It was recently stated that faith is the abandonment of reason. This is a misinformed judgment in my humble estimation. Faith is the understanding that not everything is understandable by our limited intellect and being ok with that. We do not serve an illogical God. One must only go so far as to observe the fact that there is a scientific and mathematical equation behind just about everything God did during the Creation process (I believe this serves to demonstrate the depth of God’s creativity not to mention mathematical and scientific brilliance). We may not understand His logic all the time but I don’t believe we are to abandon logic in order to call ourselves faithful to Christ.
Pursue logic and reason for as long as your intellect will allow you. And then rest in a faith that dictates that you trust a God that has a masterful grip on the institution of logic that you will never match this side of time and space.
Some of the purest forms of worship I have ever experienced have been found at the end of a road of logic that I have attempted to traverse for as long as I could only to wind up with a scrambled brain, a heart that is full of awe and an ego that has been dashed upon the rock hard fact that God is so much bigger than I.
3 comments:
it is absolutely ridiculous to claim that we have to abandon reasoning in order to embrace faith, i think your 'humble estimation' is exactly right (that's my humble opinion though).
A few thoughts:
"All truth is God's truth" ALL truth, whether it is a scientific truth, medical truth, truth in literature in art, truth wherever and whenever, it is a truth from God. Arthur Holmes says (this is quite a long quote, but it's very good, and i would attempt to summarize but...i won't) "The christian regards the biblical revelation (any revelation maybe) as the final rule of faith and conduct, but he does not think of it as an exhaustive source of all truth. The teaching authority of Scripture commits the believer at certain focal points and so provides an interpretive framework, an overall glimpse of how everything relates to God, but there is no royal road to learning and no alternative to disciplined intellectual inquiry if we would find out about nature or man or God. Morever, if all truth is God's trught and truth is one, then God does not contradict himsef, and in the final analysis there will be no conflict between the truth taught in Scripture and truth available from other sources."
in my own personal life, it has been interesting to see how intellectual pursuits and interests have become so influential in my spiritual walk. the times that I am most moved to Christ are when I'm questioning, reading, discovering or learning. I am so glad that being a christian doesn't mean being an idiot (even though one may think differently by watching or listening to some christians)
I had forgotten about your post until reading it again now. This ideas of truth being God's is a really freeing idea isn't it?
I can honestly say that this may be the first time I've gotten an excited feeling in my stomach about anything having to do with God.
I don't really know why.
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