The Rationality of Christian Faith

Introduction

            To those in opposition to Christianity, even to a portion of Christianity, rationality and the idea of faith are two topics that can in no way be reconciled. While no orthodox believer would declare himself as a pure rationalist, as that would be a contradiction in terms, the majority of Christians certainly believe the Christian faith is rational. Christianity is coherent, intelligible, sensible, and fits together in a consistent pattern of truth claims. There may be many instances within the Christian faith that certain ideas and doctrines are mystical and hard to grasp as there is much about the Christian faith, in all its majesty, that cannot be reduced to a few philosophical understandings by the human mind. Nevertheless, what God has revealed to humans is understandable and coherent to the human mind. A Christian faith that does not make sense and cannot relate to relate to reality is a faith that does not have practical application. Jesus himself recognized the need for humans to use their mind, “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”.1 Christianity and its adherents must continue to present faith as an intelligible, rational, and trustworthy way which to reach people with the gospel.

Differing Viewpoints on the Rationality of Christianity

            Generally, there are three different ways to approach the relationship between faith and reason. Fideism, “The position that religious belief-systems are not subject to rational evaluation”.2 Fideism would hold that knowledge of Christianity is based upon personal faith and

  1. The Holy Bible, New International Version.Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984. Matthew 22:37.
  2. Peterson, Michael.  Reason & Religious Belief: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. NY: Oxford UP, 1998. 49.

revelation. Followers of fideism hold that human reason is untrustworthy, as it has been tainted by the sinful effects of the fall of Adam. They usually reject evidence, evaluation and philosophical reason as a part of faith. This philosophy has a few issues with it; namely that fideism does not lead to belief in the Christian God, and opens the door to religious pluralism. For how does one know which religious system to commit their life too if they cannot evaluate and discern with their mind which is most plausible? This leads to a blind faith, and completely undermines the rationality of Christian faith.  Next: pure rationalism, “in order for a religious belief-system to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the belief-system is true”.3 The most important concept to grasp in pure rationalism is that a religious position is true only if it is understandable to a rational person. In response to pure rationalism; there have been many rational people who have rejected evidence and arguments in religion, and it is impossible to find one proof that could convince all rational humans. It is simply too stringent a system to be applied to real-life situations. Thirdly:  critical rationalism, “religious belief-systems can and must be rationally criticized and evaluate, although conclusive proof is such a system is impossible”.4 The critical rationalist is a melding of the two ideas of faith and reason working together in harmony. In contrast to pure rationalism, the critical rationalist understands that some theistic arguments may not convince all people, but are still good proofs to some. Over against fideism, critical rationalism holds it is not wrong to seek reasons for faith, but is actually in line with Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:37. Critical rationalism does not do away with faith, rather, holds that faith must be preceded by understanding for one to have a true Christian experience. To the critical rationalist, faith and reason are not at war, but a melding of

  1. Peterson, 45.
  2. Ibid, 53.

 

faith and reason to come to a true understanding of religious experience. It offers the most logical and consistent way to understand that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but work in unison.

Skeptical Objections to Christian Rationality

The atheist or agnostic holds that faith is an untrustworthy way to interpret life and its meaning. Friedrich Nietzsche describes faith as a willful desire to conduct oneself in an intellectually lazy pattern, “Faith means not wanting to know what is true”.5 This is one of the general approaches that skeptics make towards faith and religion, namely, that it is lazy and simple. Nietzsche goes further to declare Christianity as out of touch with reality, “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point”.6 Here lies one of the chief objections of skepticism; that faith and Christianity are entirely based not upon that which corresponds to reality, rather, faith is based on the imagined and is akin to belief in the tooth fairy. Richard Dawkins assaults the rationality of faith, “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness”.7 Dawkins further assaults the rationality of reason and faith, “religious faith … does not depend on rational justification”8 and later states that religions demand, “unquestioned faith”.9 Clearly, the skeptical approach is to regard Christianity as irrational and untrustworthy.

Skeptics view Christianity as an irrational viewpoint, but on what basis? Skepticism

  1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and H. L. Mencken. The Antichrist. Waiheke Island: Floating Press, 2010. 52.
  2. Ibid, 16.
  3. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. New ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. 330.
  4. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006. 306.
  5. Ibid, 308.

arms itself against Christianity on the basis of evidence, especially scientific evidence that can be observed, measured and weighed. Dawkins confronts Christianity on the basis that it does not evaluate evidence, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”.10 Further, Dawkins forms the thesis that one cannot be scientifically rational and hold to the idea of faith. Dawkins attempts to drive home the point that faith and science are at war with a 1998 study showing that of American scientists, only seven percent in the National Academy of Sciences believed in a personal god.11 Is science ultimately at war with Christianity? Does it disprove or invalidate belief in God? According to Dawkins and others it does. As this debate over evidence and science are combative towards the idea of Christian rationality, the next section will explore the idea that the rationality of Christianity is not invalidated by science.

Does Science Invalidate Christian Rationality

Perhaps chief among the reasons for why naturalists believe that science has disproved faith is that people of faith believe in the reality of miracles. Timothy Keller in his book, The Reason For God says this, “The first reason that many people think science has disproved traditional religion is that most of the major faiths believe in miracles, the intervention of God into the natural order”.12 Since a miracle is a suspension or distortion of the laws of nature it is immediately cast aside as wishful thinking by skeptics. It is especially important that the Christian can respond to this; the New Testament is full of different miracles held dear in evangelical Christianity. For example: the virgin birth of Jesus and His bodily resurrection from

  1. Dawkins, Richard. Untitled Lecture, Edinburg Science Festival, 1992.
  2. The God Delusion, 100.
  3. Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008. 88.

the dead. Keller goes on to state, “Scientific mistrust of the Bible began with the Enlightenment belief that miracles cannot be reconciled to a modern, rational view of the world”.13 According to science, it seems that science has destroyed the Bible as miracles are physical impossibilities. Keller explains that this idea is a leap of faith, “It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist”.14 A good scientist is right to only test for natural causes as that is the only thing that science can test for. It is an illogical to say that science disproves miracles, because it is not capable of testing for them. Keller brings up another point, “The other hidden premise in the statement ‘miracles cannot happen’ is ‘there can’t be a God who does miracles”.15 If God is real then there is nothing illogical about believing in the existence of miracles. If he did create all things then it follows that he has the ability to suspend or momentarily change the laws of nature to achieve his goals. Keller goes on to say that to prove miracles cannot occur one would have to prove that God does not exist. This is an especially difficult thing to accomplish as God can be neither proved or disproved demonstrably.16

Invariably, anyone who has an interest in science or Christianity has come into contact with the perceived war between science and Christianity. Keller blames much of this contention on the media: “media needs to report news events as stories with protagonists and antagonists”.17

  1. The Reason for God, 88.
  2. Ibid, 88.
  3. Ibid, 89.
  4. Ibid, 90.
  5. Ibid, 90.

 

Keller claims that this media coverage gives publicity to battles ranging from evolution being taught in schools, to the debate over abortion. Evolution is perhaps the chief divider of the religious and the scientific. He does not believe that faith and evolution have to be at war on evolution, he points out that many Evangelicals and even Catholics believe evolution to be compatible with Christianity.18 Keller distinguishes the importance of not embracing naturalism in concert with evolution, “However, Christians may believe in evolution as a process without believing in philosophical naturalism”.19 Naturalism claims that all matter and existence is caused by natural events without the intervention of a god or supreme being. When Naturalism is applied to all of life it enters the arena of philosophy and naturalism as a philosophical approach to life contradicts Christianity. Keller cites Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), author of The Language of God as an example of a Christian who supports evolution but applies it with the beliefs of Christianity. This flies in the face of the supposed war that Dawkins and others see as irreconcilable differences in Christianity and science.

Keller moves on to highlight out that even imminent atheistic scientists do not hold to this dividing view of science and religion. Keller brings up Thomas Nagel and his critique of Dawkin’s desire to adopt philosophical naturalism in concert with evolution. He disagrees with Dawkins that to be scientific one must be a naturalist. Nagel brings up the topic of conscience, “He brings up, for example, whether we really believe that our moral intuitions , such as that genocide is morally wrong, are not real but only the result of neurochemistry hardwired into us”.20 Nagel says, “conscious experience, thought, value, and so forth are not illusions, even

  1. John Paul II’s Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996.
  2. The Reason for God, 90.
  3. The Reason for God, 95.

though they cannot be identified with physical facts”.21 There are just certain things that science cannot explain or explore, such as conscience and morality. While science and religion may not be as unified as some would like to think, they are certainly not in such conflict as some would like to believe. Keller concludes the section by saying, “we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that we have to choose between the two, or that if you want to be a Christian you will have to be in conflict with science”.22 Science does not undermine the rationality of Christianity, rather they can be more integrative then some would wish to think.

Historic Credibility of Christianity

            The events of history are rooted in fact and actual happenings. This is important for both sides of the argument – for and against Christianity. William Lane Craig explains, “Christianity is bound up with the truth of certain historical facts, such that if those facts should be disproved, so would Christianity. But at the same time this makes Christianity unique because…we now have a means of verifying its truth by historical evidence”.23 The events of history are concrete, undeniable and can exist as proof of the rationality and trustworthiness of Christian faith. First, though, the apologist or Christian must establish the objectivity of history. Norman Geisler says this of arguments against the objectivity of history, “If these arguments are valid, it will make verification of Christianity via a historical method impossible”.24 The historical relativist argues that the way which one interprets history is so subjective that it is impossible to understand

  1. Nagel, Thomas. The Fear of Religion, The New Republic, October 23, 2006.
  2. The Reason for God, 95.
  3. Craig, William Lane, and William Lane Craig. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1994. 207.
  4. Geisler, Norman L., and Norman L. Geisler. The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012. 232.

history as reliable. One of their arguments is that history is not observable; more clearly, it cannot observe proof like the scientific method can, therefore it is impossible to know with certainty what happened in the past.25 Geisler quotes Carl Becker, saying: “The event itself, the facts, do not say anything, do not impose any meaning. It is the historian who speaks, who imposes a meaning”.26 If Christianity cannot stand on the reliability of historical happenings, then a great deal of good evidence and argumentation is wasted. Geisler goes on to critique this understanding of relativistic history, “If by objective one means absolute knowledge, then no human historian can be objective”.27 Geisler argues that if objectivity is defined as a fair presentation of evidence that rational people should accept, then yes, history can be objective.

Geisler compares historical geology to objective history, “Paleontology is considered one of the most objective of all sciences. However, the events represented by fossil finds are no more directly accessible to scientists or repeatable than are historical events”.28 Geisler argues that if one can establish the reliability of the eyewitnesses, then one cannot shut the door on historical objectivity. Geisler attacks another argument, “The scientist might contend that he can repeat the processes of the past by experimentation, whereas the historian cannot”.29 Geisler points out that history too, can be repeated. Similar events as happened in the past are always cropping up, it is legitimate to observe the current happenings and use them as a comparison to the past. The lack of direct access to the time when historical events happened is not a good reason to deny the

  1. The Big Book of Christian Apologetics, 232.
  2. Becker, Carl. Detachment and the Writing of History. Edited by Phil Snyder. Greenwood: Westport, CT, 1972. 21.
  3. The Big Book of Christian Apologetics, 235.
  4. Ibid, 235.
  5. Ibid.

objectivity of understanding history.

At this time it may be helpful to explore an instance of apologists arguing for the historical evidence of Christianity. The historicity and reliability of the scripture is often a starting point, “to defend the biblical writings, not as infallible scripture, but as historically credible and reliable documents”.30 The scriptures pass with flying marks the secular tests for the reliability of ancient texts , “we have many more manuscript copies for the New Testament writings than for other ancient writings, and that the time gap between the earliest complete copies and the originals is smaller for the New Testament than for other ancient writings”.31 Further, “To be skeptical of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Tesament”.32 The historical reliability of the scriptures stand as just one example of history lying in agreement with Christianity. History is on the side of Christianity, and it proves the reliability and rationality of the Christian faith not as blind faith, but as rooted in the happenings of history.

The Rationality of the Existence of God

            Christians and theists alike have made arguments for the existence of God as reasonable for nearly as long as those belief systems have been in place. Plato of Greek philosophy, is remembered as one of the oldest to argue for a god’s existence. Christians in particular have made many arguments for a rational belief in a theistic god. Some include: The cosmological

  1. Boa, Kenneth, and Robert M. Bowman. Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith. 2nd ed. Waynesboro, GA: Biblica Publishing, 2005.
  2. Montgomery, John Warwick. Clark’s Philosophy of History. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1968. 32.
  3. Ibid.

 

argument, the teleological argument, and anthropological arguments. These are just a few categories to which arguments for God are made, and there are numerous variations within each of these categories. William Lane Craig is a proponent of the cosmological argument and has popularized it in recent years. Craig describes the cosmological argument, “the cosmological argument assumes that something exists and argues from the existence of that thing to the existence of a First Cause or a Sufficient Reason of the cosmos”.33 Craig spends considerable time exploring a version of the cosmological argument known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It is as follows, “1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2) The universe began to exist. 3) Therefore, the universe has a cause”.34

Craig then initiates an exploration of five premises; he starts with the first premise, “something cannot come into being from nothing”35 and, “To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing serious metaphysics and to resort to magic”.36 Craig responds to objections made by J.L. Mackie and the naturalistic worldview,

Does anyone in his right mind really believe that a raging tiger could suddenly come          into existence uncaused, out of nothing, in this room right now? The same applies to the   universe: if prior to the existence of the universe, there was absolutely nothing- no God,        no space, not time – how could the universe possibly have come to exist.37

The causal principle really is a straightforward concept to grasp. A common objection is that the principle only applies to things in the universe but not the universe itself. “the causal principle is

  1. Reasonable Faith, 96.
  2. Ibid, 111.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid, 113.

not something you can dismiss like a cab once you’ve arrived at your desired destination”.38 Craig explores the objection further, “Premise (1) does not state a merely physical law like the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics, which are valid things within the universe. Rather is it a metaphysical principle; being cannot come from non-being; something cannot come into existence uncaused. The principle therefore applies to all of reality”.39 Whatever begins to exist must have a cause, and Christians believe that first cause was God,

Craig explores the second premise of the Kalam argument that the universe did begin to exist. To establish that all finite things had a beginning it must also be established an infinite number of things cannot exist. Craig claims that the infinite does not correspond to reality, “if an actual infinite number of things were to exist, then we should find ourselves landed in an Alice-in-Wonderland world populated with oddities”.40 With the impossibility of infinity addressed Craig says, “The series of past events must be finite and have a beginning. Since the universe is not distinct from the series of events, the universe therefore began to exist”.41 Craig also explores scientific arguments for the existence of God in line with the Kalam argument. Some find philosophical arguments too hard to follow and instead desire scientific evidence. These evidences come from the scientific fields of astronomy and astrophysics. Craig says, “Prior to the 1920s, scientists had always assumed that the universe was stationary and eternal”,42 but, “Tremors of the impending  earthquake that would topple this traditional cosmology application

  1. Reasonable Faith, 114.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid, 120.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid, 125.

 

of his newly discovered gravitational theory, the General Theory of Relativity”.43 Einstein proved that his theory could not allow for an eternal universe, “As a result Einstein’s universe was balanced on a razor’s edge, and the lest perturbation – would cause the universe to either implode or to expand”.44 Later, in the 1920s Alexander Friedman and Georges Lemaitre expounded on the work of Einstein and predicted an expanding universe. This idea of expansion is important because it shows that the universe was not eternal and unchangeable, but created and changing, “the universe could no longer be adequately treated as a static entity existing, in effect, timelessly. Rather the universe has a history, and time will not be a matter of indifference for our investigation of the cosmos”.45 Science, too, is on board with the idea of a created universe that had a first cause. This gives weight to the ideas of Christian theism and the claims of scripture as rational and reasonable. The idea of a first cause and a being who caused it is the starting point for establishing a rational theistic worldview.

Conclusion

The Christian worldview as a logical and reasonable approach to the ultimate questions of life is a sturdy viewpoint. While many may object to Christianity and others of faith based upon science and history it becomes apparent that many of these objections do not effectively combat Christian rationality. The revelation of God through his scripture, historical events, and the natural world are more than enough for the believer to stand concretely in their faith.

  1. Reasonable Faith, 125.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid, 126.

Works Cited

 

Books

Becker, Carl. Detachment and the Writing of History. Edited by Phil Snyder. Greenwood:           1972. 21.

Boa, Kenneth, and Robert M. Bowman. Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to             Defending the Christian Faith. 2nd ed. Waynesboro, GA: Biblica Publishing, 2005.

Craig, William Lane, and William Lane Craig. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and        Apologetics. Rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1994.

Dawkins, Richard. The  Selfish Gene. New ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Dawkins, Richard. The  God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006.

Geisler, Norman L., and Norman L. Geisler. The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z      Guide. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012.

Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008.

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984.

Montgomery, John Warwick. Clark’s Philosophy of History. Philadelphia: Presbyterian &             Reformed, 1968.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and H. L. Mencken. The Antichrist. Waiheke Island: Floating          Press, 2010.

Peterson, Michael.  Reason & Religious Belief: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion,         2nd ed. NY: Oxford UP, 1998.

Others

 

Dawkins, Richard. Untitled Lecture, Edinburg Science Festival, 1992.

John Paul II’s Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996.

Nagel, Thomas. The Fear of Religion, The New Republic, October 23, 2006

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