Year of Faith: The Door of Faith is the Way Out of the Iron Cage of Modernity

What more then is required? Faith. Faith is required to leave the 'iron cage'

The "iron cage" of modernity is built exactly by these two "giants," the "passion and the pride of man," a man that considers himself autonomous and entirely free to pursue his lusts and disregard the "Law of Nature and Nature's God."  It would seem that Cardinal Newman is right and more than reason is required to free us from the "iron cage."  What more then is required?  Faith is required to leave the "iron cage." 

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - In our prior article we discussed how the "key of reason" is required to draw us out of the "iron cage" of modern secularity.  The "key of reason" takes us to the threshold of, and allows us the means to unlock, the "door of faith." (Acts 14:27).  It is important to realize, however, that reason alone is not enough to take us out of the "iron cage." 

As John Henry Cardinal Newman put it in his book The Idea of a University, "Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man." 

The "iron cage" is built exactly by these two "giants," the "passion and the pride of man," a man that considers himself autonomous and entirely free to pursue his lusts and disregard the "Law of Nature and Nature's God."  It would seem that Cardinal Newman is right and more than reason is required to free us from the "iron cage."

What more then is required?  Faith.  Faith is required to leave the "iron cage." 

A renewed faith is what Pope Benedict XVI sees as the solution to the world's malaise.  In his apostolic letter Porta fidei, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his desire to initiate a "Year of Faith" beginning October of this year.  This coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The purpose of the "Year of Faith" is two-fold. 

First, it is intended to have Catholics re-enliven, rediscover the splendor, the power, and the beauty of their Faith.  It is intended to help Christ's faithful understand the full import of the Second Vatican Council.  It is intended to remind them that the conciliar texts need "to be read correctly," that is, to be interpreted and implemented "guided by a right hermeneutic."  Read correctly and rightly understood, the texts and their message are to be "widely known, and [to be] taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church's Tradition."  A renewed faith will take us out of the "iron cage."

Second, it is to inspire us to become committed to the New Evangelization so that we might bring those without faith into the household of faith.  A renewed faith will allow us to bring others out of the "iron cage" of modern secularism.

In this article, we will address the first purpose.  In a subsequent article, we will address the second purpose.

In the apostolic letter Porta fidei, Pope Benedict XVI elaborates on the fundamental components of faith.  By looking at these components, we can see how a renewed faith is the way out of the "iron cage" of secularism.

In the Catholic understanding of it, faith is a rich concept.  Faith has an intellectual content--what God has revealed; it is a content of power and beauty.  But it is more.  Faith is a human act in response to the God who reveals.  It is an act both personal and communitarian.  It is sacramental and therefore ecclesiastical and divine in origin, beginning in baptism.  But it is not a once-saved-always-saved proposition; rather, the life of faith is a continuous journey, ending only in death when we shall see God not as through a glass darkly, but face to face.  (1 Cor. 13:12) 

The act of faith is not unreasonable, and yet it is something more than reason and it is inspired throughout by grace.  The act of faith can never be something private, but is necessarily and essentially public.  It is transformative: it must radically affect us and so effect change in us--in our personal life but then ramifying into our social, cultural, and political life.  It is freeing and therefore salvific; belief in Jesus Christ "is the way to arrive definitely at salvation."  Porta fidei, 3. Finally, faith brings forth joy and enthusiasm, and so it is evangelical.  Especially to those in the dark "iron cage," faith must be proclaimed from the housetops.  (Matt. 10:27)

All these components of faith are addressed by Pope Benedict XVI in his apostolic letter Porta fidei, a letter well worth reading.  And it is an absolute imperative to make sure that we understand faith as an ensemble of these components. 

Faith is not content alone.  It is not merely knowledge of those intellectual propositions that one might find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church or in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.  One can read and know what's in these documents and never have faith, though these documents do contain the content of the faith.

Faith is not act alone.  Faith believes, but it believes in something and in someone.  That we believe in both someone and in something is what distinguishes the Catholic Church's understanding of faith from the Protestant understanding of faith, which is more a concept of trust in God (a fiducial faith) than an assent to God and the truths revealed by Him.  Though the Catholic understanding of faith includes the fiducial component, it is much broader and comprehensive that mere trust in a promise.

Faith is therefore both content and act, an "act by which we choose to entrust ourselves fully to God, in complete freedom."  Porta fidei, 10.  There is a "profound unity between the act by which we believe and the content to which we give our assent."  While "knowing the content to be believed" is necessary for salvation, it is "not sufficient" for salvation "unless the heart, the authentic sacred space within the person, is opened by grace that allows the eyes to see below the surface and to understand that what has been proclaimed is the word of God."  Porta fidei, 10. 

The entire content must accepted as the word of God.  There is no such thing a cafeteria Catholicism, where we pick and choose what pleases us.  This is not faith in the revealing God who can neither deceive nor be deceived; this is egotism, a form of idolatry of self.  If you are a cafeteria Catholic you will be eating prison food in the "iron cage."

Importantly, faith is both a personal and a communitarian act.  The Catholic Church understands faith as communitarian in addition to personal.  This means that the faith is not what you and I make it, but it is our individual acceptance of a common faith.  That's why in the Mass we pray: "Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church (fidem Ecclesiae tuae) and graciously grant peace in our days."

For a Protestant, faith is just a personal commitment to Jesus, and it is more or less free of any connection to the Church and in many cases even doctrinal content.  But the wresting of the individual act of faith from the faith of the Church makes the Protestant faith inherently unstable.  It is a doctrine-less attachment to God that sees the Church as surplusage. 

For a Catholic, however, there is no such thing as an act of faith outside the Church because "the Church . . . is the primary subject of faith."  Porta fidei, 10.  It is a falsehood to believe that one's faith has no relationship to the faith of the Church.  "'I believe' is the faith of the Church professed personally by each believer . . . 'We believe' is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers."  Id.

Our act of faith is, in fact, our personal incorporation or participation in the act of faith of the Church.  "'I believe' is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both 'I believe' and 'we believe.'" Porta fidei, 10.

The act of faith is one of confessing, a "confessing with the lips."  This necessarily implies "public testimony" as well as a public "commitment."  "A Christian," the Pope states, "may never think of belief as a private act."  Porta fidei, 10. 

Catholics cannot be closet Christians.  You don't get out of an "iron cage" by entering into a closet.

If a Christian "may never think of belief as a private act" as the Pope avers, then certain things follow. 

First, those in the "iron cage" of secularism who claim to be Catholic Christians and claim they are "personally opposed" to [here insert any of the Church's moral absolutes], but then profess that such shall not affect their public personae are bereft of real belief.  I will not name names and point fingers, but we all know who these are.  Alas, their name is legion.  Pope Benedict XVI makes it clear, however: a privatized, compartmentalized faith is no faith at all. 

It is, in fact, a confession of unbelief, of practical apostasy.  Such Catholics have abandoned either the content of the Faith, disowned the act of Faith, or both.  "Faith," after all, "is choosing to stand with the Lord"--and not to abide by your political philosophy, your constituents, or your political party--"so as to live with him."  Porta fidei, 10. 

So here is the first purpose of the Year of Faith.  The Church and all her members are asked to contribute to the renewal of the Church through a deeper conversion to the Lord and through witness offered by their lives.  We are to believe, and to believe more.  "Believers, so Saint Augustine tells us, 'strengthen themselves by believing.'"  Porta fidei, 7.

Let us cry out to the Lord with the words of the father of the young boy possessed by the spirit which made him mute.  "I believe!  Help thou my unbelief."  (Mark 9:24)

Credo!  Adiuva incredulitatem meam!

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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