wards a person, towards
something that makes us not merely comprehend life, but that makes us
live.[45]

Faith makes us live by showing us that life, although it is dependent
upon reason, has its well-spring and source of power elsewhere, in
something supernatural and miraculous. Cournot the mathematician, a man
of singularly well-balanced and scientifically equipped mind, has said
that it is this tendency towards the supernatural and miraculous that
gives life, and that when it is lacking, all the speculations of the
reason lead to nothing but affliction of spirit (_Traite de
l'enchainement des idees fondamentales dans les sciences et dans
l'histoire_, Sec. 329). And in truth we wish to live.

But, although we have said that faith is a thing of the will, it would
perhaps be better to say that it is will itself--the will not to die,
or, rather, that it is some other psychic force distinct from
intelligence, will, and feeling. We should thus have feeling, knowing,
willing, and believing or creating. For neither feeling, nor
intelligence, nor will creates; they operate upon a material already
given, upon the material given them by faith. Faith is the creative
power in man. But since it has a more intimate relation with the will
than with any other of his faculties, we conceive it under the form of
volition. It should be borne in mind, however, that wishing to
believe--that is to say, wishing to create--is not precisely the same as
believing or creating, although it is its starting-point.

Faith, therefore, if not a creative force, is the fruit of the will, and
its function is to create. Faith, in a certain sense, creates its
object. And faith in God consists in creating God; and since it is God
who gives us faith in Himself, it is God who is continually creating
Himself in us. Therefore St. Augustine said: "I will seek Thee, Lord, by
calling upon Thee, and I will call upon Thee by believing in Thee. My
faith calls upon Thee, Lord, the faith which Thou hast given me, with
which Thou hast inspired me through the Humanity of Thy Son, through the
ministry of Thy preacher" (_Confessions_, book i., chap. i.). The power
of creating God in our own image and likeness, of personalizing the
Universe, simply means that we carry God within us, as the substance of
what we hope for, and that God is continually creating us in His own
image and likeness.

And we create God--that is to say, God creates Himself in us--by
compassion, by