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The Authorship of Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

W. L. Sessions
W. L. Sessions
Affiliation:
Washington & Lee UniversityLexingtonVirginia
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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

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