NOTES for Быт 6:13-14
When people in their godlessness and inner emptiness generate chaos around themselves, such that the earth can no longer bear it and catastrophe comes, what remains for the one who is able to hear the Creator? The answer is paradoxical: in the midst of the chaos of the flood, to give oneself over to the will of the unknown. Noah must not look for shelter, but enter the heart of the elements in order to overcome it: to build a ship and hope in God. This is perhaps the first biblical example of faith, when a person does not rely on himself, does not build a house or city on solid ground, but constructs his home without any visible foundation so that at the necessary moment it can leave the earth and find itself in the hands of God. Faith, in essence, is the building of a house on a firm foundation (compare Matt 7:24), firmer than which there is nothing either on earth or in heaven.