By all means! It is intensely rational. Now, I've had the question
asked of me, "Is it true that you are a Christian rationalist?" I said,
"By no means! That's a contradiction in terms. A rationalist is somebody
who embraces a philosophy that sets itself over and against
Christianity." And so, while a true Christian is not a rationalist, the
Christian faith is certainly rational.
Is Christianity coherent?
Is it intelligible? Does it makes sense? Does it fit together in a
consistent pattern of truth, or is it the opposite of rational—is it
irrational? Does it indulge in superstition and embrace Christians who
believe that Christianity is manifestly irrational? I think that's a
great tragedy. The God of Christianity addresses people's minds. He
speaks to us. We have a Book that is written for our understanding.
When
I say that Christianity is rational, I do not mean that the truth of
Christianity in all of its majesty can be deduced from a few logical
principles by a speculative philosopher. There is much information about
the nature of God that we can find only because God himself chooses to
reveal it to us. He reveals these things through his prophets, through
history, through the Bible, and through his only begotten Son, Jesus.
But
what he reveals is intelligible; we can understand it with our
intellect. He doesn't ask us to throw away our minds in order to become
Christians. There are people who think that to become a Christian, one
must leave one's brain somewhere in the parking lot. The only leap that
the New Testament calls us to make is not into the darkness but out of
the darkness into the light, into that which we can indeed understand.
That is not to say that everything the Christian faith speaks of is
manifestly clear with respect to rational categories. I can't
understand, for example, how a person can have a divine nature and a
human nature at the same time, which is what we believe about Jesus.
That's a mystery—but mysterious is not the same as irrational.
Mystery
doesn't apply only to religion. I don't understand the ultimate force
of gravity. These things are mysterious to us, but they're not
irrational. It's one thing to say, "I don't understand from my finite
mind how these things work out," and it's another thing to say, "They're
blatantly contradictory and irrational, but I'm going to believe them
anyway." That's not what Christianity does. Christianity says that there
are mysteries, but those mysteries cannot be articulated in terms of
the irrational; if that were so, then we have moved away from Christian
truth.
~ RC Sproul, Now That's a Good Question!
4 comments:
It is called a "faith" after all . . .
Enjoy your day Sir.
Exactly, sir. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1).
Thank you.
Interesting you posted this today because our Chesterton Society reading for today was "The Blue Cross", which concludes with:
"Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose," he said. "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest."
"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.
"You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology."
Exactly, ma'am. Thank you.
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