Introduction
A cartoon by Bob Englehart from February of 2006 depicts an older man in a lab coat with science in capital letters underneath his pocket protector. The scientist is tied to a stake on top of a wood pile, with an angry man in a friar’s cloak holding a Bible in one hand and a lit torch in the other. The thought bubble above the angry man states, “For the crimes of abortion, birth control, evolution stem cell research ….” Englehart’s cartoon is meant to invoke the idea that the religious decry and destroy those that employ logic and science. This belief has its roots in Enlightenment sentiments such as Voltaire, who wrote, “It was loudly exclaimed that Mr. Locke intended to destroy religion; nevertheless, religion had nothing to do in the affair, it being a question purely philosophical, altogether independent of faith and revelation.” However, the notion that faith and reason are either at odds or necessarily independent of one another is not what is found in the biblical text; in fact, the opposite is true. The God of the Bible has called humanity into a relationship based on reasonable faith. A state of relationship that employs both the reason capabilities of the intellect with the trust of obedience.
Defining Faith and Reason
In order to understand the partnership of reason and faith that the God of the Bible calls his people into, one must understand the terms. First, the word for faith in the New Testament is the Greek word πίστις, which is defined as “Faith, belief, trust, confidence, fidelity.” The cultural background of the word in the Roman-Greco culture reflected the personal trust and reliability of a person within the context of personal and social circumstances. In addition, this reliability was referred to as a guarantee that a person was trustworthy to keep their word. Within the Jewish culture, πίστις is rooted in the covenant that Israel had with God, which affirmed trust through God’s fulfilled promises. In the New Testament, πίστις refers to confidence in what God has done through Christ Jesus and understanding of what God’s will for his people is. In this understanding of faith, blind belief is nowhere to be found. Instead, faith is built on trust, which is found in an individual’s previous actions. John Bishop and Daniel J. McKaughan recognize that faith is rooted in trust when they write, “Uses of ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness’ closely parallel ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’ and these are often used interchangeably.” When applied in the Greco-Roman culture, person A could trust person B based on how person B had conducted themselves in past situations. This is similar to what Western society would call a person’s reputation or character. A person can trust or have faith in another based on the reputation they have built as a trustworthy person. When applied to God, this trust is in the fulfilled promises of what God has accomplished in the past. It is, therefore, interesting that God invites this type of reputation trust by calling the Israelites to remember what he had done in Egypt. Therefore, a definition of faith is trust in the consistent conduct of past actions. It is not the type of faith that simply believes out of one’s desires to believe something no matter the proof, as Herbert McCabe and Denys Turner argue against.
In reference to the definition of reason, the Cambridge Dictionary cites several possible definitions. One of these possible definitions is “the ability of a healthy mind to think and make judgments, especially based on practical facts.” John S. Uebersax sees reason as mental faculties in either a lower state, a person’s ability to think linearly through issues, and a higher state, in which a person perceives areas such as mathematics and logic. Uebersax also includes moral and religious truths in this high state of reason. For others, such as Alan G. Padgett, reason is the human ability to think. A synthesis of these various degrees of understanding is the reason for the purpose here, which is the ability of humans to make judgments based on the various modes of evidence they have access to. This definition focuses on a human’s ability to think rather than on an animal’s basic ability to make judgments on an institutional level. This definition also adds an evidentiary aspect to reason that sees the practical facts of the Cambridge definition and Uebersax’s higher logic. Finally, the reason is to think through the various modes of evidence, including natural and metaphysical ideas. It is this idea of reason that will be referred to below.
Prudent Biblical Passages
In looking at both faith and reason in the Bible, it can be easily thought that the Bible condemns the use of reason. Passages such as Colossians 2:8 reject the idea that reason and faith live together in the disciple’s life. Early Church fathers such as Tertullian also seem to deny the use of reason in understanding God. However, as Carl A. Raschke notes about Tertullian, the issue is not with reason but with substituting human philosophy for biblical faith. As several Scripture passages show, God calls his people to a trusting faith and a reasoned mind.
Leviticus 19:17 states, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. (ESV)” In God’s words, prohibiting hatred towards one’s brother and neighbor, the opposing people should converse and work through their issues. The Hebrew word יָכַח is used, which carries the meaning of rebuke, argue, and judge to conclude. The cultural connotations of this idea are meant to be understood as a means to correct a person through argumentation or presentation of evidence. In Job 6:25-26, יָכַח is used by Job in the context of wanting to be taught so that he might understand his plight. In Isaiah 1:18, God speaks to the prophet using the word יָכַח when he talks to the nation of Israel about showing them how “… though [their] sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow …” This type of reasoning by way of evidential argumentation is a way in which the Israelites were to maintain their covenantal faithfulness. Therefore, it can be understood that God intended his people to reason with him, engaging their ability to think rationally about situations so that they may continue in their faithful trust of him.
In the New Testament, Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. (Jn. 7:24)” The word used, κρίνω, is the Greek parallel to the Hebrew, יָכַח. κρίνω carried with it the idea that whether in one’s personal opinion or a court of law, people are to make determinations that lead them to act. In the case of John 7:24, Jesus points his disciples to make δίκαιος or righteous judgments. Here, the judgment was to be made to live up to the standard of God. These right judgments would have a practical effect when Paul would write, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God“ … (2 Cor. 10:5)” The argument that Paul is speaking of is, λογισμός, or reasons that others believe in opposition to God. These arguments, or reasons, are then juxtaposed with the idea of knowledge, or γνῶσις, which is the Greek word for understanding or perception. In this way, Paul is pitting man’s reasoning against God’s. This is similar to Jesus’ idea of judging by the proper standard of God rather than making judgments by human ideas. In both the Old and New Testaments, reason within the bounds of God’s knowledge is how God’s people engage in reasoning. It is within these bounds that God’s disciple grows their faith, trust, and obedience to the knowledge of God over the knowledge of man.
Models of Faith and Reason
With the terms defined and the biblical foundation set, many philosophers and theologians have developed models to separate or join concepts of faith and reason. These models are varied by the nuances individuals focus on within the discussion. Peter Holmes wrestles with seven models, which Avery Dulles discusses in his work, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: Propositional, Transcendental, Fiducial, Affective/Experiential, Obediential, Praxis, and Personalist. Richard C. Taylor, on the other hand, dives into four Medieval models of faith and reason as they pertain to the interaction between Christianity and Islam through individuals: Augustine, Ghazālī, Averroes, and Aquinas. As editor of Faith and Reason: Three Views, Steve Wilkens brings together three contributors who seek to tackle the issue: Carl A. Raschke
Alan G. Padgett, and Craig A. Boyd. Then, there is Montague Brown, who sees two models within Anselm’s theology. Due to the volume of differing models that could be discussed, three of the six models that Wilkens presents in his Models of Faith and Reason, provide a general understanding of the issues in how faith and reason are discussed. It is these three models that will be discussed here.
The Enlightenment or Rationalist Model is the first of these approaches that their infancy sought to give faith a firm foundation in reason. The rationalists sought to anchor faith in the natural world, which was seen as the only way true religion could be understood. This model stripped away the miraculous from Christianity, which eventually led to a moralistic form of the faith. Done away was the idea of virgin birth and resurrection, which made way for an emphasis on God as primarily a Lawgiver and humans as moral agents. Following this, reason became more critical than faith since faith was a belief in the super-rational that could not be observed and, therefore, could not be grounded in the natural world. In the end, this model led to a suppression of faith as defined above to a purely academic view rooted in the primary senses rather than in the self-revelation from God outside the system. In a sense, the Enlightenment model sought to emancipate people from faith. This is similar to early Greek philosophy which Terence Penelhum observes “… philosophy’s early development among the Greeks was due to deliberate and self-conscious emancipation from the mythical thought forms in which Greek religious life was expressed.”
The second of these models is the “separate spheres.” In this model, unlike the previous one, there is a conscious decision to see faith and reason as unique from each other but not allow that uniqueness to break the tension between the two. This is seen as viewing God as outside of the created order; therefore, human reason cannot grasp him. As Wilkens states, “If human beings know anything that is true of God, it is not because reason has discerned God’s logic, but because God has willed us to know.” In this model, reason can only work in the created order; it is the arm of making the tool and studying effects. Reason’s failure is that it cannot understand things outside of the created system; therefore, it must work within that system.
On the other hand, faith comes by way of God from the outside, revealing himself to humanity on the inside. God’s self-revelation from outside creation is the only way humanity can know anything about God. Therefore, reason seeks to know about the things of this world, whereas faith aims to know the who of the personal God. Reason helps create propositions of the observable world, while faith understands God on the limited information he shares. The separate spheres model gives faith and reason their own purpose while seeing their contribution to the other in areas they do not speak to. Writing from a educational point of view, Wilkens sees this model as being a way to foster “… openness to academic views from all sources, secular and Christian.” Wilkens makes his case that, in academia, the separate spheres model would impose no single framework onto students and faculty. This would force faith and reason to have their limits in what the can and cannot speak to.
It is Thomas Aquinas that a synthesis is tried to reach between faith and reason. Aquinas is famous for seeing various elements from the Christian faith in the natural order. In this way, Aquinas considers the ability of humans to reason through what God has placed in the natural world. His “Five Ways” to know that God exists uses Aristotelian precepts of studying the natural world to understand that there must be a deity that created the world around us. However, this understanding that God’s work can be observed within the created order does not mean that Aquinas falls solely on the side of reason. It is in the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures and both the Church’s doctrine and tradition that Thomas sets as the key to true knowledge. Yet, within the concept of reason, Thomas sees God’s grace in breaking down obstacles that would be set against faith in him. Reason, then, is not doctrine but rather the entry point where faith steps in and the fullness of God can then be understood. In Scott D. G. Ventureyra’s work, he notes that Norman Geisler sees Aquina’s view as “… faith uses reason and that reason is incapable of functioning without faith.” Therefore, reason is a prelude to faith for those who have intellectual barriers to faith in God. In understanding faith and reason this way, Aquinas sees reason as an entry point to launch one’s faith.
Synthesis of Faith and Reason in the Modern Church
As can be observed in the biblical model, faith and reason should not be seen as at odds with one another. They are not two individual athletes competing against each other for the prize but rather a duo working side-by-side to accomplish a goal. As Cortés, Pablo, and Vigil, see can happen in the realm of medicine. The tension between the two is the tension that was within the garden. Faith, trusting action, was required of Adam and Eve. Their ability to reason through that faith is evident in the fact that Eve was able to communicate God’s prohibition and that “… the woman saw … that the tree was to be desired to make one wise … (Gen. 3:6)” Though her reasoning was faulty, leading to her sin and failure of faith, it was still there. In this way, God still calls his people to reason through his actions.
When the Church participates in Communion, the words of Christ, “Do this in remembrance of me. (1 Cor. 11:24)” This is an act of faith, of trust, in what has occurred. Because of the act of the cross and the resurrection, which Jesus prophesied, one can then reason that Christ’s words of his return are also accurate. Reasoning is employed to bolster faith in what has and will occur. Reason is also a stepping stone for the inquirer to faith. Peter writes, “… always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you … (1 Peter 3:15)” The word for defense is ἀπολογία, which is what a defendant would do in a court of law. This was a sound, reasoned argument as to the defendant’s innocence. Christians are, therefore, to reason through their faith as a means to defend it or give answers to those asking questions. In this way, reason can be the first step into faith.
Yet faith is not simply the end goal of reason but also is reason itself. Trust moves a person forward even when the outcome is uncertain. D-Day, which turned the tide of World War II, should not have worked. It was a gamble with many working parts that went beyond pure reason. If the Germans had positioned their troops differently, if the weather had been unfavorable, if the ploys of the Allies did not work, all the preparation would have failed. Yet, a strong trust in the abilities of others led to winning the day. Faith is a trust in what has happened that moves us to the next step when reasoning might hold us back. When they work together in the Christian’s life, a deeper understanding of who God is and their relationship with him is achieved.
In the modern Church, we must capture the synthesis of such models as Aquinas put forward. The Church needs a view of faith that works together with reason, neither supplanting another nor excluding each other from the believer’s relationship with God. A synthesis where believers reason out what God has revealed and walk in an ever-growing trust. Faith that is not blind and reason that is not devoid of trust. Only when both are joined in a harmonic work will the Church be able to show its faithfulness to its Savior and respond to the question from within and the attacks from outside.
Conclusion
How some theologians and philosophers see the relationship between faith and reason might elicit a boxing match. Two opponents slugging it out until one overcomes the others. This dichotomy leads to a skewed understanding of God’s intention to trust in him and think through his creative work. The Christian needs to grasp the reality that the God of the Bible calls his creation to reason with him in a relationship based on trust. When a disciple sees faith and reason as something that God intends his people to use, a deeper trust that engages both the will and the intellect can be achieved, fulfilling Jesus’ words, “… love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)”
Bibliography
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