INTRODUCTION TO THE MODELS OF FAITH

Avery Dulles
….There is no one thing “out there” that demands to be called “faith.” The word “faith” is a
conventional sign that has been used to designate certain aspects of the religious life, especially
in the biblical religions. Christians use it predominantly to designate a basic saving relationship
with God into which people enter by responding to God as he reveals. Beyond this, there is little
agreement. The biblical usage of terms such as the Hebrew ‘emunah, the Greek pistis, and their
cognates (usually translated in the Vulgate by fides and its cognates) is sufficiently flexible to
allow [interpretation in] ….different directions. (1994)
Intellectualist: Faith as Believing
Avery Dulles
[Faith is] an assent to revealed truths on the authority of God the revealer….The theory does not
necessarily look on revelation as coming in the form of verbal statements, but it insists that the
truths, once known, can be formulated in declarative sentences, for example, “The Word was
made flesh,” “The Lord is risen.” (1994)
Peter Holmes
The … model seems to find some support in the Scriptures. In the Old Testament the people of
Israel are invited to receive the laws of the covenant, to ―write them on your doorframes of your
houses and on your gates.1 The covenant of God with his chosen people seems to take the form
of specific propositions. The law is emphatically pronounced from the stone tablets Moses brings
from the mountain, placing great emphasis on the fact they are written, literally carved in stone,
for all to see, seek to understand and to do.2 In the New Testament Christ himself affirms that all
of God‘s Word is eternal. He insists that man shall live ―by every word that comes from the
mouth of God.3
On the other hand, it could be argued that the covenant cannot be reduced to mere propositions.
It describes a relationship between God and his people. The covenant contains a great deal more
physical action or ceremony than specific propositions. The establishment of the covenant itself
includes a few verses of commandments, followed by approximately forty chapters consisting
largely of liturgical instructions.4

1
Dt 6:9, 11:20. 7 Ex 24:7, Dt 6:6-7, Ps 19:7-11, Ps 119. 8 Mt 5:18. ―Not one letter, not the least stroke of a pen
will disappear from the law. cf Mt 24:35, Mk 13:31, Lk 16:17, 21:33, Isa 40:8, Ps 119:89-91. 9 Mt 4:4 (citing Dt
8:3).
2
Ex 24:7, Dt 6:6-7, Ps 19:7-11, Ps 119
3
Mt 4:4 (citing Dt 8:3) E
4
Laws and advice on moral matters are often interwoven with liturgical instructions but the point remains that these
instructions are primarily liturgical, and other matters are placed into a liturgical context with liturgical implications.
cf John W. Kleinig, Leviticus (St Louis: Concordia, 2003), 22. 11. For example Ps 19, 119. 12 1 Tm 6:20, 2 Tm
1:14. 13 1 Tm 1:13. 14 cf 1 Cor 11:2, 15:3, Gal 1:12, Eph 4:20
 Fiducial: Faith as Personal Trust
Avery Dulles (1994)
[In this model, faith is identified] more closely with trust…. In the Bible, terms such as pistis are
often more suitably rendered into English by “trust” than by “faith.”
Avery Dulles (1977)
[The fiducial model] highlights the believer’s personal relationship with God. [It] looks on God
less as revealer than as Savior….In general the biblical…notion of faith (enumah, pistis) is much
wider than in the intellectualist approach. The believer confidently relies on God who has fully
committed himself to the people of his choice, who has promised them salvation, and who has
shown himself faithful to his promises in the past. The central promises in both the Old and the
New Testaments are represented in the form of covenants, that is to say, collective contracts in
which God, as senior treaty partner, offers to protect the people who faithfully serve him.
Through the revelation given to the patriarchs, prophets and kings, the Israelite nation was urged
to rely on God’s covenant promises and was blessed if they did so.
In the Synoptic Gospels, faith is practically equivalent to trust. Praise is given to those
who rely on the power of Jesus to heal, to forgive sins, and to bestow salvation and life. After the
resurrection, the apostles in their kerygma and proclamation called for confident trust in Jesus as
the one in whom alone justification and remission of sins were to be sought “for there is no other
name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12)….
In Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians, Abraham is the prototype of faith because
“in hope he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations as he had
been told (Rom. 4:18, cf. Gal. 3:6-9). The live by the promises given by God in Jesus Christ.
They are saved neither by the justice of naturally good works, nor by obedience to the Law, but
by the promise of free grace stemming from Christ who is both just and obedient. (23-24)

Performative: Faith as Praxis

Agnes Brazal
Unlike in previous models where faith is regarded a response to revelation (our
understanding of God’s will), here anthropological faith as expressed in commitment to the poor
and the oppressed precedes revelation. Faith comes first before revelation; orthopraxis (right
action) precedes orthodoxy (right teaching). In a person’s social engagement with the poor, one
gets to know who God is and what God’s will is for us. This reversed order is biblically-based:
John 3: 21 states: “whoever does what is true comes to the light.” Jeremiah 22: 13-17 likewise
states, “To know God is to do justice.”
Juan Luis Segundo, sj, illustrates this reversed order in his reading of the biblical text on
the correct interpretation of the Sabbath.
 Jesus’ adversaries have already gone to Scripture, seemingly with all necessary scientific
apparatus and a neutral heart, to ask what may and what may not be done on the Sabbath.
But Jesus begins with something else. He tells them that the Sabbath is made for the human
being, and not the human being for the Sabbath. That is, whether the Sabbath is sacred or
not is not in the word of God speaking of what is permitted or forbidden on tht day, but in
what God intends for the human being for the good of the human being. God has made the
Sabbath for the good of the human being, and therefore only those who seek the good of
the human being understand what is written concerning the Sabbath. (Segundo,123)
One who intends human well-being and acts accordingly is able to get into right interpretation of
God’s will or law. Segundo relates this reversed order of theologizing to St. Augustine’s
expression: “If you cannot make me better than I was, then why are you talking to me?” Human
beings understand only what affects them, what makes them better or worse.
Peter Holmes
[The father of liberation theology Gustavo Gutierrez] insists that faith, while not
providing a specific plan for social organisation, demands that we work actively for a just
society. This faith, lived within human history, brings Christ‘s victory into the world in order to
overcome it. He contends that the God of the Bible is a God who acts in concrete historical
salvation within history, and that God orients history in a specific direction. Through his faithful
people, God changes the world better to resemble his kingdom. God calls his people to be
faithful to his social ideal, specifically in his constant call to uphold the downtrodden, oppressed
and powerless. In Jesus Christ, God becomes the poor and suffering whom we must tend and
defend. Faith does not end in personal belief but shines in action, in lived faith. To believe, then,
is to ―love God and to be in solidarity with the poor and exploited of this world‖, and an
engagement in the struggle for greater justice and liberation.5

Sources:
Dulles, Avery, sj. “The Meaning of Faith Considered in Relationship to Justice,” in The Faith
That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change, 10-46,
ed. John C. Haughey. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1977.
Dulles, Avery, sj. The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith, Chap. 8
“Models and Issues.” NY: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Holmes, Peter. “Models of Faith and Reason.” Master of Theology (Th.M)), University of Notre
Dame Australia, 2010.
http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/50?utm_source=researchonline.nd.edu.au%2Ftheses%2F5
0&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

5
Gustavo Gutierrez, “A Theology of Liberation,” in Wogaman & Strong, Readings in Christian Ethics, 341.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Segundo, Juan Luis, sj, “Option for the Poor: Hermeneutical Key for Understanding the
Gospel,” in Signs of the Times: Theological Reflections, 119-127. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993.