Faith vs. Reason? .................. Parables 447

November 15, 1994

A couple of centuries ago, some philosophers and theologians began to promote the idea that faith in God is contrary to reason. They decided the spiritual realm is unseen so any ideas concerning it are speculative and too subjective. Thus faith is illogical for modern man.

This reasoning came when the scientific community began to discover and experiment with concrete examples rather than myths and folk lore. During this time of “Enlightenment,” many thinkers were impressed with their findings and with themselves. They decided their own ability to discover and reason was superior to faith in a God no one could see and in a theology that no one could prove in a laboratory.

The argument grabbed hold. Soon theologians separated human rational ability and faith. For many years, thinking and believing were considered incompatible.

Since then, rationalism is regarded as an unbalanced way of interpreting the religious side of man. Other theological concepts have been introduced to correct the imbalance and reason is now seen as important to faith. Those who believe do not throw away their brains.

However, many people are still affected by rationalism. It is demonstrated every time someone says, “I will only believe what I can see” or “If God exists, prove it.” People who consider faith belongs in the realm of personal subjectivity say things like, “Christianity is fine for you... but not for me...”

Such talk is contrary to something I heard a few weeks ago. A man told others that God helped him through some difficult times and, while many people become fearful during trials, none of us need to be afraid. He added, “If we just stop and think objectively about this, we realize God is big enough to take care of our needs.”

For him, objective thinking did not put God outside the realm of reason but smack in the middle of it. How could he say this?

He gave his reasons. The Bible says certain things about God and he believes it. In other words, he is not making up a god that suits his own personal desires but allowing an outside objective source, Scripture, to tell him what God is like.

For him, believing in God is perfectly rational. How could anyone not trust Him? His revelation of what He is like make it perfectly logical to not only rely on Him but have a certain amount of distrust in human reasoning. So how did philosophers come to their conclusion that our reasoning should be above faith?

Romans 1 provides a clue. It says God does make Himself known through objective means, that is, creation gives enough evidence to verify His existence. However, human beings who rely only on what they see of Him in nature refuse to acknowledge and trust Him.

This passage of Scripture indicates nature’s concrete, objective evidence is misunderstood or rejected. Those who know of God only in this way, turn from Him and “worship the creature rather than the Creator.” They eventually become unthankful and caught away by their sin.

On the other hand, Christians understand that God can be known only through the revelation He gave as recorded in the Bible. Romans 10:17 puts it this way: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

We need our ability to reason when we study Scripture yet God is not discovered by reasoning alone, either in a lab or a think tank. We need the message He gave to us in His Word.

Abortion video is too graphic .................................. Parables 151

I saw a video last month that will likely never make it as a TV documentary. It showed an actual abortion, so graphic that I couldn’t look at all of it.

Its point? That tiny human being, in the beginning stages of development, is violently destroyed during this now common procedure. At the end of the film, a former abortionist said, “There is no rightful place for violence in a world of reason.”

After my emotions stopped rocking, this comment, with its two assumptions, seemed a total contradiction. With “rightful,” he agreed with Scripture that there is definite right and wrong. The rights and wrongs of the Bible can be found in dozens of commandments God gave to Moses, the Ten “thou shalt not’s” of Exodus 20 being the most familiar.

Later, Jesus gathered all the commands together into two: “Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart and mind and soul and strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Therefore, according to Jesus, right and wrong are determined by love, not rules. But Biblical love is not mere emotion. Jesus described a “neighbor” as someone violently mistreated and left helpless to die, and love as a personal sacrifice. He illustrated with the story of the “good Samaritan” who was willing to take time and effort to help the helpless.

My problem lies in the assumption that we live in a world of reason. Reason is “the power to think in an orderly and rational way, to be logical.” Has no one notice? Reason has a tough time choosing to act in sacrificial love. Logic can’t seem to sort out right from wrong. Mankind can’t seem to agree which is which.

When Hitler made his decisions, he found it logical to kill whoever opposed his plans. When Gandhi made the decisions, he thought it rational not to kill even a bug. When man draws the guidelines, there are none.

Logic may reason, “If I take time to show the kinds of love Jesus talked about, it will disrupt my schedule and, at the least, be inconvenient.” In the case above, rational thinking has been known to determine that career, reputation, or personal goals take preeminence over a three-inch fetus and its desperate parents.

While Doctor Whoever made a point, his appeal to reason failed to consider that people, who may not see any other options, will push love out of the way to make room for violence anyway, regardless of how illogical it is.

The premise is wrong. We don’t live in a world of reason at all. We live in a world corrupted by sin and selfish lovelessness. No one is innocent.

Answers? Pro-choice says leave it up to the women. Pro-life says save the child. The medical profession is divided. Women’s groups do not agree. The educators say we need more information. Two women on the film said if they had been told what was really going to happen to them and their unborn, they never would have consented to abortion.

What about God? He offers more than a list of “thou shalt not’s” that we cannot keep anyway; He offers love that changes lives. And who doesn’t need that?

Our world of “reason” also needs Christians who will clean up their own act and reach out in God’s love to the innocents in the womb, to the desperate in their crisis, to the mistreated all around us. The Bible says God’s love has been shed abroad in the hearts of His people by the Holy Spirit. (See Romans 5)

We have it, Christians. We needs to obey love’s motivation and notice the helpless, do what we can to care for them sacrificially and without expectation of personal gain, like Jesus did for us.

Will the violence of abortion ever become just as repulsive to the desperate as it ought to be to the complacent? Logic says not likely, but love says there is hope.