I’m grateful to Richard Beck for highlighting Paul’s own words on an important subject. Paul is famous for his emphasis on faith, and much contemporary Christianity follows his lead on this point.
Yet when it comes down to it, Paul says that there is something more important than faith – more important even than the sort of faith Jesus talked about as capable of moving mountains:
If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing…And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13).
Richard’s own conclusion is likewise worth quoting:
The defining criterion of Christianity isn’t faith. It’s love.
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