HALF-FAITH | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1880

HALF-FAITH.

An exchange contains the following pointed paragraph upon the subject of faith:—

There are a great many people who are willing to trust God implicitly, with a few reservations; and to believe that he is all-powerful, with the aid of human help in some few matters. Their foundation is, in effect, that of a New England eccentric, well known in the colleges of the Eastern States, who on one occasion declared his reliance to be "faith, founded upon reason." He is not the only man in the world who is willing to believe in God's goodness only so far as it can be understood. The same principle of semi-trustfulness is no less common in earthly love and friendship,—whether in the family, in the church, or in general society. "A dinner of herbs where love is," says a contemporary novelist, "is doubtless quite sufficient for us; only there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be nicely cooked in an omelette." That is the way we explain away the divine teaching. If only men and women would come to see that half-faith is virtual unbelief; that almost trusting a friend is in point of fact no true friendship at all! The heart that really relies on its Lord, or that truly trusts its fellow-man, must do so without so much as one speck of reservation or withholding of confidence. To keep in the heart one little corner of distrust is compatible only with belief that God is dead, and that friendship does not exist.