148. Faith and fear
148. FAITH AND FEAR
“Faith casts out fear.” Yet “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Does faith cast out the beginning of wisdom?
Whether fear is an effect of faith?
. . . [F]aith is a cause of the fear whereby one dreads to be punished by God; and this is servile fear.
It (faith) is also the cause of filial fear, whereby one dreads to be separated from God, or whereby one shrinks from equaling himself to Him, and holds Him in reverence, inasmuch as faith makes us appreciate God as an unfathomable and supreme good, separation from which is the greatest evil. . . .
Of the first fear, viz. servile fear, lifeless faith is the cause, while living faith is the cause of the second, viz filial fear. . . (II-II,7,1).
“Fear” in modern English can mean three different things, which St. Thomas distinguishes.
First, it can be the fear of being punished, whether deservedly or undeservedly. This is a fear of pain. It is called “servile” fear because it is typically found in a slave or servant.
Second, it can be the fear of losing or offending a beloved friend, human or divine. This is “filial fear”, the fear proper to a friend or lover.
Third, it can mean deep, wondering reverence, or “awe” at something immeasurably superior. This is an emotion that is much rarer today than ever before in the history of the world, probably because modern life is so full of scientific knowledge and technological power over nature that we live in a dream of arrogant cleverness and a cocoon of predictable comforts. But this old fear still exists. It can arise in the presence of either something tremendously good, like God’s love as shown in the Incarnation and the crucifixion, or something tremendously evil, like the Holocaust, or 9/11, or something neither morally good nor evil, like a hurricane or a spectacular sunrise.
This third kind of fear, unlike the other two, is not a fear of losing something. We fear lions and slave drivers because they can hurt us, but we fear ghosts just because they are ghosts. We fear ghosts not because they will harm us but because of what they are: unknowns, from another realm. This is the fear we naturally feel toward angels. (Thus in Scripture when angels appear the first thing they usually say is “Fear not.”) The preeminent object of this fear is, of course, God. When John saw Him in Revelations 1:17, he says he “fell at His feet as though dead”.
Which “fear of the Lord” is what Scripture speaks of as “the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 9:10)? First of all the third one, awe; and then, as we learn how good God is, it is also the second one, the fear of offending One Who is so good. (“Offending” God means dishonoring Him, not getting Him mad.) The first fear, servile fear, is primitive; we are meant to outgrow it. Thus John says that “Perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and he who fears is not perfected in love” (1 Jn 4:18).
St. Thomas connects servile fear with dead faith (loveless faith) and filial fear with living faith. “Dead faith” is merely intellectual and legalistic belief. Thus “Do you believe that God is one? Oh, good for you. The demons also believe that, but shudder with fear” (Jas 2:19).
Yet even this fear is good in its place. As George MacDonald says, “where there are wild beasts about it is better to feel afraid than to feel secure.” Thus Christ tells us to fear the Devil: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). St. Peter says the same: 1 Peter 5:8-9.
This fear, of course, does not mean cowardice or running away. It means fighting. The Devil is the coward. He is more afraid of us (or, rather, of Christ in us) than we are of him.