The Passion of Possibility by Ingolf U. Dalferth

Author:Ingolf U. Dalferth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2023-02-20T21:57:33.269000+00:00

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What is it to be a Christian?

Becoming a Christian, according to the Postscript, is not a cognitive or intellectual affair. You do not become a Christian by knowing what Christianity is. Not only because “one can know what Christianity is without being a Christian” but also because one can become a Christian without knowing beforehand what Christianity is.8 You may know as much as you like about Christianity, you can be as certain as you may about its truth, it does not make you a Christian.

To be or not to be a Christian, therefore, does not depend on any sort of knowledge, neither on the objective knowledge of the tenets of Christianity nor on the subjective certainty of their truth. No belief that Christianity is true, however certain, actually shows it to be true or is to be confused with faith. Just as “[f]aith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation, nor does it come directly,” so faith has “a beneficial taskmaster in uncertainty,” but “its worst enemy in […] certainty.”9 I am not a Christian because I am certain that Christianity is true, rather I am certain that it is true because I am a Christian. Similarly, no descriptive third-person-knowledge, however detailed and comprehensive, ever results in existential first-person-knowledge. One “can know what Christianity is without being a Christian.”10 ‘I know everything about Christianity’ does not entail ‘I am a Christian.’ It not even entails that I know “what it is to be a Christian.”11 According to the Postscript, one cannot “know what it is to be a Christian without being one […] On the other hand, the Christian must indeed also know what Christianity is and be able to tell us—provided he himself has become one.”12 So, the situation presented in the Postscript is somewhat complicated. The most important aspects can be summarized in six points:

First, anyone who is able to know at all can know about Christianity: Christianity is not an inscrutable mystery but a possible object of knowledge, that is, of philosophical insight (necessary truth) and empirical or historical study (contingent truths).

Second, to know about Christianity does not make you a Christian: Knowledge, even in the strong sense in which ‘I know p’ entails ‘p is true,’ is neither sufficient nor necessary for a Christian to be a Christian. I do not become a Christian by knowing about Christianity: ‘I know about Christianity’ does not entail ‘I am a Christian;’ and I do not have to know about Christianity to become a Christian: ‘I am not a Christian because (of what) I know about Christianity.’ It is one thing to know about Christianity, another to be a Christian.

Third, to know about Christianity is not to know what it is to be a Christian: There is not only a difference between third-person knowledge (‘X knows about Christianity’) and first-person knowledge (‘I know about Christianity’) but also between descriptive knowledge (‘I know about Christianity’) and existential knowledge (‘I know that I am a Christian’ or ‘I know myself to be a Christian’).

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