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Can Faith and Reason Co-exist? - In the past I asked a question, "Do you believe because you are told to believe?" The problem that occurred in a conversation with a Community of Christ member (RLDS) is that despite the Reason to believe the book of Mormon is a pseudo-gospel, she believes in Faith that it is a legit testament of Christ. Despite the evidences or lack of evidences to prove that the Book of Mormon cannot be taken as doctrinal material, she stands by faith that it is from God. What perplexed me before researching this a bit more was her argument that since I need proof to believe the Book of Mormon, I am a man of no faith. The argument seems correct from her term of faith. In the previous "The Lost Nature of Reason...."I had found in my studies an underlining principle of belief; it was the true definition of the Greek word logos, summarized as Term, Proposition, and Argument. The problem has occurred, our terms did not compliment or agree with each other, and so our premise differed making our arguments invalid to the issue. Can faith compliment reason, as reason is a friend to our knowledge? First we must distinguish or separate the 'act' of faith from the 'object' of faith; in other words, believing from what is believed. A revelation that Jesus Christ gave me when I was 18 confirming, "You know that I AM, but now know who I AM. Know why and what you believe! Do this and grow in Me!" The object of faith means all the things believed. For Christian's this means God has revealed all in the canonized Bible, for Catholics this includes the creeds, sacraments and universal binding teachings of the church. This faith (the object) is expressed not of the act of believing but they are expressions in proposition. A proposition of the content believed, and the ultimate object of faith is not words of God but God's Word (singular), the object of our faith is God Himself. The propositions are the map or structure to our faith; God is the real existing object of faith (God is the author of faith) Since most people do not clarify the definitions of faith and reason, most of the time they are vague. Defining the term removes this vagueness. The act of faith is more than merely an act of belief. We believe many things, Canada is beautiful, Apples are good for you, Michael Jordan is a good basketball player. These beliefs are nothing we will die for, but an act of faith in God is something we live and die for. So we must separate realize faith is more than just a word to describe a belief. To refine it I will take it to: a) Emotional faith - Feeling of confidence, trust, hope. b) Intellectual Faith - Strong than emotional faith in that it is more stable and unchanging. My mind would be confident over what my emotion and feeling tells me. It is also defined as, "the act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the grounds of authority of the One who revealed it". It is the aspect of faith that is formulated in propositions and summarized in creeds. c) Volitional faith - The act of the will, manifesting itself in behavior. It is deeper than emotional faith, and deeper than an opinion based on intellectual faith. The root of this faith is the will. The will is the power of the soul. d) The Heart -Begins in obscure and mystery but is the center of being. This is where God starts His good work Reason is our friend, and just as faith it has to parts. The act of reason and the object of reason. The object of reason means all that reason can know. Truths can be understood, discovered and proved. a) Understand - We understand what a star is made of by human reason alone. It is not part of Devine revelation. We know the universe is ordered and has rules, this too is not Devine revelation. We know that there must be a higher power at work behind the design, this is divine revelation. We cannot understand the God's plan by human logic alone only by divine revelation. b) Discovery - We know the planet Pluto exists by human reason alone. We also know that historical existence of Jesus through historical research. However the purpose of Jesus dying on the cross and why he died for us can only be discovered through Devine revelation. c) Proof - We now mathematical equations by human logic and this is not Devine revelation. We can also prove that the soul does not die as the body dies, by good philosophical reason. However we cannot prove that God is Trinity because only God can reveal this. Just as the object of reason is found in understanding, discovering, and proved logic. The act of reason is found in a) simple apprehension, b) judgment c) reasoning. Reason is relative to truth; it is a way of knowing the truth, understanding it, and proving it. Faith is also relative to truth; it is a way of discovering truth. Nobody can exist without some measure of faith. Everything we know and learned, we learned by faith. Faith and Reason together are roads to truth. Faith is the step to believe and reason is the step towards truth in what we believe. In our reason we find that God exists through Devine revelation. The object of our Faith is still God and we find the content of our faith through discovery which brings us an intellectual faith. Through reason we find volitional faith which motivates us and confirms us. Through this we find understanding and we can refine and strengthen our faith. We do not believe blindly because through our discovery and trial we find proof of God in us. The content should not longer dictate our Faith as the content is not the object. The content of our faith is subject to Truth and we do not believe blindly any longer. Faith and Reason can never contradict each other. Only Falsehood can contradict Truth, and we know God is the ultimate Teacher. Foolishness is found in a) misapprehension, or misunderstanding or failure to grasp. b) To be ignorant, to fail to know or discover c) To be illogical and fail to show proof, and to commit a fallacy. So now to my example, the book of Mormon should not be the object of a person faith. God is the object of our faith, as the proofs that book of Mormon does not line up with the Bible we can deduct through reason accurately that the content of the book of Mormon is false. Believing this should not detour ones faith if it is truly based on the Object of faith who is Christ Jesus. In fact it is this reason we continue to search out the Character of God to establish our faith and know Truth. However I understand the difficulty for some to separate the content and the object of faith and reason, and it is this failure to establish this which prevents some from coming to the reality of the Truth. So we pray. Craig Nolin Student of the Word |
