FAITH IS FUNDAMENTALLY RELATIONAL

Ultimately faith relies on what is outside of us. ... You cannot know by yourself how one can receive faith, and ... faith depends, in its origin and in its enduring substance, on someone outside of you. There is someone other than you, someone else on whom you rely to say, 'I AM.'

Faith is fundamentally relational. One cannot answer questions about faith (or which faith demands, or answers) from outside faith. If the understanding could answer the questions of faith, then faith is made useless. But as there truths beyond our understanding with which we can none the less interact, we must often judge to suspend our understanding for the sake of interaction. If faith is needed to answer a question, then the understanding cannot answer it. The most one outside of faith can do is to recognize that the questions cannot be answered without faith.

Philosophical Fragments is the effort to come to terms with the intrinsic otherness that evolves faith. It simultaneously cautions against the self-reliance that relies on one’s certification of the object of faith, either before or after the moment. The end is that we cannot complete ourselves. We need a word from outside. How do we come by faith? We don’t. We rely on the love God has for us and respond.

excerpt from Vincent Tavani's Senior Paper NO ONE POURS NEW WINE

presented at St. John's College on February 24