For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the interplay of belief and trust in the Christian understanding of faith.
When negotiating nuclear disarmament deals with the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting a Russian proverb that said, “Trust, but verify.” The paradox inherent in that statement hints at some of the complexity of trust — are you really trusting someone if you also ask for outside verification? When trust takes on a religious dimension, the complexities multiply. Is trust in God the same as the trust that occurs between individuals? Is it equivalent to (or does it even require) unwavering belief?
Trust in God plays a vital role in Christianity, but in philosophy and theology it has been under-investigated, says Boston College Philosophy professor Daniel McKaughan. “There’s a burgeoning literature in the social sciences and philosophy investigating interpersonal trust, but those fields so far have said little about trust in God,” he says. Meanwhile, theology and religious studies have tended to talk about trust in God in ways that focus either on doctrinal belief or on religious practices, treating it largely as a matter of assent to certain propositions about God’s nature, actions and promises.