Comfortable with my Evangelical Faith

For almost two years I have attended Saint John’s University – School of Theology and Seminary. While I finish up my thesis about hermeneutical connections between Evangelicals and the early church fathers, I have been forced to refocus on a seemingly simple question pertaining to my distinct faith. Why do I call myself an Evangelical? While attending Saint John’s – a somewhat liberal leaning Catholic institution – certain presuppositions have been challenged and misunderstandings needed to be clarified, all the while I continued to ask “Why do I call myself and Evangelical?”

My simple conclusion to my simple question is this: Evangelicals should be comfortable with specific presuppositions to their faith. Without question Christianity is built upon presuppositions. Let’s not hide this reality but embrace it. Saint Augustine makes a faith presupposition clear when he coined credo ut intelligam (I believe so that I may understand). Saint Anselm later echoed this premise when he said fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). It would not be until the Enlightenment (17th century) when this concept was turned on its head and reason became the means to faith.

A faith presupposition aside Evangelicals have others which separate them. For example, we have come to accept the Bible as inspired, authoritative but more significantly inerrant. It’s the inerrancy of Scripture which sets Evangelicals a part from the liberal Protestants and most Catholics. Some Evangelicals uphold biblical inerrancy and contend its presupposition. They look to apologetics and the text of Scripture itself to affirm their position. However, the use of apologetics fails to explain how the Bible is inerrant and missing in the all the rigmarole is the aforementioned faith presupposition needed to begin their defense. Apologetics only affirms the historical nature of the documents. Also, It should go without saying that when you use Scripture to affirm Scripture you once again need to suppose a faith presupposition attributed to Scripture.

It was this conclusion I needed to wrestle and ultimately be comfortable with. To be an Evangelical (as David Bebbington explains it), Biblicism is absolute. I can easily believe in the authority and inspiration of Scripture without a presupposition, however, inerrancy needs faith in order to understand.