During the summer, I sat in a beach chair on a massive soccer field reading something that I have since not been able to shake. Even though crowds of families pulling their sports wagons surrounded me, it felt as if it were Francis Schaeffer and I having a personal conversation about the distinction between unbelief and unfaith. I’ve long since left the soccer field, but the convicting concept hasn’t left me.

In the last chapter book Death in City, Schaeffer writes the following to believers living in the present day:

“Christianity is not just a mental assent that certain doctrines are true– not even that the right doctrines are true This is only the beginning. This would be rather like a starving man sitting in front of great heaps of food and saying, ‘I believe the food exists; I believe it is real,’ and yet never eating it. It is not enough to merely say, ‘I am a Christian,’ and then in practice to live as if present contact with the supernatural were something far-off and strange.”

A Made-up Word for an All-too-real Problem

Later in the chapter, Schaeffer introduces his idea of unfaith (which he admits is a made-up word). He coined the term for believers who intellectually assent to the doctrines of the faith and have a saving belief in Christ but live as if it had little bearing on their daily lives. He goes on to explain the significance of living, moment by moment, with real, existential faith in what we believe:

“At conversion we are married to Christ, who is the Bridegroom, and as we put ourselves in His arms, moment by moment, He will produce His fruit through us into the external world. That’s beautiful and overwhelming. Just as with the natural bride who gives herself to her husband and puts herself in his arms, there will be children born into a home. The bride can’t just stand with the bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. She must give herself to him existentially, regularly, and then children will be born to him, through her body into the external world.”

As someone who takes theology and the content of my beliefs seriously, I found myself deeply convicted by Schaeffer’s distinction between unbelief and unfaith. I believe rightly, but so often, I live in unfaith. I give proper credence to the truth, but I fail to live in full reliance upon it.

Credence & Reliance

Biblical faith always consists of God-enabled credence that leads to reliance. It is a confident intellectual assent that leads to real and risking obedience. As the writer of Hebrews told his audience, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Being convinced implies credence that leads to reliance. We live our visible lives in light of an invisible reality.

When writing to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem about faith that produces works, James writes something similar regarding the difference between belief and submission: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe– and shudder!” (James 2: 19). Belief with shuddering belongs is the domain of demons; belief with submission is the domain of the true children of God!

As our sons grow into young men and our church grows in size, the Lord has been gracious to expose multiple areas of unfaith in my life (credence without reliance; intellectual assent without a fittingly submitted and trusting soul). I say God is sovereign and can tell you scores of verses to support my belief in his sovereignty; however, one unfairly graded assignment and my unfaith rears its ugly head. As embarrassing as it is to admit it, I tell my sons that God is sovereign, but live like one punitive teacher could throw off college plans. Through my anxiety, the Spirit reveals a hidden area of unfaith and invites me into that daily putting myself into God’s arms that Schaeffer mentioned. Similarly, a multiplying congregation means multiplied burdens. Though I truly believe that Christ is the great burden bearer, my near inability to entrust the heaviness of the burdens to him day by day exposes another area of unfaith within me. Yet, another arena of unfaith exposed means another invitation to deeper reliance upon the Bridegroom.

I’m thankful for a made-up word that is helping expose me and press me into our very real God. I long for a life marked by actual reliance upon Him in whom I believe. At the end of the length of my days, I desire to be able to say like the Apostle Paul, “I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Timothy 1: 12).