Week 3: The “Commitment Aspect” of Faith

On this Third Sunday of Lent, after reflecting on the intellectual aspect and trust aspect of faith, we reflect on the TRANSFORMATIVE or COMMITMENT dimension to the act of faith. The act of faith, understood in the context of this dimension, points to the fact that since I believe that God is a loving and caring creator (intellectual dimension), and so trust in God to love and care for me (trust dimension), I need to respond, to behave in a different way. Accordingly, I accept the fact that I am created and loved by realizing that such a truth and such a trust is a challenge to live differently. Since God is the creator of the world and cares for me so personally, I should, for example, not rely on wealth or power or privilege, but only on my relationship to God. I walk with confidence through the “valley of death,” fearing no evil, living my life relying on God, not trying to create my own world with my own efforts.

We might look at the conversion of St. Augustine as an example of how this dimension of the act faith functions. In the famous scene of Augustine’s conversion in the garden, Augustine tells us that he was reading the scriptures and was in a state of deep interior conflict. On the one had, he had come to believe on an intellectual level about the truth of the gospel. He had come to recognize that God was personal and offered forgiveness and salvation in Christ and, we see from his agony that he was deeply “in love” with God. Still, he could not make the break from his old life—he writes that he prayed to God: “make me chaste, O God—but not yet!” And then, in great turmoil while he was sitting in a garden, he heard the mysterious voice of a child singing “tolle, lege,”—“take up and read.” And so he read opened up the Scriptures and his eyes fell upon the lines of Romans 13:14: “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness . . . . Instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. . . “ With that he at once completed his act of faith and committed himself to the Lord. Once more, Pope Benedict speaks of such a dimension, insisting that “‘ faith working through love’ (Gal 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of a person’s life . . . .”

So there are three important dimensions to faith. A good summary of these is found in a passage in Cardinal Avery Dulles’s book on faith, The Assurance of Things Hoped For:

Insofar as it is assent, faith means acceptance of a revealed message on the word of the divine revealer.

Insofar as it is trust, it involves self-surrender into the hands of God and confidence in God as the savior who is utterly faithful to his promises.

Insofar as it is commitment, it involves an intention to conform one’s conduct to the values and norms established by revelation—to be a “doer” and not simply a “hearer” of the word.

What these three dimensions of faith point to is that faith is a total response, involving a person’s whole being. God offers to humanity God’s entire self in Revelation. In the act of faith we reciprocate, at least as much as we are able. As Vatican II put it, “the “‘obedience of faith’ . . . must be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which men and women entrust their whole selves freely to God, offering ‘the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals,’ and freely assenting to the truth revealed” (Paragraph 4, Constitution on Divine Revelation).

In the final three weeks of Lent we will reflect on the Gift of Faith, then Faith and Doubt, and, finally, Faith and Reason.

Questions for Reflection

1. As a person of faith, what behaviors have you changed?
2. What do you think you need to change in your life to continue growing in your faith?