Events cannot persuade us. Unamuno, Life 9.3
Faith,
trust, confidence: Unamuno believes that these are for people, not
things. It is easier for him to trust the ignorance of a person than
to have faith in knowledge or information, as things in themselves.
La
fe que definió San Pablo, la πίστις,
pistis, griega, se traduce mejor por confianza. La voz pistis,
en efecto, procede del verbo πείθω,
peitho, que si en su voz activa significa persuadir, en la media
equivale a confiar en uno, hacerle caso, fiarse de él, obedecer. Y
fiarse, fidare se, procede del tema
fid— de donde fides, fe,
y de donde también confianza—. Y el tema griego πιθ
—pith— y el latino fid parecen hermanos. Y en
resolución, que la voz misma fe lleva en su origen implícito el
sentido de confianza, de rendimiento a una voluntad ajena, a una
persona. Sólo se confía en las personas. Confíase en la
Providencia que concebimos como algo personal y consciente, no en el
Hado, que es algo impersonal. Y así se cree en quien nos dice la
verdad, en quien nos da la esperanza; no en la verdad misma directa e
inmediatamente, no en la esperanza misma.
Y
este sentido personal o más bien personificante de la fe, se delata
hasta en sus formas más bajas, pues es el que produce la fe en la
ciencia infusa, en la inspiración, en el milagro. Conocido es, en
efecto, el caso de aquel médico parisiense que al ver que en su
barrio le quitaba un curandero la clientela, trasladóse a otro, al
más distante, donde por nadie era conocido, anunciándose como
curandero y conduciéndose como tal. Y al denunciarle por ejercicio
ilegal de la medicina, exhibió su título, viniendo a decir poco más
o menos esto: «Soy médico, pero si como tal me hubiese anunciado,
no habría obtenido la clientela que como curandero tengo; mas ahora,
al saber mis clientes que he estudiado medicina y poseo título de
médico, huirán de mí a un curandero que les ofrezca la garantía
de no haber estudiado, de curar por inspiración.» Y es que se
desacredita al médico a quien se le prueba que no posee título ni
hizo estudios, y se desacredita al curandero a quien se le prueba que
los hizo y que es médico titulado. Porque unos creen en la ciencia,
en el estudio, y otros creen en la persona, en la inspiración y
hasta en la ignorancia.
The
faith that Saint Paul defined, Greek pistis,
is better translated as confidence. The
word pistis derives
effectively from the verb peitho,
which in the active voice means to persuade.
In the middle voice (†),
it means to trust someone,
to pay them heed, to confide in them, to obey. In
our own Spanish language, trusting
someone (fiarse),
having faith in them (fidare
se),
comes from the Latin root fid,
our source for fides, faith,
&
confidence.
Greek pith and Latin
fid appear to be
brothers. In sum, the word faith carries implicit in its origin the
sense of confidence, of handing oneself over to a foreign will, to
another person. We confide only in people. Our confidence in
Providence conceives him as something personal and conscious, not as
Fate, which is impersonal. This is the same confidence we have in one
who tells us the truth, who gives us hope. We do not have this
confidence in truth itself, direct and unmediated, or in hope per se.
This
personal or personalizing sense of faith
is evident even in the lowest usages of the word, which allow us to
have faith in intuition, inspiration, and miracles. We
all know the tale of the Parisian doctor who left his original
practice after a healer poached his patients—left
his practice and relocated to a distant neighborhood, where nobody
knew him, announcing himself as a healer and behaving as one. When he
was denounced for practicing unlicensed medicine, he revealed his
degree, uttering words to this effect: “I am a doctor, but if I had
declared myself one, I never would have acquired
the patients I have gotten
as a healer. Now that my
patients know I have studied medicine and have a degree, they will
flee from me to a healer who offers the guarantee of never having
studied, of cures that arise only from inspiration.”
As the doctor who has no
license and no degree loses credibility, so does the healer who turns
out to be a licensed doctor. Because some believe in science, in
study, and others believe in persons—in
inspiration, and even in ignorance.
---
(†)
Ancient Greek has three voices—active, middle, & passive—where
English and many other languages have just two (active &
passive). The middle often conveys reflexive meanings (doing things
to oneself) and so other special meanings, by metaphor or extension
(cf. persuading oneself = obeying).