Kierkegaard’s Meaning of Faith (with Aquinas)
1. The Question of Faith: Knowing, Trusting, and Living
Christians say we “have faith,” are “justified by faith,” and “contend for the faith.” But what is faith? Two giants offer different lenses: St. Thomas Aquinas and Søren Kierkegaard.
Aquinas: faith is a theological virtue by which the intellect assents to what God reveals, moved by grace.
Kierkegaard: faith belongs to passion and decision—an existential “resolution,” a leap in which the self entrusts itself wholly to God.
Both perspectives matter for creation-to-consummation Christianity: God addresses a whole people (objective truth given) and summons whole persons (subjective appropriation required). The Bible’s language holds both: “faith comes from hearing” (objective word), and the heart “believes” (subjective entrustment) unto righteousness (Romans 10:9–17).
2. Object and Subject: Truth Given, Self Engaged
Aquinas stresses that faith has content: God, who cannot lie, reveals himself; therefore faith rests on a trustworthy object (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). This guards the Church’s proclamation: “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Doctrine, creeds, and catechesis clarify what is believed so the intellect can truly assent to God’s word (John 17:17).
Kierkegaard insists that personal appropriation is decisive. You can memorize every proposition and still miss the kingdom if you never entrust yourself to Christ (Matthew 7:21–23). He presses the biblical pattern where discipleship is not mere data but devotion: “Follow me” (Mark 1:17). Faith is clinging to the Teacher himself (John 6:68), not just to teachings about him.
Held together, we get a full picture:
Objectivity without reduction: Truth is God-given, public, and stable (Psalm 119:89).
Subjectivity without relativism: Faith must be personally embraced in repentance and trust (Acts 20:21).
3. Reason, Certainty, and the Place of Risk
Is faith reasonable? Aquinas says yes: faith surpasses reason yet never contradicts it (Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:1). Reason can clear away obstacles, show the fittingness of revelation, and serve the Church’s teaching office. Faith’s certainty is grounded not in proofs but in God’s own veracity (Hebrews 11:1; 2 Timothy 1:12).
Kierkegaard asks: if everything were provable like a theorem, where would trust be? Faith involves risk precisely because we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Abraham “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). The leap is not irrational chaos but a personal entrusting beyond calculation—obedience in the face of “objective uncertainty.”
A fruitful tension emerges:
Aquinas highlights the harmony of faith and reason, the firmness of God’s promise (Romans 4:20–21).
Kierkegaard highlights the existential courage of consenting to God’s address here and now (Luke 9:23).
4. What Faith Looks Like: Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy
Because faith assents to God’s self-revelation, right teaching matters. The apostles guard “sound words” (2 Timothy 1:13–14). Catechesis, sacraments, and communal confession keep us inside the story God tells. Yet because faith is entrusting oneself to Christ, obedience and risk matter too. “Faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6) moves from the pew into the street, the workplace, and the home.
Consider three biblical portraits that harmonize doctrine and devotion:
Abraham: He hears God’s word (objective promise) and goes (subjective obedience). “He believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3).
Mary: She receives the annunciation (revealed content) and responds, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
Paul: He “reasoned” in synagogues (Acts 17:2) and “counted all as loss” to gain Christ (Philippians 3:8).
Faith is not less than assent; it is more: a Spirit-born trust that reorients the whole life (Ephesians 2:8–10).
5. Faith and the Gospel’s Scope
Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the single individual before God guards against a secondhand religion. You cannot outsource trust; you must repent and believe (Mark 1:15). Yet Scripture also binds believers to a people, promises, and practices—covenantal continuity from Abraham to Christ to the Church (Galatians 3:7–9, 29). The Gospel is bigger than private certitude: it ushers us into a new creation community where faith receives a name, a meal, a mission (Matthew 28:18–20; 1 Corinthians 10:16–17).
Faith, then, is:
Reception: hearing and assenting to God’s promises in Christ (Romans 10:17).
Renunciation: turning from idols, self-sufficiency, and sin (1 Thessalonians 1:9).
Risk: obeying when outcomes are uncertain (Hebrews 11).
Rest: leaning on the finished work of Jesus (Matthew 11:28–30; Romans 5:1).
6. Assurance, Perseverance, and the Long Obedience
Does faith waver? Scripture holds two truths in tension.
Grounded assurance: Our confidence rests on God’s character and Christ’s accomplishment (Hebrews 6:17–20; John 10:27–30).
Pilgrim perseverance: Faith grows through trials; we “work out” what God “works in” (Philippians 2:12–13; James 1:2–4).
Kierkegaard’s “passionate inwardness” fits the Bible’s call to take up the cross daily (Luke 9:23). Aquinas’s account of faith as a grace-given virtue fits the Bible’s insistence that salvation is God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8). Together they urge humble confidence and courageous obedience.
Practices that nurture faith:
Word and Sacrament: hearing Christ, feeding on Christ (Romans 10:17; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26).
Prayer and Lament: bringing uncertainty to God (Psalm 13; Philippians 4:6–7).
Church and Mission: confessing together, serving together (Hebrews 10:23–25; 1 Peter 2:9–10).
7. Faith, Cross, and Future: The Eschatological Horizon
Faith is not the last word; sight is. “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Until the appearing of our Lord, faith abides in hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13; Titus 2:11–14). The leap that entrusts the self to Christ is not into a void but into the pierced hands of the risen King (John 20:27–29). He who authors faith will finish it (Hebrews 12:2).
This horizon guards us from two distortions:
Bare intellectualism: propositions without person.
Bare voluntarism: passion without truth.
The Gospel unites both. The Word made flesh (John 1:14) summons our assent and our allegiance. Faith believes the promise—and follows the Promiser.
Conclusion
What is faith? With Aquinas, we say it is grace-enabled assent to God’s truthful self-revelation. With Kierkegaard, we say it is an existential leap—risking oneself on Christ in trust and obedience. Scripture binds these: faith hears, assents, and follows; it receives a kingdom and bears a cross. The result is neither panic before uncertainty nor pride in certainty, but a durable confidence that becomes love in action.
Faith is not the end of thinking nor a substitute for living; it is the Spirit’s way of uniting us to Jesus, in whom all God’s promises are “Yes” (2 Corinthians 1:20). We live by faith now, we walk by faith now, and we shall, in the end, see the One we have trusted (1 Peter 1:8–9).
Bible Verses about Faith
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith… it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
“We walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)
“Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart… you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
“I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23)
“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2)
“Though you have not seen him, you love him… you believe in him and rejoice.” (1 Peter 1:8–9)
