Overcoming both the world and faith?
Recently I came across this verse in the bible (1 John 5:4),
For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
What I find fascinating in this verse is the undecidablity at work. For does it mean that our faith overcomes the world (as some translations suggest) or that being born of God overcomes both the world and faith? I chatted to a biblical scholar about this verse and he quickly pointed out that while there seems to be a little bit of grammatical uncertainty in the source documents the wider context (i.e. 1 John’s high Christology) allows for only one legitimate reading (the first one).
Yet, when reading 1 John I see a complex interplay at work between a high Christology and a line of thinking which would seem to undermine it; causing us to rethink what we mean by believing in Christ. For instance we find an argument that informs us that all those who live a life of love dwell in God and that if we say we love God yet hate our neighbors we are liars (1 John 4:16-19). Yet this is set right beside an argument that tells us in no uncertain terms that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah is born of God (1 John 5:1).
The problem here arises because of a certain tension between the idea that only those who love are born of God alongside the idea that only those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah are born of God. We can imagine plenty of situations where these would overlap but also many where they would seem not to (imagine a basic Venn diagram here). So what is being said? While asking this question it is also useful to recall that 1 Corinthians 12:3 tells us that no-one can say “Jesus is Lord” without the spirit of God.
It is only honest here to admit that the idea that believing Jesus is Messiah or (even more crazily) merely affirming that Jesus is Lord somehow brings one into relation with God initially appears rather strange. Personally I know people who believe Jesus is the Messiah with more conviction than they believe the sun will rise tomorrow and I receive emails every week from people proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” (and then asking that I give them my bank details so that they can deposit millions: for a nominal fee of course).
So what are we to do if we cannot read these verses as claiming that intellectual belief in Jesus as Messiah (or, more radical still, mere affirmation of this without even the need of belief) is proof of being born of God?
It would seem that 1 John is making a different claim, the author seems to be suggesting, not that those who believe in Jesus as Messiah will naturally love but rather those who love believe in Jesus as Messiah. This reading requires a different understanding of belief. Here the author of 1 John seems to be suggesting, in the very midst of its high Christology, that belief is embodied, that it is incarnated. In short that it is affirmed in the transformed life of the believer.
The radical, heretical, claim here is that one is not called to believe in the death and resurrection of Christ but rather to be the site where that death and resurrection is made manifest, not to believe in the miracles of Jesus but to be the place where a miracle takes place. In short belief in the Messiah is one that is affirmed only in the life that emanates love, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy and joy.
What we have in 1 John then is simultaneously a high Christology mixed with the idea that this high Christology is never said, but only lived.
Thus no-one can say Jesus is Lord without the Spirit or believe that Jesus is the Messiah with loving. Why? Because one does not say “Jesus is Lord” with ones lips but with ones loving touch. And one does not believe that Jesus is Messiah with ones mind but with the offering of water to the thirsty and coats to the cold.
Now I am no biblical scholar so these are only some fractured thoughts on the text. But it does seem to me to make sense, not only of 1 John in general but also of the verse I mentioned at the beginning of this post. A verse that seems to hint that if one is born of God then the world and even faith are overcome (i.e. those without even a mustard seeds worth of faith can be part of this upside down, radical kingdom).
Tags: 1 John 5:4, overcoming faith, Peter Rollins
May 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
challenging thoughts as always pete. i love the idea that our faith is articulated in action rather than creedal recital and that we become the very site of the resurrection and miracle.
the syntax of the verse does suggest that “this is the victory that has overcome the world: even our faith” is the author-intended reading. however, i do think your reading ties in with the broad themes of the gospel in other places. if jesus and his first followers simply meant to define ‘belief’ as meaning ‘to give intellectual assent’, the gospel doesn’t make much sense and certainly has no transformative power whatsoever. if, however, ‘to believe’ means ‘to cling desperately to’, ‘to adhere to the teachings of’, ‘to devote oneself wholeheartedly to’, then the gospel becomes an entirely different (and more wonder-filled) thing.
this (hebraic, even biblical) reading opens the door much wider and makes room for the type of reading you suggest here – that those who love sacrificially and wholeheartedly have already ‘believed in his name’ i.e. are already living their lives in accordance with the mission on which jesus christ has come.
the kingdom of god is amongst you.
not sure if i’m entirely on-topic here, but i’m a bear of little brain.
i need to go lie down now!
May 16th, 2008 at 3:22 am
Hey Shane. Great to hear your thoughts. The verse itself is a strange one. There is a word in English that operates in a similar way to the ‘even’ here when used in certain circumstances. Namely the word ‘but’. For instance what is the person saying here,
I can’t but think that he did that on purpose
There is a certain tension at work in such statements. Bruce Fink, the Lacanian psychoanalyst, uses such statements as a hint that two views are simultaneously inhibiting the same voice. It is evidence of the split (barred) nature of a person (who, for instance desires what they do not desire).
I can’t help seeing something similar at work here in this verse and indeed in the book as a whole.
Cheers
May 16th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Peter,
Wonderful post! I feel like modern christianity has misused the word “belief” by placing emphasis on only part of its meaning. The word does imply a level of certainty in events, but it also implies trust, hope, fidelity, and allegience. For some (un)reason, we let it devolve into only a certainty about doctrine. We lost the most important aspects of the meaning.
I just received my copy of your new book yesterday and I will be digging into it this weekend. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’ve often noted the kind of ambivalence that you talking about in 1 John, and it’s very intriguing, the whole Caputo – is it that God is love, or that love is God – thing.
But I have a question about this:
“What we have in 1 John then is simultaneously a high Christology mixed with the idea that this high Christology is never said, but only lived.”
Doesn’t this imply a strict distinction between ’saying’ and ‘living’? If a high Christology is primarily something that is lived, why should this living not include – in some form – it being said, given that life includes speech?
I realise this raises some big ones, but still…
Thanks,
-Stu
May 24th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
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May 31st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hey, this is my first time at your site, referred here by a friend, Luke Neff, and I have a problem with the post.
I really like the idea, but it doesn’t work. I’ve taken about 5 years of Greek and there is no way your reading works. The appositive (”faith”, h pistis), which you want to take also as an object of the participle, ain’t functioning as an object. It’s in the nominative case, the subject case, which is parallel to the victory that has conquered the world. “The world” is in the object case, the accusative case, and “faith” would have to have been in the accusative as well to be that which was overcome.
Just thought I’d throw that out there. Interesting bloggy thing though.
Cheers,
Noah
May 31st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thanks Noah. My biblical scholar friend pointed out the same, although he suggested a small ambiguity. Anyway I have no Greek! However the post was not so much about that one verse – though that’s what got me started – but rather on 1 John as a whole. so any thoughts on that are welcome.