Skeptics often accuse Christians of “blind faith.” And sometimes even believers have spoken of faith in less than rational terms. Yet historic Christianity affirms a necessary and proper relationship between faith and reason. There has been broad agreement in Christian history that the two are indeed compatible. Christian faith is reasonable in four distinct ways.
First, the Christian faith affirms that there is an objective source and foundation for knowledge, reason, and rationality. That source and foundation is found in a personal, rational God who is infinitely wise and omniscient. This God created the universe to reflect a coherent order, and he made man in his image (with rational capacities) to discover that intelligible organization. Logic and rationality are then to be expected among the characteristics of the Christian theistic worldview.
Second, Christian truth claims do not violate the basic laws or principles of reason. Christian faith and doctrines (e.g., the Trinity and the Incarnation), while often beyond our finite human understanding, are not irrational or absurd.
Third, the Bible itself encourages the attainment of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding (Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7) and promotes intellectual virtues such as discernment, testing, and reflection (Acts 17:11; Col. 2:8; 1 Thess. 5:21).
Fourth, the truths of the Christian faith are matched by and supported by such things as evidence, facts, and reasons. Biblical faith (Greek: pisteuo , the verb “to believe,” and pistis , the noun “faith”) can be defined as trust in a reliable, reasonable, and viable source (God or Christ). Faith (or belief) is a necessary component of both knowledge and reason, since a person must believe something in order to know it. However, reason can be appropriately used to evaluate, confirm, and reinforce faith. Faith and reason therefore function in a complementary way. While reason alone, without God’s special grace, cannot be a cause of faith, the use of reason is normally part of how a person might come to faith, and it supports faith in countless ways.
In short, faith is the foundation of reason and reason can serve to evaluate or confirm faith.
In the New Testament, faith is always centered on an object. And the confident object of a person’s faith, according to Scripture, is God or the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the faith that results in salvation itself involves knowledge (of the facts surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and discursive reasoning (as to what the facts about Jesus Christ are and what they really mean). Saving faith includes knowledge (of the gospel), assent (to its truth and importance), and confident trust and dependence (on the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ). Such faith involves all the human faculties: mind (knowledge), will (consent), and heart (trust).
Christian faith and reason can also be connected in another important way. The Christian life should be marked by what the apostle Paul calls the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). This involves using our knowing faculties to their fullest extent in our devotion to God. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) called this indispensable activity “faith seeking understanding.” Intellectual and spiritual. Believers should earnestly pursue the God-given use of reason to explore the depths of their faith and discover its doctrinal truth. Stretching the mental and spiritual muscles to understand (though never fully comprehend) doctrines such as the triune nature of God and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ moves us from an initial stage of faith to a deeper stage of reflection and a greater sense of God’s majesty. Loving God with the mind is part of fulfilling the general command to love and honor God with our whole being (Matthew 22:37).
Christian faith, therefore, far from being arbitrary and blind, is based on knowledge and reason. It is the task of the believer to represent this historic faith with grace and accuracy in an age of hardened skepticism.
Christian historical vision of faith and reason
There is a diversity of views in the history of the Christian church regarding the proper relationship between faith and reason, but the views have much in common.
These approaches to faith and reason are explored and explained in Ed L. Miller, God and Reason: An Invitation to Philosophical Theology, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995), 129–53, and Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr., Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006).
Translated by Jorge Gil Calderon
Edited by Jairo Izquierdo