Markan faith

We turn to an older account of faith, one rooted in ancient Greco-Roman thought and practice, as well as ancient Jewish and early Christian thought and practice (Morgan 2015; McKaughan 2017).

Sometimes we have faith that something is true, as when a father has faith that his daughter will flourish in adulthood, despite adolescent evidence to the contrary. Call this propositional faith. On other occasions, we put or maintain faith in someone, or some property or event involving them, as when a man puts his faith in a woman, as his wife, or soldiers put their faith in another, as their commander. Call this relational faith. Relational faith paradigmatically inaugurates and perpetuates a relationship of mutual faith and faithfulness between people, one in which some­one puts or maintains faith in another, as a thus-and-so, and the other responds with faithfulness to them, as a thus-and-so (and vice versa).We say “as a thus-and-so” because relational faith is relative to some things but not others, e.g., you might have faith in your children, as students, but not as horticulturalists. We distinguish propositional faith from relational faith because the older account of faith is, first and foremost, an account of relational faith, which will be our focus.

We will introduce the older account by contrast with what some experts regard as Aquinas's view of relational faith (Stump 2003, 439-440; Swinburne 2005, 138-141).

Belief-Only. For you to put or maintain faith in someone, as an x, is for you to believe that they will come through as an x.

On Belief-Only, for you to put your faith in Dr. Huber, as your dentist, is for you to believe that she will come through for you as a dentist. Notice that, unlike Thomistic faith, Belief-Only wisely removes the idea of believing with certainty on inadequate evidence. Even so, four con­cerns remain.

First, you can believe that someone will deliver as an x even if you do not want them to and you think it is undesirable or bad that they do; but you lack faith in that case.That's why you would never put your faith in Timothy McVeigh, as a terrorist, even if you believed that he will deliver as one. That's why you would never have faith in Satan, as a devil, even if you believed that he comes through all too well on that score.You are against terrorism and devilry; you regard them as undesirable or bad. Faith involves a positive conative-evaluative posture toward its object.

Second concern: you can believe that someone will deliver as an x, and even want them to and think it's a good thing, without being disposed to rely on them as an x; but you lack faith in that case. In this connection, imagine Jesus calling someone to follow him. Suppose they regard following him as desirable, and they even want to follow him.Yet, due to the demands of disci­pleship—e.g., relinquishing attachment to wealth, status, power, autonomy, and the like—they are conflicted and so, perhaps due to weakness of will, they walk away. They lack faith in Jesus as Lord since they are not disposed to rely on him as Lord. Another illustration: you might well believe that your neighbor is a fine wife, and you might even be for it and think it's a good thing; however, you do not have faith in them as a wife since you are not disposed to rely on them as a wife, in contrast with their husband.

To set up our third concern, we submit that to theorize about what faith is we might usefully reflect on what makes faith valuable, notably the role that it plays in forming and maintaining relationships of mutual faith and faithfulness. Ryan Preston-Roedder (2018) observes three sources of value. First, when you put your faith in someone, as a spouse, or a friend, or the like, you are more likely to see and appreciate their potential and value in these capacities. Second, when you put your faith in someone, in a certain capacity, they are more likely to live up to your favorable view of them because your approval of and reliance on them gives them additional reason to come through for you in that capacity. Third, when you put your faith in someone, there's a sense in which you cast your lot with them; you make yourself vulnerable to them and you rely on them to respond faithfully. If they do respond faithfully, the result is a sort of solidarity, a soli­darity that can increase when they reciprocate the faith you have put in them by putting their faith in you, and you respond faithfully. These observations make sense ofTeresa Morgan's claim that, in the ancient Greco-Roman world, faith played a crucial role in forming and maintaining relationships of mutual faith and faithfulness “at every socio-economic level”, “relationships of wives and husbands, parents and children, masters and slaves, patrons and clients, subjects and rulers, armies and commanders, friends, allies, fellow-human beings, gods and worshippers, and even fellow-animals” (2015, 120).

Now to our third concern. Putting your faith in someone can help to promote and sustain valuable relationships in these three ways only if it is at least somewhat resilient in the face of challenges of various sorts. By way of illustration, unless the faith you put in your spouse can withstand the strains of marriage, your faith in them won't make these valuable things more likely.

Fourth concern: you can put your faith in someone, as an x, even if you lack belief that they will deliver as an x.That's not to say that you can disbelieve it and still have faith. Faith involves a more positive cognitive attitude than that. Still, faith need not involve belief that they will deliver as an x, for at least two reasons (cp. Howard-Snyder 2019).

The first reason begins with the observation that, according to Belief-Only, you have faith in someone, as an x, only if you believe that they will deliver as an x. No other type of attitude will do. Not seeming, not credence, not trust, not acceptance, not beliefless assuming. Only belief is allowed. Moreover, according to Belief-Only, when belief is the positive cognitive attitude that you have while you have faith in someone, as an x, the content of that belief must be that they will deliver as an x. No “thinner” content will do: not that it's likely that they will deliver, not that it's more likely than not, not that there's a good enough chance to risk putting your faith in them, and so on for a long list of ineligible “thinner” propositions. Only the “thick” proposition that they will deliver is allowed. The sheer implausibility of requiring exactly one attitude-type and exactly one content counts against Belief-Only, especially since other attitude-types and “thinner” con­tents can sustain the role of faith in a well-lived life.

The second reason begins with the observation that the role of faith in a well-lived life is to render you resilient in the face of challenges to relying on those in whom you repose faith, and faith serves this role partly by responding to new evidence against their not coming through.

If we wish to avoid these four concerns about Belief-Only in our theorizing about faith, we will be led to

Markan faith. For you to put or maintain faith in a person, as an x, is for you to have a positive conative-evaluative posture and a positive cognitive attitude toward their coming through as an x, and for you, in light of your posture and attitude, to be dis­posed to rely on them to come through and to be resilient in the face of challenges to relying on them as an x.

How does Markan faith differ from trust? On every theory of trust in the literature, trust is either unnecessary or insufficient for Markan faith; notably, faith and not trust necessarily involves resilience (cf.

Markan faith is a complex attitude, not a character trait; when someone instantiates it, it takes a specific person as its object, not all or nearly all of those in whom one reposes faith, as we would expect of a trait. Even so, we can ask what trait would correlate with it. It would take us too far afield to explain our answer to this question and so, without argument, we identify resilient reliance as the central defining feature of Markan faith.We will understand resilience as a disposition to overcome challenges to relying on those in whom we repose faith (Battaly 2017; King 2014).Thus we have:

Markan faith as a character trait. For someone to have faith as a character trait is for them to be disposed to overcome challenges to relying on those in whom they repose faith, and to do so because of their stable motivations and values.

This view fits well with Teresa Morgan's repeated observation that, in the Greco-Roman world, faith was a “social virtue” drawn on in times of crisis because it enabled people to overcome the “fear, doubt, and skepticism” that threatened their relationships of mutual faith and faithfulness (Morgan 2015,7, 117, 120, 121). Moreover, it helps explain why the Greeks and Romans deified faith as Pistis/Fides. Furthermore, it fits well with faith as understood and practiced in the early churches, and as exhibited in The Gospel According to Mark, about which Christopher Marshall— the foremost expert on the theme of faith in that Gospel—wrote: “Without doubt, the leading characteristic of Markan faith is sheer dogged perseverance” (1989, 237).

Now, as we said earlier, not all character traits are virtues, and Markan faith is no exception, for the following two reasons.

First, someone might be stably disposed to overcome challenges to relying on those in whom they repose faith but lack the virtue of faith because they lack good judgement. Imagine a spouse suffering in an abusive marriage who maintains great faith in their partner, consist­ently overcoming challenges to relying on them in a variety of ways—when they shouldn't, contrary to good judgment. If this disposition generally characterizes the faith they put in oth­ers, they lack the virtue of faith.You might say they have too much faith, faith to a fault, faith in excess. They don't give up when they should. As a result, the trait of faith in them exhibits intransigence. For most of us, however, intransigence is not a problem. Rather, we are prone to give up too readily, give up when we shouldn't. Our friend doesn't return our calls; our neigh­bor lets their dog out too early in the morning; our religious congregation questions a policy we favor strongly—and so, contrary to good judgement, we withdraw, we no longer rely on them for friendship, neighborliness, and community. If this disposition generally characterizes the faith we put in others, we lack the virtue of faith. You might say we have too little faith, a deficiency of faith. As a result, our faith exhibits irresolution. The trait of Markan faith is a virtue only if you are neither overdisposed nor underdisposed to overcoming challenges to rely­ing on those in whom you repose faith, neither disposed toward intransigence nor disposed toward irresolution.

Second, someone might be stably disposed to overcome challenges to relying on those in whom they repose faith and regularly exercise good judgment, but lack the virtue of faith because their disposition is grounded in bad motivations and values. Imagine an ambitious young priest who learns that archbishops must have faith as a trait, and so they embark on a regi­men to gain it. In due course, they succeed, and they also develop good judgment about who to put faith in, and when and for what. Even though they have the trait of faith, they lack the virtue since their stable disposition to overcome challenges to relying on others in whom they repose faith is grounded in hunger for ecclesiastical power and its privileges.

Upshot: as a virtue, Markan faith is a disposition to appropriately overcome challenges to rely­ing on those in whom one reposes faith, as the context demands.

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