosophy and Christian Thought (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971).Google Scholar
Dalferth, , Ingolf, U., Theology and Philosophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).Google Scholar
Danto, Arthur, Analytical Philosophy of Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).Google Scholar
Helm, Paul, ‘Grace and Causation’, The Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxii (1979), 101–12.Google Scholar
Hick, John, Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973).Google Scholar
Lucas, J. R., Freedom and Grace (London: SPCK, 1976).Google Scholar
Lucas, J. R., ‘Pelagius and St. Augustine,’ Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. xxii (1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Nash, Ronald H., ed., Process Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987).Google Scholar
Whittaker, John H., Matters of Faith and Matters of Principle: Religious Truth Claims and Their Logic (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1981).Google Scholar