UNCONDITIONAL FAITH

First, what does faith mean?

For over two centuries Christianity has identified “faith” with “belief” - and this identification marked the beginning of one of the greatest spiritual tragedies of Christianity in all sectors, especially Protestantism, which is based primarily on the principle of “who believe will be saved”.

The word “faith” comes from the Latin term “fides,” so faith is an attitude of faithfulness, harmony, attunement. When my radio is tuned to the electronic wave emitted by the broadcaster, then my radio clearly picks up the irradiation - my radio has “faith,” fidelity to the broadcaster.

“Belief” has nothing to do with faith. Belief is a vague, uncertain, undefined opinion; just like when someone says, I think it's going to rain, I think so-and-so died - but none of this is certain.

Why has the word “faith” been replaced by the word “belief”? Why do we say, “I believe,” instead of saying “I have faith”?

Unfortunately, the Latin word fides have no verb, using a verb from another radical, and from the Latin credere, formed belief, creed.

And with that, the true notion of the word faith, in the sense of faithfulness, was lost.

The texts of the first century Gospels were written in Greek, and in this language, fides, faith, is pistis, which has the verb pisteuein, to have faith. But the Latin translation, finding no verb derived from fides was forced to resort to the vague term credere, to believe.

Jesus' disciples asked: Master, increase our faith, faithfulness, our attunement, our harmony with the spiritual world; strengthens the harmony between our human consciousness and Divine consciousness. The disciples feel that they have a slight fidelity to the world of Divine reality, but they also feel the weakness and the smallness of their faithfulness.

Then the Master answered them: If you have faithfulness, genuine and authentic, even if it is initially weak but genuine and authentic, then you have power over the whole material world. What is important is not the quantity but the quality of your faith. The omnipotence of the spirit has power over any power of matter. What is decisive is the qualitative intensity of your faith, not the quantitative dimension.

And to show them what this intensive quality of faith consists of, Jesus seeks, not for an abstract and theoretical definition, but a concrete and practical example. It shows that unselfish acts produce the right climate for a spiritual attitude of faith. He who works to be rewarded acts in the name of the always selfish and tyrannical ego; but who works without any intention, explicit or implicit to be rewarded, creates an environment conducive to the attitude of faith.

The disciples asked: increase our faith! And the Master makes them see that they themselves must increase their faith through selfless acts.

Faith is a spiritual attitude of the Self, but any self-interested act of mercenary ego weakens the environment for the birth and growth of faith.

“Faith grows in the direct reason in which man frees himself from selfishness.”

The phrase “useless servants” is a stroke of mercy for our inveterate human selfishness. Every ego feels “useful servant,” and as useful as it thinks it is, it always wants to be rewarded for its actions. The ego does nothing for free; the zone of grace is the spiritual Self, which for this very reason can work for free.

“By Moses was given the law (ego), by Christ came the truth, came grace (Self).”

Every mercenary ego is a great disciple of Moses - and a terrible disciple of Christ.

French philosopher Henri Bergson says that all churches hate earthly selfishness, but all recommend heavenly selfishness. Theologies generally teach that man must be good, selfless, virtuous to deserve heaven - and they do not realize that this too is posthumous selfishness.

The truly liberated and fully realized man expects no reward for being good, either before or after death. The good man is unconditionally good. He is not good to be rewarded with some objective heaven, with a heavenly prize. The unconditionally good man realizes the kingdom of heaven within himself subjectively, being this self-realization his true heaven. He does not expect any external heaven coming from outside, he realizes his internal heaven from within.

This is not selfishness, because where the ego has been totally overcome, there is no selfishness.

It is what the Master calls being a “worthless servant,” without credit, without the right to any objective reward.

Immanuel Kant, in his analytical philosophy harshly reproaches Baruch de Spinoza for glorifying the unconditionally good man, but the Jewish monist of Amsterdam was more Christlike than the Christian theist of Königsberg.

True faith or faithfulness to the spirit of God grows in the direct reason for man's liberation from any mercenary spirit.