A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

The Naturalness of Faith––”It is noticeable that while our Lord is always demanding Faith, He offers no definition of the Faith He requires; so that there is a presumption that He meant by Faith just what men ordinarily mean by it. And the presumption is increased when it is remembered that Faith in our Lord began with being faith in human qualities before those qualities were seen to be divine. The faith of the Apostles increased under our Lord’s careful training, both in depth and breadth; but between the first attraction that drew (say) Peter from his nets, and the last declaration of his worship upon the shores of Gennesaret, there was no breach of continuity. Indeed, as if to assure us that the Apostle’s human faith had not after the Resurrection ‘changed to something else,’ and become an indefinite theological virtue, we find the word used to express it which, of all the words which labour to express faith, is the one most deeply tinged with human feeling: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” We must ask, therefore, what, as between man and man, is commonly meant by Faith, and then we can examine whether our explanation fits the several groups of passages in the Gospels.”