Abiding Faith

Australian theologian Scott Cowdell explores how 'having faith' has changed under the influence of modernity and post-modernity in the West. Following the understanding of faith typical of Saint Paul, the Fathers and the medieval monastic theologians, faith is returned from pious sentimentality and arid philosophy of religion to the realm of 'participating knowing', 'paradigmatic imagination', and personal transformation where it belongs as a 'form of life', shaped by encounter with Jesus Christ and worked out through the Eucharistic community.

In the pages of this book, the challenge of nonbelievers is boldly met with surprising answers which ultimately upend the modern debate between faith and science in the public square. Primarily utilizing the truths of nature known to all humans through science, math, and logic, an analysis of nature clearly and convincingly demonstrates that all the evidence and widely accepted theories of science can only be truly understood through faith in God. It turns out that the nonbelievers, not people of faith, are the ones actually practicing a mythological fantasy misrepresenting the truth of science. Chief among all their delusional dogmas is a theory of evolution governed by the principle of survival of the fittest. This principle is far from good science when even a grade school child knows that no matter how fit one may be, nothing will survive. Death, like taxes, is inevitable. All the efforts to regulate faith in the courts, to secularize human sexuality, or promote the separation of God and state are little more than a modern version of the Tower of Babel, a fantasy about humans storming the heavens. For all disciplines of science are predicated upon a priority in nature for human survival which can only be justified by faith in God. That, if there is no God, both science and human life have no real meaning or true purpose; and yet none of us lives that way. Which truly means everyone, even those with the hardest heart, are called by God through nature to an abiding faith.

This is a compilation of poems and sermons I have written over the years.

Australian theologian Scott Cowdell explores how having faith has changed under the influence of modernity and post-modernity in the West. He returns faith from pious sentimentality and arid philosophy of religion to the realm of participating knowing, paradigmatic imagination, and personal transformation where it belongs as a form of life, shaped by encounter with Jesus Christ and worked out through the Eucharistic community. This is shown to have been the typical understanding of faith from Saint Paul to the Fathers to the medieval monastic theologians. Since the rise of nominalism, however, modern individuals reflecting a God newly remote from the world have struggled to maintain this participatory vision of faith as a formative habitat. Mysticism is as close as modernity got, while officially faith was annexed by modern Western culture, coming to share its anxious need for certainty and control--systemic, exclusive, and violent-tending. Scott Cowdell has written a wide-ranging book, bringing together several normally separate debates while tackling the problem from a distinctive perspective. He explores faith against the backdrop of secularization, the collapse of community, and the encroachment of an intentionally destabilizing consumer culture. He expounds the nature of desire in terms of imitation and rivalry, and the violent false-sacred roots of cultural formation evident in the modern West's many victims, all according to the uniquely comprehensive vision of RenŽ Girard. Finally, he dismisses today's growing mood of militant religious skepticism as philosophically outdated and out of its depth before the resilient confidence of a genuine living faith. What Cowdell calls abiding faith emerges as a venerable yet strikingly contemporary possibility. This is good news for today's homeless hearts--there is the gift of a secure identity and a mature spirituality on offer, within a liberating, inclusive, world-affirming, ecclesial form of life.

Australian theologian Scott Cowdell explores how ""having faith"" has changed under the influence of modernity and post-modernity in the West. He returns faith from pious sentimentality and arid philosophy of religion to the realm of ""participating knowing,"" ""paradigmatic imagination,"" and personal transformation where it belongs as a ""form of life,"" shaped by encounter with Jesus Christ and worked out through the Eucharistic community. This is shown to have been the typical understanding of faith from Saint Paul to the Fathers to the medieval monastic theologians. Since the rise of nominalism, however, modern individuals reflecting a God newly remote from the world have struggled to maintain this participatory vision of faith as a formative habitat. Mysticism is as close as modernity got, while ""officially"" faith was annexed by modern Western culture, coming to share its anxious need for certainty and control--systemic, exclusive, and violent-tending. Scott Cowdell has written a wide-ranging book, bringing together several normally separate debates while tackling the problem from a distinctive perspective. He explores faith against the backdrop of secularization, the collapse of community, and the encroachment of an intentionally destabilizing consumer culture. He expounds the nature of desire in terms of imitation and rivalry, and the violent false-sacred roots of cultural formation evident in the modern West's many victims, all according to the uniquely comprehensive vision of Rene Girard. Finally, he dismisses today's growing mood of militant religious skepticism as philosophically outdated and out of its depth before the resilient confidence of a genuine living faith. What Cowdell calls ""abiding faith"" emerges as a venerable yet strikingly contemporary possibility. This is good news for today's ""homeless hearts""--there is the gift of a secure identity and a mature spirituality on offer, within a liberating, inclusive, world-affirming, ecclesial form of life.

"In life, we must aspire to abide in faith, hope and most importantly, love; all three things that are gifts from God. In regards to continuing in these three most precious gifts, means to embody the expressed heavenly character of those gifts." JESUS CHRIST tells us, "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you: abide in My love." The covenant the Lord made with His saints through the blood of Christ is one we are committed to by abiding faith, hope and love. The walk of all Christians is summed up in these three holy gifts. In a comparative tone, similar to the Proverbs, and exhortative as in the Epistles, this work shows not only the importance and connectivity of these three heavenly gifts, but also the folly involved when not abiding in them. Our focus on Jesus is maintained in the abiding: for these gifts are ones that keep on giving to those who abide them. God the Father wishes to make us whole persons through them in order to make us holy as He is holy. Through our commitment to Christ we can expect to: * Experience the freedom of His righteousness in our lives * Become more attuned to the presence of His Spirit at work in us * Live according to the fruits of the Holy Spirit that bring delight to God * Be at complete peace and utter contentment within every facet of our lives * Discern the depth, and width and height of His love, and be able to share it * Possess a faith alive in good works which grow the kingdom of heaven * Be transformed into a new person which emulates the character of God Through His grace, as our relationship with the Lord grows, so does our ability to abide increases. Because God is faithful to us, so does our faith grow when we abide. As the Lord's Word is true and His promises are sure, so our hope does grow congruently with that assuredness. And as unequivocally as the Lord loves us, our love for Him can know no boundaries, and be expressed with the liberty of grace when we abide.