INTRODUCTION.✦

Faith is the implicit and absolute belief in the truth of the communication made to us and in the trustworthiness of him who makes it to us. The child has faith in its parents that their wishes or commands are for its good; the pupil in his teachers that they impart correct knowledge; we have faith in our friends that they have no intention to deceive us; in the men of science and learning that the results of their researches may be accepted as well established. In all these cases the faith is but imperfect and of a relative and temporary character. Time, investigation, and extended observation and knowledge may either confirm the contents of our faith or may convince us that we have been in error. This is not the case with religious faith. It keeps within the boundaries of its own domain and does not encroach on that of the senses and of reason. Whatever can be known by means of scientific research and thorough investigation we need not accept on faith. Religion—I have, of course, our own religion, the Jewish, in mind—does not only not forbid such examination, but even encourages it. Thus we read in the Book of Proverbs, “A fool believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going” (xiv. 15). For this purpose God has given us intellectual faculties that we should employ them in our search for truth. At the same time, however, He has set limits to our faculties, and there are things which are beyond these limits, being nistaroth, “things hidden” from our senses, whose existence has been made known to us through the grace of God, by such means as His infinite wisdom determined. We search and investigate, examine and demonstrate, within the sphere of our senses; but all that is beyond their reach belongs to the nistaroth, the knowledge of which can only be imparted to us directly by the Almighty, or indirectly by those to whom they have been communicated by Him. Our belief with regard to these nistaroth may be supported or strengthened by philosophical or dialectical arguments, but can never be proved by mathematical or logical demonstration.

The sources from which we derive our knowledge of these nistaroth are Revelation and Tradition. God reveals things otherwise unknown to man to such persons or to such a generation as His wisdom chooses, and from those thus privileged the knowledge spreads to the rest of mankind by means of Tradition. In addition to these two sources there is a third one in ourselves: God implanted in our souls certain ideas common to all of us as essential elements of our inner life, and these ideas form to some extent the basis of our faith. Such is, e.g., the idea of an all-powerful Being, God, who is the source and origin of everything in existence.

There is no real conflict between faith and reason. It may sometimes seem as if there were such a conflict, and we then naturally begin to doubt. In such cases the truth of our faith may be doubted, but the correctness of our reasoning is no less subject to doubt. We may have erroneously included in our faith beliefs which do not belong to it, and on becoming aware that they are contrary to reason, we cast them aside without the least injury to our faith. On the other hand, our reason is not perfect; we frequently discover mistakes in our arguments and conclusions, and reject opinions which we hitherto have considered as firmly established.

Through patient and thorough investigation of our doubts, without over-estimation of our reasoning faculties, we shall be able to settle the seeming conflict between reason and faith in a satisfactory manner. The examination of our doubts will prove that none of the truths which the Almighty revealed to mankind are contrary to reason.

In this way we are enabled to separate from our faith all elements that in reality are foreign to it; we shall be able to distinguish between faith and superstition. The latter consists of erroneous notions and beliefs which can be tested and subjected to the ordinary means of inquiry. Superstition is not tolerated by true religion; strict adherence to the teachings of our holy religion is the best check to superstitious beliefs.

The importance which the Bible attaches to implicit faith in God and His word may be gathered from the following passages:—

“And he (Abraham) believed in the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. xv. 6). The Hebrew for “righteousness” is in the original ‏צדקה‎ which is used in the Bible as the sum-total of everything good and noble in man’s life.

When the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea, it is said of them: “And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord: and they believed in the Lord, and in Moses His servant” (Exod. xiv. 31).

Again, when Moses and Aaron had sinned at the waters of Meribah by striking the rock instead of speaking to it, they were rebuked for want of ‏אמונה‎ “faith,” in the following words: “Because ye believed not in me (‏לא האמנתם בי‎) to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (Numb. xx. 12).

When Moses in his song ‏האזינו‎ blamed the Israelites for their evil doings, he called them “children in whom there is no faith” ‏אמון‎ (Deut. xxxii. 20).

King Jehoshaphat, addressing the army before the battle, says: “Have faith in the Lord and you will be safe; have confidence in His prophets and you will succeed” (2 Chron. xx. 20).

In the same sense Isaiah says to King Ahaz: “If you have no faith, surely you will not be safe” (Isa. vii. 9).

Also Jeremiah, speaking of Israel’s disobedience to the word of God, exclaims: “The faith, ‏האמונה‎ is perished, and it is cut off from their mouth” (Jer. vii. 28).

The prophet Habakkuk, praying to God for an explanation why evil-doers succeed and prosper, receives the divine answer: “The righteous shall live by his faith” ‏וצדיק באמונתו יחיה‎ (Hab. ii. 4); and when Hosea predicts the future redemption of Israel, he tells them in the name of God, “And I will betroth thee unto me by faith” ‏וארשתיך לי באמונה‎ (Hos. ii. 22).

Our teachers, the sages and rabbis, who succeeded the prophets, have been equally emphatic in commending religious faith. The following are a few of their sayings concerning faith:—

“Great is the merit of faith. Through their faith in the Creator of the universe the Israelites were inspired by the holy spirit, and were enabled to sing praises to the Lord.” “Faith in the Lord was the source of all the temporal and eternal blessings which were bestowed upon Abraham; it gave him the enjoyment of this world and the world to come.” “When the Psalmist says: ‘This gate leads to the Lord; righteous people (‏צדיקים‎) shall come in through it,’ he denoted by the term ‘righteous’ those who possess faith in God” (Yalkut on Ex. xiv. 31).

In spite of the fact that the Torah and the prophets most emphatically declare faith ‏אמונה‎ to be a very essential element in Judaism, it does not seem to have the same importance in the writings of Jewish theologians and philosophers, some of whom have endeavoured to substitute reasoning and logical arguments for simple faith, and to rebuild upon scientific research the religious edifice erected on the foundation of faith. The following are the utterances of the principal Jewish theologians since the close of the Talmud on the relation between faith and reason:—

The Gaon Saadiah of Fayyum wrote a book on creeds and religious beliefs (‏אמאנאת ואעתקאד־אמונות ודעות‎). In the Introduction to this work the philosopher describes the causes of human error and doubt, and assumes four classes of believers. There are, first, those who recognise the truth found by them, cling to it, and are happy in it. There are, secondly, those who have the true principle before them, but do not recognise it, doubt its correctness, and abandon it again. The third class includes those who adopt an opinion without having recognised it as true; they mistake falsehood for truth. The last division consists of those who form no definite opinion, but remain continually in an unsettled state of mind. Saadiah is anxious to see at least his co-religionists in the first class, and his work was intended to help them towards this end.

According to Saadiah, belief or faith must be an integral part of our soul; the various truths which form the faith are stored up in the soul as in a repository, completely ready for use whenever required. It is, however, possible that we store up opinions as true which are false. Tests must be applied to each opinion in order to ascertain its right character. Three of the tests are of a general nature, but the fourth has its force only for us, the believers in the truth of the Holy Writings. The first three tests will show us whether a certain opinion is confirmed or contradicted by our senses, by our innate ideas, or by our logical reasoning. In addition to these we possess a fourth test in the trustworthy communication (‏הגדה הנאמנת‎), i.e., the contents of Holy Writ and Tradition. Holy Writ recognises the necessity of the three general tests, and frequently exhorts us to apply them. On the other hand, Saadiah is convinced that the contents of Holy Writ and Tradition are never contradicted, but in many cases are confirmed by these tests. Such confirmation is in reality superfluous; but the human mind feels more at ease when it finds that the teaching of Holy Writ is supported by other proofs. Besides, attacks on the Bible come frequently from these tests, and it is therefore useful to learn how to refute them. According to Saadiah, the truth taught in the Bible can never be contradicted by the results of scientific or philosophical research.