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there have been differences, however, even among Protestants. Some regard the definition of
Calvin as superior to that of the Heidelberg Catechism. Says Calvin: “We shall now have a full
definition of faith if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favour toward us,
founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed in our
hearts, by the Holy Spirit.”[Inst. III. 2,7.] The Heidelberg Catechism, on the other hand, also
brings in the element of confidence when it answers the question, “What is true faith?” as
follows: “True faith is not only a sure knowledge whereby I hold for truth all that God has
revealed to us in His Word, but also a firm confidence which the Holy Spirit works in my heart
by the gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sins, everlasting
righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of
Christ’s merits.”[Q. 21.] But it is quite evident from the connection that Calvin means to include
the element of confidence in the “firm and sure knowledge” of which he speaks. Speaking of
the boldness with which we may approach God in prayer, he even says: “Such boldness springs
only from confidence in the divine favour and salvation. So true is this, that the term faith is
often used as equivalent to confidence.”[Ibid., III. 2,15.] He absolutely rejects the fiction of the
Schoolmen who insist “that faith is an assent with which any despiser of God may receive what
is delivered in Scripture.”[Ibid. III. 2,8.] But there is an even more important point of difference
between the Reformers’ conception of faith and that of the Scholastics. The latter recognized in
faith itself some real and even meritorious efficacy (meritum ex congruo) in disposing to, and in
procuring or obtaining justification. The Reformers, on the other hand, were unanimous and
explicit in teaching that justifying faith does not justify by any meritorious or inherent efficacy
of its own, but only as the instrument for receiving or laying hold on what God has provided in
the merits of Christ. They regarded this faith primarily as a gift of God and only secondarily as
an activity of man in dependence on God. The Arminians revealed a Romanizing tendency,
when they conceived of faith as a meritorious work of man, on the basis of which he is
accepted in favor by God. Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, hardly mentions
saving faith and knows absolutely nothing of faith as childlike trust in God. He says that faith “is
nothing but the incipient experience of the satisfaction of our spiritual need by Christ.” It is a
new psychological experience, a new consciousness, rooted in a feeling, not of Christ, nor of
any doctrine, but of the harmony of the Infinite, of the Whole of things, in which the soul finds
God. Ritschl agreed with Schleiermacher in holding that faith springs up as the result of contact
with the divine reality, but finds its object, not in any idea or doctrine, nor in the whole of
things, but in the Person of Christ, as the supreme revelation of God. It is not a passive assent,
but an active principle. In it man makes God’s self-end, that is, the kingdom of God, his own,
begins to work for the kingdom, and in doing this finds salvation. The views of Schleiermacher
and Ritschl characterize a great deal of modern liberal theology. Faith, in this theology, is not a
heaven-wrought experience, but a human achievement; not the mere receiving of a gift, but a