Functional Faith (2) - Deliverance

The second positive ‘function’ that faith can have (when it’s operating properly) is that of deliverance. Here Volf pointed out the basic reality that most of us struggle to find ways to deal with failure and disappointment in our lives. Faith in God functions in that it gives us ways of both understanding and overcoming these negative aspects of life. So if blessing talks about faith’s contribution to human success, deliverance deals with human failure.

Ultimately I’m not sure how different this is from the idea of faith as a blessing because most of us would not be content with God consoling us in our failures but would want his help in overcoming them. Volf argued that we can take comfort from the fact that our failures do not define who we are, that we have a value that transcends our accomplishments and failures. We are loved by God, not because of what we do, but because of who we are. This perspective can be very healing in times of disappointment.

So the extreme form here would be the idea of faith as some kind of coping mechanism, a crutch that we can lean on as we limp through the struggles of life. But I would argue that this is misunderstanding of the Christian faith. At the heart of the gospel is the news that God himself enters into our pain and failure, experiences their ultimate consequences and triumphs over them through the resurrection.

This does not translate into some kind of guarantee that everything will turn out right in the here and now but it does offer us the promise and the hope that failure, pain (and ultimately death) are not the final word on the human predicament. Faith is malfuctioning when it is understood as some kind of ‘get out of jail free card’ the exempts us from the normal trials of life (it certainly did not have the function in Jesus’ life).

So what does deliverance look like? Will God deliver us? How? From what? It is difficult to look at life honestly and say that our normal expectation should be that God will deliver us from our trials. I think faith in Christ, when it’s functioning properly, gives us the hope and the expectation that these experiences do not define us and they do not have the last word. The last word is always resurrection.