If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust ...

“No faith is grounded in the self and is thus an ‘absolute’faith;3 instead,
- there is only a faith that is grounded outside one’s own self,
- grounded outside the self,
- a faith grounded outside the center of one’s being,
- a faith that is in this sense is determined by its content.
It has its basis in the object: ‘Jesus Christ, my Lord,’ through whom, as his Son, God conveys himself as Father through the Holy Spirit and allows himself to be addressed.
Faith is in fact completely an act of trust, but it is a trust that is grounded and connected.
If I do not know the one in whom I place my trust and what I entrust to him, then faith relationship – no matter how sincerely and earnestly it may be – remains empty and aimless.
Luther’s explanation to the first commandment in the Large Catechism thus does not call attention primarily to the preparedness of the human heart, to observe one’s striving, as such, but from first to last it deals with that upon which I can place my trust …
One is reminded here of what Luther said in his interpretation of Jonah 1:5: the sailors’ prayer of faith, which showed that they all knew about God, ought not be any less intensive and upright than the faith of the Christian; but the sailors do not have a ‘certain God’ and thus they also have no certain faith.”

3 … Luther confesses that he would not choose to have free will, even if it were possible, since the certainty of salvation can be grounded only in God himself – not in the human subject.’

From “God’s Presence: The Holy Spirit” in Martin Luther’s Theology by Oswald Bayer
Eerdmans - English Translation 2008


Please know, I have bolded sections for emphasis.
- pmwl