IMO Mike says it well…
Well that was interesting. 
I’ll have to hear part 2 before I can think about it more.
Michael is in the trenches… He is talking about a very interesting view about scripture…
If you have the chance, read his book ‘ONE’ totally cool.
Thanks davo…
Well once you pick your chin off the floor from part 2 I think you’ll also find part 3 “interesting”.
Okay, #2 down, #3 cuing up…
Sorry, but I totally disagree with the guy. Jesus had faith in God. We are to have faith in the same God. Someone else can’t have faith for you. They can have faith in you, but if you don’t have faith in the Spirit of God that is in you, you’re not going to move mountains, whether they are physical or not. When Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water, Peter believed Jesus could do it because he saw Him walking on the water. Jesus believed Peter could do the same, or He wouldn’t have commanded him to do so. What Peter lacked was faith in the Spirit of God that was in him as well, and so he sank.
It’s just amazing what people can come up with! We don’t have to do good. We don’t have to be righteous. We don’t have to follow God’s Law, and now, we don’t even have to have faith. What next? 
On to #4/1
Now 4/2
Now 5
All done!
The content of the presentation was remarkable. I’ll have to let it soak in a bit before I loose my rapier-like wit or pledge my troth to that (purported) truth.
The first listening to all 5 episodes raised two questions - not in criticism of the teaching, but as to what it really is teaching.
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Williams make much ado about the faith ‘in’ and faith ‘of’ God; that seems to be foundational to the rest of what he is saying, yes? IS that a true distinction - I"ll have to lean on you language mavens on this - and if so, what in the heck does it mean for God to have faith? What is the faith that God has? Which leads me to…
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Faith has been described historically in different ways. For one, as mental assent to a set of propositions, making it somewhat akin to ‘belief’. This has often been the ‘rap’ against Christianity, that a mental assent to dogma, as opposed to a relationship with a Being, is an arid and abstract type of religion.
Two, there is faith as against Reason. This distinction is a perennially fascinating subject and approximately 10,000 trees have been turned into paper to write the books that all disagree with one another on the subject.
In general those who feel they have to ‘make room’ for faith do it by advocating some kind of a ‘jump’ - reason won’t get you there, there is no bridge between reason and faith, so you have to take a chance.
Three, many people try to keep one foot in ‘Athens’ and one foot in "Jerusalem’, standing firmly in the philosophical tradition of so-called ‘autonomous’ man, and just as firmly in the traditional teachings that have to be revealed to us by God. Very difficult - Bill Vallicella at Maverick Philosopher is one in this school, and has found a justifiable position that honors both ‘feet’. I am unable to do it.
Four, there is the understanding of faith as a relationship - a leaning on, a relying upon, a trust in, a person or Person. The Jewish writer Martin Buber is very good at drawing out the implications of this type of faith - in particular, his book “Two Types of Faith” draws what he feels is the distinctive difference between the ‘relying upon and trusting’ of Jewish teaching versus the ‘adherence to dogma’ of Christian teaching. Recommended reading.
I"m not sure where Williams comes down on which of those 4 types of faith (and there are subdivisions of each) if any, that he is referring to in statements like ‘we don’t have any or need any faith’ and ‘God has the faith for us’. Does he mean that we don’t need to rely on, trust in, cast our cares upon, our heavenly Father? (Type 4 above).
If someone can help me here I’d appreciate it.
In harmony with this word choice of “of,” instead of “in,” in Galatians 2:20, here are some various comments from Joseph Prince regarding Mark 9:23, encouraging us to rest in the faith of JESUS:
Blessings.
Leaving aside your assessment of the “4 types of faith” I’d say your rendition of Williams’ ‘we don’t have any or need any faith’ and 'God has the faith for us’ is to be understood as… between our faith OR God’s faith, His faith is the one to put confident trust in.
As for pledging one’s troth… like most things that tend to initially rattle the cage — whatever in the moment doesn’t quite sit right just put it back on the shelf, for a bit. If however some of what MW has said resonated a little then take some time to consider his…
‘Fruits of Self Righteousness’
There is only ONE verse in the entire New Testament where the phrase “faith of God” occurs in ANY translation—and that is Romans 3:3.
The Greek word that is often correctly translated as “faith” is “πιστις” (pistis). However, as the makers of any good lexicon would affirm, the word also means “faithfulness.”
Thus the phrase is translated as “faithfulness of God” in the following translations: ASV, Calvin Bible, EMTV, ESV, KJ21, HCSB, LEB, LO, NASV, NKJV, PHIL, RSV, RWebster, WEY, WNT, and YLT.
That’s good info, thanks Don.
In Rom 3:3 - is Williams saying that God’s faithfulness is the same as the faith of God? He might be but I doubt it. Faithfulness is a quality of being faithful - if that is the same as faith, then Williams is saying that humans have no faithfulness, which would be glaringly incorrect.
So again I ask, what type of faith is Williams talking about, when he says the faith of God? He can’t mean ‘belief’ as such, nor can he mean mental assent to a set of propositions, nor can he mean an existential leap of faith.
I’m just puzzled.
Quite simply… it’s the faith/faithfulness that ultimately delivers, wherein there is no fault. Within yours and my faith/faithfulness there is plenty of lack… NOT so with God’s.
If in fact Don was right to cite Rom 3:3 as the ONLY place in the NT to use the phrase ‘the faith of God’, and that the best translations use
the ‘faithfulness of God’ , it seems like Williams is hanging a lot of weight on one verse that might be better translated in a way that undermines what he’s trying to teach.
I’m trying to understand the use of the slash in faith/faithfulness. I think we all are thankful that indeed God is faithful to His promises; I’m having a heckuva time equating “faithfulness” to ‘faith’ as Williams uses it.
Hey I’m not attacking anything here - I did enjoy the presentation. It seems to me that the things Williams is reaching for - unity, oneness, freedom of spirit, doing away with the 40K denominations - are all probably good aims; but it doesn’t take a revolutionary way of understanding Scripture to get to those things imo.
from what I gather, Mike is saying that man has no faith whatsoever. He uses the words of Jesus to point out that if we had faith, we would be able to move literal physical mountains and since he has not seen a physical mountain move, this proves that man has none. He seems to be suggesting that God has made it impossible for us to have faith, and therefore we don’t need it. I totally disagree.
As Dave mentioned, there are different types of faith. This is mostly how we operate, and yes, we need it. The way I see it, men HAVE moved many physical mountains. For example, when people built the railroads across America, they had faith that they could do it.They didn’t let a mountain stop them. They blew right through it and forged ahead. We may not think about it, but we live by faith on a day to day basis. When you go out to eat, you have faith that the people who prepare your food have done so properly. When you drive across a bridge, you trust that those who built it knew what they were doing. When you work for someone, you trust that you will get paid. etc.etc.etc. We must have faith in ourselves, faith in other people, and faith in God and what He has given us.
I wouldn’t discount “the faith of God” rendering too hastily… we all know that translational bias can drive a rendering, as is well attested by Paidion’s oft “the word translated yada yada would be better translated______” fill in the gap etc.
But having said that, what MW raises on Rom 3:3 is but an adjunct to buttress his main point relative to the faith OF Christ as per the other texts correctly raised and identified. Now just follow the evangelical logic and you can see his point, that is… if Jesus is God the Son, and the Father and Son are ONE, then there is little to quibble with regards to the faith OF Christ/God — the connection seems rather obvious, IMO.
There are some 51 NT verses containing πίστιν pistin, i.e., ‘faith’ and some with multiple readings of the same within, and yeah “faithfulness” can possibly be rightly rendered in some, BUT predominately “faith” as in “belief” is rightly understood. Take for example just these few…
Davo, you might be right, of course. Still, it sounds okay to say:
-Jesus Christ has faith.
But weird to say:
-God has faith.
If a crux move in MW’s argument is the concept of Jesus and the Father being ONE, we go straight to the deep end of the pool, i.e. the interminable debate over the meaning of ONE - is it ‘one’ of numericality; or ‘one’ of essence; or ‘one’ of sameness; or ‘one’ in agreement, etc. Imo that is not a fruitful argument.
I could agree that for the typical Evangelical the following ‘argument’ MIGHT be persuasive, call it “T” :
1.Jesus Christ has faith
2.Jesus Christ and God are One
-Therefore God has faith
But, (apart from the fact that typical Evangelicals believe a few nutty things anyway) the conclusion of T: ‘Therefore God has faith’ is NOT justifiable . Jesus had (has?) faith IN something - in HIs Father. Does the Father have faith in the Father? What would that mean? “T” is a mish-mash of undefined terms that have the appearance but not the substance of a good argument. The fact that typical Evangelicals believe (2) should not be a reason for believing it is a Biblical truth.
I’ve done some heavy research - that is, I googled a few things 
- so I’m a little more up to speed on MW’s context, the various teachers of the ‘teachings of Grace’ and the ‘Word of Faith’ movements and all that, which is something I will steer clear of for now. And of course I could very well be missing something; the fact that davo has a ‘dog in the fight’ is enough for me not to dismiss it out-of-hand.
That could depend on your definition of sin… If the law (that which shows sin) was fulfilled in Christ, in other words those things that separated us from God were all taken by Christ at the cross, then it could be argued that sin (as something that separates us from God) no longer exists.
This would not mean that we could do no wrong. There are plenty of wrongs, but to take wrongs and say they are still held in account against us by God (sin) is to admit that Jesus’ cross is of no satisfaction unless ‘we’ do something to make it work or kick in. I think that’s what Michael is getting at.
Reminds me of this old country song
After singing that song, we need a spiritual revival.