You would think something like this is simple. Broadly, the psychology profession regards faith as something built into the human psyche. The message that profession has gotten from Christian religion is that faith is a miracle, not a normative human trait.
The two are talking past each other.
First off, most psychologists deny the existence of the heart as a separate faculty. They simply assume that whatever the heart does is part of the brain. This is due to how hard it is to estimate what the heart does from a human scientific point of view. You can observe the effects of the heart, but you cannot observe the activity of the heart if you don’t recognize your own heart. There’s an a priori rejection without ever seriously investigating the question.
Be that as it may, they are correct that humans do natively possess the means to invest commitment in something or someone past the point of death. It’s part of human capabilities to die for something that really matters to them. That’s faith, and we’ve seen it too many times in human history to deny it.
But beyond the obvious, for believers, God Himself has said that faith is a universal human trait. Consider: We can take for granted that not everyone in the Nation of Israel was spiritually Elect. Too many of them lacked any anchor to their souls, and died in sin. Yet, God said quite flatly that every Israeli could obey Him if they would. Deuteronomy 30:14, despite the clumsy wording as it appears in most English translations, is God’s way of saying that every heart is capable of obeying Him in full faith. The heart, as a faculty of will, is capable of understanding and obeying the Law, if not God Himself; it’s well within reach.
What the New Testament says about faith as a miracle of God refers specifically to faith in Christ, not faith in general.
Here’s the thing: New Testament faith in Christ is faith in a Person. You can commit yourself to principles and a frame of reference, but you cannot commit to Christ the Person if you don’t know Him personally. That’s the whole point of talking about the Presence of the Holy Spirit; if He is not alive in your soul, then you cannot know Christ. You cannot commit to an unknown, and you cannot know Him without His Spirit.
And the long story of the Bible as a whole is that you cannot receive His Spirit without Election. Every human has a heart; not every human is elect.
We’ve tried to cover this before in our various Radix Fidem community teachings, but the whole question of predestination is confused in our minds because there is predestination in this life, and there is predestination in Eternity. The two are related in ways impossible to state in human language, but they are not the same thing. In Romans 8 & 9, Paul weaves the two together because the point is not explaining the concept, but declaring it. God can assert His will over human behavior on this earth, and certainly asserts His will in eternal Election.
Paul does not pretend to explain why, only how it works out in human experience. The only question Paul answers is that you had better not try to hold God accountable on human terms for things like fairness. Some have a fun life; some live and die in misery. Some go to Heaven; some go to Hell. That’s the way it is. Stop carping about it and get on with your own obedience for the Lord.
Now, this makes no sense at all intellectually, but if you are elect, it makes a certain kind of sense in the heart. Do you see this? Without that overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit, you cannot see it. People who reject this assertion do not have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He could well be present in their hearts, but He is not reigning there as Lord. But either way, only the Elect can embrace this truth fully, because only the Elect can know Him as the Living Truth.
