From Fidelity to Faith: A Marcelian Approach

By Manuel B. Dy, Jr.

A winding, torture path that refuses to be mapped out before reaching its destiny. - Gabriel Marcel

Marcel has come to the Christian Faith

y the faith only shows the man who sincerely gropes his

way to find the truth, not that he must reject any outside y precisely in order to open himself to all possibilities of human experience

Marcels Philosophy does not permit itself to be blocked up in logical thinking but opens itself to human experience.

Nowhere does Marcel at all prove the existence of God

Rudimentary faith
y less amorphous and more centered on God as the Faithful

One y The belief in a Transcendent

y Example : a PROMISE, not completely aware of the fact that

my present disposition may change

How is this possible that I can make a promise?

y The promise is made on the basis of a present disposition

Creative Fidelity
y Marcel coined the term creative fidelity during his soulful

search for the real meaning of fidelity in our moral, personal, and religious lives y The goal is to uphold our commitments in a way that really matters a way that honors the messy unpredictability of life

Opposition between mans momentary states and his commitment

What is fidelity?
y Fidelity cannot be reduced to a compromise y Unconditional

(cannot be questioned; has assurance) y CONSTANCY

The faithfulness of one can only be appreciated by the friend it is aimed to.
-Gabriel Marcel

Fidelity is thus not reducible to constancy.

-Gabriel Marcel

Fidelity can only be performed in spontaneity, in freedom.

-Gabriel Marcel

Fidelity is always bound up with presence.

-Gabriel Marcel
y It is presence which accounts for that which is abiding in fidelity y FIDELITY must recognize something abiding, something

permanent, and it can only be aware of this abiding character if it takes up this presence

PHILOSOPHY OF EXISTENCE
Presence is not an idea that I have, because if it were a merely an idea, then all I have to do is to maintain this idea before me
-Gabriel Marcel

Presence is a mystery.
-Gabriel Marcel

Love and creative fidelity rests on the unconditional: I shall continue to love you no matter what happens.
-Gabriel Marcel

Faith is a gift, a call, to which I am free to respond and yet demands of me to respond.
-Gabriel Marcel

Faith: tension between freedom and fidelity

y An appeal which demands a response, a free one y To believe, is to believe in someone, to extend credit to Him, not

material credit, but oneself.

To believe is to put my trust in Someone, Someone who has given himself to me, not as a possession that I have and that others do not have, but as a light, to which my whole being must testify.
-Gabriel Marcel

My Faith is the unceasing fidelity to this light.

-Gabriel Marcel