Faith As The Third Thing. And the Baptism that Brings It.
Faith is Not One of Two Things
There is this fundamental problem of understanding faith in God as being a choice between fact and fiction, as science vs. wisdom, and even as action vs. contemplation[i]
Faith is not one of those ways or the other. It is a third thing.
There is a false bifurcation in life, in thinking and living out life in God, that separates the temporal and eternal, the human and divine, the secular and the sacred. As such, atheists delude themselves and the theists do the same. For the atheist truth is probabilities and possibilities. For the theist, truth is propositions and propitiations. For the atheist life is theory that must be proven in practice. For the theist life is practice that must be proven in theory.
The Third Way: Theologus Crucis
Rather than that divide there is this third way, the way of being what Martin Luther called being a “Theologian of the Cross” (Theologus Crucis)[ii]. The Theologus Crucis life is neither action or reflection by a person, but rather a third way where the person is no longer the agent, the Subject in the sentence. This third way is passivity, or, better stated, receptivity (since we normally define passive as inert or still, which receptivity is decidedly not). To be receptive is to suffer God, to put up with God [think of that old English way of translating the phrase used by Jesus when he spoke to his disciples about letting the children come to him instead of getting in their way: Jesus said “suffer little children… to come to me” (Matthew 19). “Suffer” means allow]. When religious folk talk of the “passion” of Jesus they are normally thinking of Jesus’ physical and emotional and mental suffering, or, they take “passion” to mean Jesus being committed to God alone (he had “passion” for God!). But rather than personal pains or hurts and rather than personal commitment to a cause, the “passion” of Jesus is actually this tolerating of God’s presence (or absence) and action (or inaction). “Passion” has it’s derivation from the same word that produces the word “passive.” It means to stand there and take it. So, then, a Theologus Crucis stands there, in relation to God, and takes it. Takes whatever God delivers. God is the Subject of the sentence. The person is the Object. Not the other way around.
What happens then, here, is the suffering of God that we already know and that we already experience. We do not have to make this up. We don’t have to fabricate a story or create a narrative. There is no “spiritual life” conjuring. And, it is not to be captured and domesticated (either by fighting it, being violent against the violence or by fleeing from it, being afraid of the violence), but rather it is to let it run its course. Science is not to be implored to define it (no “explain that darkness!”). Religion will not be hauled in to determine it (no “embrace that darkness!”).
But Being a Theologus Crucis and Simply “Taking It” From God’s Action or Inaction is Not Yet Faith
But all of that is not yet Faith. Faith is not yet what happens to us when God acts and we suffer the consequences of both good and evil. Faith is not the “standing there and taking it” but faith will not happen, cannot happen, without this being flattened or cornered or however you want to describe it, by the Divine that we see as Threat (we see as Threat because the Divine doesn’t show up as we want or need or because when the Divine does show up all we get is Demand which pulls us up short if not also condemns us).
Something else must happen to us to then create faith.
Faith Comes from Hearing the Promise
This faith that happens to us is not a Void, a nothingness, or a Demand, a pressured command, wherein, to put a posture to it, there is a stiff upper lip that faces the music with a determined Will like the Stoics or a prostrate body that humbles the Heart and Mind like the Christian Mystics (from Gregory of Nyssa to Psuedo-Dionysius to Tauler and others). This is the most natural if not automatic response to the Void and Demand: we find a way to take agency and action, a place and way in which we work to maintain control and direction on outcomes. Note that this means including the way of submission and defeat. In fact, I would characterize most of the Christian church’s preaching and teaching today to be the race to the bottom of humility and surrender in order to springboard the way to the top of a pinnacle called “relationship with God.”
Put another way, this “tolerating of God” does not spring up naturally from ourselves when and as we are alone or cornered. When we are left in the abandoned place, or feel such, there is no self-derived way out.
Something else must be done to us. And what is done is spoken, not displayed. Heard, not Seen.[iii]
And what is spoken is the Promise of God, the Promise from God.
And, faith, then, comes by hearing (Romans 10:4).
What we see when we look around our lives is not only, of course, decay and dismay. We see beauty and bounty. But we also know that a good part of our psychic energy is spent in working to get ourselves to actually see The Wonderful because so much of what is so readily seen is The Awful, or at least the Wonderful not lasting and eventually goes the way of all things, death. Of course there is the Wonderful, but with the same certainty there is The Awful. Faith, this place of hearing in the “tolerating God” is not a matter of vision, of sight, of seeing serenity instead of chaos or even seeing serenity within chaos. Sight is what it is. Faith is not rose-colored glasses.
Faith comes by hearing, not by seeing. Did you hear that? It’s the auditory Word, a Promise, that you are being told. And with this Promise, you can believe it to be true for you, or not. The Promise defies sight. It doesn’t discount or account either the Wonderful or the Awful.
It doesn’t depend on any circumstance, most especially, or particularly for our argument here, our behavior or belief. You can believe it, or not. But it’s gift to you is not contingent on any belief or not that you hold.
Just What Is the Promise?
And just what is the Promise? What is the Promise of God, the Promise from God? “I am the Lord Your God, who called you out of Egypt” (Exodus 20). “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139) “I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43). “You are the Light of the World and Salt of the Earth (Matthew 5). In other words, the Word from God that tells you that God has decided, for no reason at all but because God is Loving and Merciful, to give you life now and life forever. You do not nor do you get to decide for God. God has decided for you and God’s decision is “Yes!”
Did you hear that?
“Well, yes,” we might say. “But I don’t believe it. And a big reason I don’t believe it is because of what I see around me!”
And to that I say: “Of course. What you see defies explanation. Both the good and the bad of it all. But I am not asking you to see anything. I’m asking if you can hear.”
And to that you might say: “It’s too good to be true.”
And to that I say: “It’s too good not to be true.”
On Seeing God vs. Hearing God: Let’s Take a Dive into Some Bible, Exodus and John
There is the interesting and compelling story in Exodus 33 and 34 in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Christian Bible. This account of Moses encountering God, on the mountain when Moses asks to see (note: see) the glory of God, is hugely influential on the Jewish and Christian faith tradition of how those traditions describe the nature of our life in relationship with God. Moses delivers the Commandments of God to the people of Israel for the second time (!) and then, appreciating that God has favored him and the people (for whatever reason….!) Moses asks God, to seal the deal on just being as clear as possible in knowing their relationship is solid, to show him (Moses) God’s “glory.” Moses wants to see God face to face. God says God can’t do that because if God did that Moses would die! But, God says Moses could do this: put his face in between some of the rock of the mountain and God would walk past and cover Moses’ sight as he walked past so Moses could not see God’s face, or front side, but after God walks past Moses can see God’s backside! Ok, so much for seeing any “glory!” Both the Jewish and Christian tradition has been at pains to use this story to define and describe, then, our relationship with God as being either one of following behind God until we reach a perfection or an appreciating the dim and dark view (back, not front!) we have that someday will be rewarded, if we live with it, with a perfect view. But wait! What actually happens in the story? God doesn’t finally show up with a Vision. God shows up with a Word!
Exodus 33:5-7: “The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name, ‘The Lord.’ The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children
to the third and the fourth generation.’”
God showed up by “proclaiming.” (And yes, I notice the part about the not clearing the guilty. But notice something else please: this simply means the Mercy comes not only regardless of any good we bring, but precisely as well, regardless of any evil and the price we pay to ourselves, not to God, for that evil).
God’s “glory” is not something seen, it is something heard.[iv]
I know that’s hard to take, because we’ve been told that “seeing is believing” and we have stories like the famous one of Thomas and Jesus in the Bible’s New Testament (John 20) where Thomas only believes because he sees Jesus and not because he simply heard that Jesus was resurrected. But notice something about that story too: the sighting was not the first revelation in that account. The first one was the telling (“Jesus is risen!). Think about it. There were plenty of others who were told “Jesus is Risen” and were left with only that because that was all that was necessary. Thomas got lucky. Just like we do in our life when good things go our way. Yes, I said “lucky.” What, you mean we are not “blessed” as in “shown favor by God”? Exactly. Unless you like to think that when things go south in your life you are “cursed” as in “condemned by God.” By “lucky” I mean fortunate. But, notice: outside of any sighting of Jesus, Thomas already got the good news! “Jesus is Risen!” And then, notice too that in that story Jesus tells everybody that the really cool and solid thing is when people do not see, yet believe.
The Church Today Keeps Sending Us on A Wild Goose Chase
This seems a good place for me to complain a bit about something I see happening in church circles. Often I see church leaders telling others about what they see God doing in the life of the church or the life of the wider community. And they often implore others to make sure they pay attention and see “what God is doing.” What they are referring to are things like people helping others, working for justice, environmental stewardship actions, people coming to faith and/or all things that work for good. The problem with that, it seems to me, is not the patting oneself on the back. Or even, to put a better light on it, patting God on the back with a “way to go, God!” congratulations. It’s not that. It’s that those very same leaders don’t blame God when circumstances or events go bad. “People are going homeless and hungry in our community! Look what God is doing!” No, nobody says that.
At best, if God is blamed, it’s because the hardship is theologized into some good: things like “God is disciplining you to give patience and endurance” or “God is humbling you to give you the means to trust only God.” The Christian Bible does have this kind of thinking expressed: God will not let you be tempted beyond your ability (I Corinthians 10). But that same Bible expresses the sentiment of blaming God and just wanting to die (Job 2)! So, there you have it: a mixed bag at best. This says to me it’s best to lay off any attributing of good or bad to God. If we want hope, we can use our senses, but its best to use our Ears and not our Eyes.
So, again, faith does not come because there is a Void (that nothingness that comes because we don’t see good things in our life) or a Demand (that direction from the divine to get things together, even our hearts and minds) And, it does not come through the Void, that place of appreciating the Void as if the Void now and accepting the Void now is the new found way of escaping the Void (again, the Stoics, and, those Christian Mystics throughout the centuries who added Jesus to the equation but in one way of the other worked to find the Darkness and Silence of God as something to be embraced). And, too, it does not come through the Demand, as if the Demand is not accusatory but rather befriending.
Faith, rather, comes because a word is spoken into the Void and against the Demand. When we live in the Void and by the Void and in Demand and by the Demand, all we can do is fill that Void and Demand with Stuff, be they Substances like drugs and alcohol or Abusive Behaviors like sexual misconduct or crime or Religious Belief Systems that demand fidelity in belief and behavior. It’s all Us. We are the Subject that must Act and we take on Stuff.
But the Promise of God, again, speaks into that Void and Demand, and is most decidedly, not Us!
On the Difference Between Law and Gospel
What we have here is what teaching in the Lutheran Tradition calls the difference between Law and Gospel. The Void and Demand, that Inaction and Action of God, is always and only a threat to us. It cannot be turned into a friend. We want to turn it into a friend because then we are still in the game and have agency. Thus, “standing there and taking it” gets seen as something we do. It’s not that. Its rather hearing a Promise that is not the Law, not within the Void and Demand, but is apart from the Law. And it provides our Resistance to Evil and Hope for the Future.
This Third Way, this Receptivity, allows being done in by God, killed by God[v], resulting in a new life (“results in new life” = resurrection of a new thing, not resuscitation of a previous thing) that is animated and active in service (loving) in this distinctively new way (a liberation from the old way of self-justification(s)). This is all much like Walter Wink’s naming of Jesus of Nazareth’s way of non-violence being a “third way,” an alternative to the polarities of violence and pacifism, fight or flight.[vi] Non-violence is receptive (passive) resistance, an engagement that resists the power of evil without striking harm.
How You Get the Third Way, the Theologus Crucis, Faith: Baptism
So how do you find this Third Way? How does one become a Theologus Crucis, a Theologian of the Cross? It does not come naturally. But too, it’s actually a misnomer to say “you can find” this Third Way. It rather must find you. What comes naturally is fight or flight. Faith, this Third Way, has to come unnaturally, rather like a strike against our own despair on the one hand and pride on the other.[vii] Out of the blue we are given a new life and thus a new way of life. It is amazing, and it feels amazing, and one has to get used to it.[viii] One has to look around and learn how it works.
The Third Way comes unnaturally. It’s not in our nature. And so, the weird practice of taking an infant and immersing them in water (or, ok, the less fun way and less dramatic way of sprinkling) in a baptism is the perfect way to bring it. But here again, it’s not what you see that matters, it’s what you hear. Martin Luther, in his Explanation of Baptism in his Small Catechism says it directly: It’s not water that brings God’s promise. It’s the Word from/of God.[ix]
This is why the Christian community baptizes people whether they know anything about God or not. Infants know nothing, and get baptized. Adults know nothing, and get baptized [ok, ok, yes, we have classes, sometimes long and drawn out “catechumenates” for adults, but that’s probably unfortunate because it makes the whole thing, this new life in God, like something we have to merit or “stand under” (understand) as if we support the whole effort rather than something that’s simply given to us]. I like the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 who, upon hearing the story that was simply too good not to be true, and knew nothing more, blurted out “what’s to keep me from being baptized!?” The answer, of course, was nothing, and Philip got right to it.
Baptism comes unnaturally, out of the blue. Then, the person baptized says, “Hey, what just happened to me?!” and spends a lifetime learning how to live out this liberation they have just been given. Yes, the infant doesn’t ask that question (“what just happened to me?!) right away, it comes later. But they do ask (at least if someone tells them they were baptized!).
And just like anything in life, the life of liberation that comes in Jesus Christ is best learned by watching others do it. Yes, you can read about it (and I appreciate you reading this!), but if you can find somebody who does it from whom you can learn, that’s magic.[x]
Summation and Conclusion: Just What Is Faith?
Ok, let me try to sum up what I’ve said (for my own sake as well as yours!) and wrap this up (yes, please, finish!).
Faith is not an investment we make in one way of thinking or living over against another. For example, it’s not believing there is more to life than what you see over against believing what you see is what you get. It’s not a believing God created the world versus the Big Bang. It’s not believing the most authentic life is the doing of life versus the appreciating of life. Faith is rather a third way, a way where it’s not our investment, either/or, at all that calls the shots and defines the eternity. Yes, we can decide our career path or where to go to lunch, but we cannot decide our destiny. We’ll call this Third Way the Theologus Crucis, being a Theologian of the Cross. This Theologus Crucis is when we suffer God, the Void and Demand.
But our natural inclination is to try to remove this tolerating, this suffering: so we do Stuff and fill our lives with Stuff, including hurtful and harmful behaviors to ourselves and others, including helpful and harmonious behaviors to ourselves and others, including believing in God in certain and particular ways and coming up with religious practices with which to reflect all this (all of this doing and filling up of Stuff is called making Idols). Speaking into this suffering, this “standing there and taking it” is a Word, not a Way. A Promise, Not another Demand, including not a taking of this “tolerating of God” as now our new Way. It’s the actual hearing of a Word that is a Promise the defies and defeats the Void and Demand. The church is tasked with bringing this Promise to bear on all things and all circumstances and all peoples and, indeed, all creation: “You are forgiven, for Jesus sake.” The Church’s job is not to show us God (justice) or how to look for God (journey) but rather to deliver God’s Promise and let the chips fall where they may. Some of “where they fall” is called faith. We can believe the Promise, or not.
Baptism brings the Promise. It’s unnatural. Natural is to take on the Void and Demand and fight our way out or run away in fear. Unnatural is to be done in by God (check out Romans 6 for all the dying language associated with baptism) and given life (check out that same Romans 6 for all the living language) by God all at the same time.
And then the rest of our life is realizing and living into the fact that we have just been saved (sanctification is getting used to justification).
And the reason a person comes to a worship service is because our natural inclination is not to believe we have been given the Third Way (faith) but rather run off into busyness (both good and bad). We need to hear and receive the Promise on the regular.
So, there you have it. I’ve been long winded, I know. But I’ve been trying to tell the whole story of what Faith is and what Faith is all about. So, thanks for hanging with me, and I hope I have shed some light if not opened up a door for us all.
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[i] I am thinking out loud here in engagement with Oswald Bayer’s work of “Luther’s Response to the Philosophy of Science Tradition” in Bayer’s Theology the Lutheran Way, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007, p. 16ff)
[ii] Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther, 1518 (see On Being a Theologian of the Cross, Gerhard Forde, Eerdmans Publishing, 1997))
[iii] This now leads us to the archetypal distinction between and definition of Law and Gospel. Martin Luther’s “reformational turn” came in his learning and describing this difference. The so-called Word of God that is heard is not one Word but two Words: Law and Gospel. But note that this distinction is more often than not misconstrued not only by most Christians, but also Lutheran Christians as well. In this misconstruction, there is the Word of Demand, in the form of Commandment(s), but the other word, Gospel, is not understood as a separate Word, but rather a part of the one Word Demand. The Gospel operates within the Law, Demand, and gives a solution to the disobedience or dismissal of the Law. A good example of this is the Atonement Theory most popular even today among Christians: Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty that was humanity’s due because of disobedience and disbelief. Gospel in this schemata is Jesus’ death (and then, resurrection) within the system of the Law’s demand(s). There is no forgiveness without the penalty for messing with the Law. Contrast all of that with a different definition of Gospel: not forgiveness within the Law, but apart from the Law. A separate and different Word from God that is not dependent on behavior of vice or virtue or on any belief whatsoever.
[iv] I have learned an awful lot in the last 7 years or so from Steven Paulson’s trilogy entitled The Outlaw God (Vol.1, Vol. 2, Vol.3) (Lutheran Quarterly Books, Fortress Press, 2018, 2019, 2021). In particular, Volume 2 engages the Christian Mystics throughout history and this use of Exodus 33 and 34, as well as much more biblical text that Luther opened up and taught him (Luther) this difference between Law and Gospel. I need to also here give a shout out to 1517.org and their Outlaw God podcast, featuring Steven Paulson, which as I write this in February 2026 in engaging a long and detailed walk-through of The Outlaw God, Volume 2: Hidden in the Cross. I highly recommend this Podcast. Listen to all the episodes, but germane here is Nov. 12, 2025’s “The Goals of Mysticism,” and related to all of my topic, see especially January 22, 2026’s show, “Attack on Grace.”
[v] I Samuel 2:6-7
[vi] Jesus and Non-Violence: A Third Way, Walter Wink (2003)
[vii] In the story that Jesus tells (The Waiting Father, aka The Prodigal Son) in Luke 15, the wayward Son is drawn up from despair and the homebound Son is brought down from pride, all by the radically unnatural (against his own natural inclinations to punish misbehavior and reward obedience) largesse of the Father.
[viii] Gerhard Forde writes that sanctification is getting used to justification. You live the life of holiness not by being or becoming holy but by realizing you are already holy in Jesus Christ (cf. “The Lutheran View of Sanctification,” in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, ed. Donald Alexander, 1988)
[ix] “Q. How can water do such great things? A. Water doesn’t make these things happen, of course. It is God’s Word, which is with and in the water. Because, without God’s Word, the water is plain water and not baptism. But with God’s Word it is a Baptism, a grace-filled water of life, a bath of new birth in the Holy Spirit,…” The Small Catechism, Martin Luther (1529).
[x] Mentoring!
