Wilkens talks about how authority is inevitable. We are always submitting to authority and believing what they tell us. Augustine gives an example of believing what a mother tells their child about who their father is. The child must believe what the mother tells them because only the mother knows who the father is and has the authority over it. Wilken believes faith is another type of authority. Therefore making faith inevitable. Augustine believes faith is like a skill, it requires, “practices, attitudes, and dispositions and has to do with ordering one’s loves” (Wilken 172). However this knowledge of faith does not come right away; it comes over time. One also must surrender themselves to be able to learn. One must put down any walls before they can really comprehend something.
Wilken also believes that faith is beneficial to all. He states that, “Christianity did introduce something new to intellectual life, namely, that faith is the portal that leads to the knowledge of God” (165). Knowledge is sought out by many and faith is apart of this knowledge. Augustine sought out knowledge and faith. He thought that, “reason was sufficient”, and that reason backs up faith. Faith also upholds knowledge. For historical events that have happened in the past, people cannot say that they know something to happen, they must say they believed something happened. Therefore, “belief, that is, faith, is a constituent part of historical knowledge” (169). Faith is used everywhere and influences our beliefs. When there is no concrete evidence, we use faith to back up our beliefs.
Faith is used in our everyday lives. It is unavoidable, but yet beneficial. We use faith in religion as well as in knowledge like historical knowledge. Without faith, our knowledge would be flawed. Faith backs up our knowledge and upholds what we already believe.
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