As often, therefore, as we speak of justifying faith, we must keep in mind that these three objects concur: the promise, and that, too, gratuitous, and the merits of Christ, as the price and propitiation. The promise is received by faith; the “gratuitous” excludes our merits, and signifies that the benefit is offered only through mercy; the merits of Christ are the price, because there must be a certain propitiation for our sins. Scripture frequently implores mercy; and the holy Fathers often say that we are saved by mercy. As often, therefore, as mention is made of mercy, we must keep in mind that faith is there required, which receives the promise of mercy. And, again, as often as we speak of faith, we wish an object to be understood, namely, the promised mercy. 56] For faith justifies and saves, not on the ground that it is a work in itself worthy, but only because it receives the promised mercy (Ap. IV, 53-56).
Faith and filial fear (Ap. XII (V) 38): Filial fear can be clearly defined as an anxiety joined with faith, where faith consoles and sustains the anxious heart, whereas in servile fear faith does not sustain the anxious heart.
Faith must have something that it believes, that is, of which it takes hold and upon which it stands and rests…Therefore, wherever He speaks–indeed, no matter what direction or by whatever means He speaks–faith must look there (LC, Baptism, 28-31).
For faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel (SD III, 13).
Gerhard, De iustif., 119: “Faith kindled through the Holy Spirit justifies not insofar as it has love connected to it but to the extent that it apprehends Christ as He is offered in the word of the Gospel. Love given through the Holy Spirit is the fruit of justifying faith, but it does not justify since it is never perfect in this life, since the Law immediately requires it, and since it becomes quite clouded in our hearts due to the fog of sins. Faith hears God promising; love hears God commanding. Faith concerns itself with God’s works; love, with our works. Faith accepts the benefits of Christ; love returns a mutual benevolence. Faith has an apprehensive power; love, an egressive power. Faith is begging, so to speak; love is giving. Faith creates children of God; love shows that they have become so. The object of faith is Christ as offered in the Gospel along with all His benefits; love's object is God and our neighbor. Furthermore, the nucleus of the Gospel is not love, which both Christ and the apostles teach in clear language is the sum of the Law, but rather the nucleus of the Gospel is Christ alone, the Mediator, whom faith embraces and holds.”
Thomas ([ST,] 2.2, q. 4, art. 8): “Faith is more sure than the other intellectual powers since it rests upon divine truth, while the others rely on human reason. Still, the others <P3:354> are more certain as far as we are concerned since the intellect comprehends them more fully.”
For Luther faith is bound to the receiving of forgiveness of sins and that forgiveness of sins is bound to the Person and work of Christ (Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism, 83).
With the schema of theory and praxis "they fall into the error of saying, 'Faith is not enough; one must do works.' " Faith is neither a theory nor a praxis of self-fulfillment. It is a passive righteousness, namely, the work of God in us that we experience with suffering, dying both to justifying thinking and justifying action. The meaning is not that faith is both unthinking and inactive. By it, rather, both thinking and action are renewed. Those who are born anew are no longer entangled with themselves. They are solidly freed from this entanglement, from the self-reflection that always seeks what belongs to itself. This is not a deadening of self. It does not flee from thought and responsibility. No, it is the gift of self-forgetfulness. The passive righteousness of faith tells us: You do not concern yourself at all! In that God does what is decisive in us, we may live outside ourselves and solely in him..."Who am I?" Such self-reflection never finds peace in itself. Resolution comes only in the prayer to which Bonhoeffer surrendered it and in which he was content to leave it. "Who am I? Thou knowest me. I am thine, O God!" (Bayer, Living by Faith, 25).
Nagel: "Unbelief is the refusal of gift, the refusing to be given to."
Luther: faith looks to the word or promise, which is truth; but hope to that which the Word promises, which is the good or benefit… faith fights against errors and heresies; it proves and judges spirits and doctrines. But hope strives against troubles and vexations, and among the evil it expects good. {Therefore, hope, like love, is a fruit of faith which we can cultivate and use and is pulled out of us through suffering.}
Esolen, Sex and the Unreal City: Man is made for faith: he is homo credens. If he does not believe in God, he will turn straightaway to some idol, a stock or stone, himself, the state, sex—something stupid, salacious, or malignant, like a cancer. Man without faith become credulous. (46)