Last week I suggested that faith is not the product of some kind of rational choice. The larger point I am trying to make is that the causal relationship between faith and the presence of the Holy Spirit has been thought of wrongly. People often believe that one’s faith decision is the cause of the presence of the Holy Spirit: “if you believe the right things, then you will receive the Holy Spirit.” But this is the height of arrogance. This is no better than those who believe that if they pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do enough “good works,” then they have earned the right to God's favor.
Instead, in Galatians 5, Paul describes faith as one manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit. That is to say, having the Spirit is the cause of one having faith, rather than the other way around. This seems odd, but think about what else is on that list: self-control! Yes, that means that Paul believes that the ability to control yourself is not the product of your own efforts.
This shows us that faith and love are have the same origins: they are both part of the fruit of the Spirit. This, however, does not imply that they are equally as valuable. In I Corinthians 13, Paul makes an astonishing comparison. He directly compares love, hope and faith and says very simply that “the greatest of these is love.”
We are perhaps starting to see a pattern, and some Pauline support for John’s radical claim that only those who love are born of God. Perhaps John’s claim isn’t as unusual as it first appeared. I want to give more support to this claim over the next two weeks by pulling out passages which state that either 1) that faith is not necessary part of the “born-again” process, or 2) that faith is not sufficient to account for being “born-again.”
