Is Christianity Rational?

Introduction

Many times, Christians have been accused of holding to a “blind faith”. When challenged, often unequipped Christians will simply say “you just have to believe” or reply with other irrational remarks. This paper will explore issues such as whether biblical faith is blind, how reason should be seen in light of the Christian worldview, and ultimately address the pressing question of whether Christianity is rational, meaning whether the truthfulness of the Christian faith is supported by evidence and good reasons. Christian Theism is the only rational belief system since it alone justifies the preconditions of rationality itself.

What is Faith According to the Bible?

New Testament Use

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). The Greek word here for faith is pistis. Gregg Allison says, “Faith is belief and personal trust”.[1] Rudolph Bultmann explains more broadly that the idea of pistis in the larger Greek-speaking world can mean “confidence” or “trust”, and in some contexts can be contrasted with knowledge.[2] This is to be expected since one can believe in something without justification, selling it short of knowledge. In this passage in Hebrews, the reference is looking back to the saints in the Old Testament period of redemption. The question then becomes whether faith in this sense is presented as blind. If attention is paid to the examples the writer gives of these people of faith, it becomes apparent that their faith was placed in something external: God Himself and His word. Verse 4 says that Abel was commended by God when he offered up his sacrifice in faith, or Noah, in verse 7, acted in faith upon being warned by God. This shows that God manifested Himself evidentially to these men, and they responded by trusting in God. Faith is in the subject, but in order for it not to be blind, it must have an object.

Old Testament Use

The term emunah in Hebrew is used for the concept of faith in the Old Testament. Passages such as Genesis 15:6 say, “He believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness”. Here, the word aman is used for the faith of Abraham. The word denotes one to trust in something or someone, similar to the New Testament Greek word. Again, the context of this verse shows that Abraham’s faith was not blind but rather was placed in God as manifested through His word to Abraham. Verse 1 of chapter 15 says the word of the Lord came to Abraham. God (the object) presented evidence of His existence to Abraham, and Abraham (the subject) trusted in that.

What is Reason According to the Bible?

Adam Made a Reasonable Creature

Reason can be defined as the capacity of the mind to engage in logical thinking, investigate facts, draw conclusions, and relate ideas together to make value judgments.[3] In Genesis 1, the narrative depicts God creating the first man, Adam. The text says that God made Adam in His own image and after His own likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). This point is important since throughout Scripture God Himself is presented as a reasonable being who thinks, speaks, and is the source of logic and values. Vern Poythress emphasizes that for human reasoning to have a foundation, it must be rooted and derive from the God of the Bible, who is an absolute and reasonable being, who made humans in His own image.[4] After this, the text says that God gave man a mission to exercise dominion over the rest of creation (Gen. 1:28). This shows that God equipped man with reason to apply in his role on the earth. Man is made to think logically, make value judgements, form memories, and learn. All of this is because he is made in the image of a reasonable God.

God Incites Man to Reason

In the prophet Isaiah’s writing, chapter 1, verse 18, God speaks to a sinful people. God incites them to reason with Him. This presupposes that both God and man are capable of doing this. Here, the term reason is used in a context of disputing together. God endorses reason here. The Hebrew term “ykh” means “dispute, prove, argument, or vindicate”. God wants the sinful nation of Israel to engage their way of thinking and doing things with His and demonstrate who is right. God, through the prophet Isaiah, will go on to argue how the sins of the people will be removed by the work of the servant of the Lord in chapters 52-53.

Paul Models Reasoning

Acts 17:1-2 narrates how the apostle Paul would go from town to town and (gk dielexato) reason with the Jews from the scriptures to prove Christian doctrine. In other passages, Paul endorses other believers to follow in his example of ministry and life, which includes the task of reasoning. Later in Acts 17:17, Paul was provoked in his spirit when he saw the idols and vain philosophies in Athens, and so he began to reason with those who were there. Paul shows in his model of ministry a readiness to reason with both Jews and Gentiles, in other words, those who knew the Bible and those who did not. Believers today are called to do likewise.

Faith and Reason: Various Positions

Tension View

The late second-century theologian in Africa, Tertullian, raised the famous question “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”[5] In this view, philosophy should have nothing to do with defending the Christian faith. Tertullian did not want reason to take the place of faith for the Christian. Later in the nineteenth century, another Christian by the name of Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish man, argued in a similar view that the Christian faith is a subjective matter of choice for the individual, rather than emphasizing the objective rationality of Christianity. Kierkegaard taught that one must take a leap of faith. This view holds faith and reason as the most antithetical of the three positions outlined in this paper.

Faith Seeking Understanding

This view is laid out by thinkers such as Augustine and Anselm in Church History. Rather than pitting faith against reason, or pitting Jerusalem (scripture) against Athens (philosophy), faith seeking understanding sees reason as a tool that is used on the basis of faith. Some would argue that Christian faith guides the reasoning process, as will be shown later in this paper. The issue in this view is to keep faith in its proper place and reason in its rightful place in the mind of the Christian.

Synthesis View

This view flows in the stream of thought from Thomas Aquinas, John Wesley, and C.S. Lewis. It holds that faith has its proper domain, and reason has its own domain; the two do not conflict but complement one another. Advocates of this view tend to affirm natural theology, showing how even without direct appeal to biblical revelation about God, truths about God, humanity, and His world can be known through reason. Another way this view is framed is “nature and grace”.

Personal Model of Faith and Reason

FSU Defending Biblically

Faith seeking understanding is the position most consistent with Scripture. From the prophets to the wisdom literature, precedence is repeatedly given to faith and beginning all thinking with the fear of the Lord. For example, Isaiah says in chapter 7, verse 9 to King Ahaz that if he (the Hebrew is plural) will not be firm in faith, he won’t be firm at all. Here, fighting for a country's victory is not at odds with faith, nor is it in its own domain next to faith; rather is done in light of faith in the biblical God. In another place in Proverbs, chapter 1, verse 7, it says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…”. Knowledge can be viewed as reason, and the fear of the Lord can be viewed as faith. The teaching is chronological; faith precedes knowledge. Many suppose that seeking God should begin with knowledge or reasoning apart from faith in God, but this passage states the opposite.

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul gives teaching showing that all true knowledge and wisdom is found in Christ (Col. 2:3). This amounts to seeing the reasoning process being founded on adequate grounds when done in light of Christian faith. He also teaches later in the same passage that vain philosophy should be shunned and recognized as deceitful, but on the contrary, doing philosophy in accordance with Christian faith is what has merit (Col. 2:8). The problem with the tension view of faith and reason is that it undermines Scriptures like those cited above that properly situate faith and reason rather than make them absolute enemies. On the other hand, the issue with the synthesis view is that it does not adequately account for the biblical teaching on the noetic effects of sin. Ephesians 4:17-18 teaches that unbelievers have minds that are futile and understandings that are darkened. Romans 1:28 says that God gives unregenerate man over to debased minds. Verse 21 of the same chapter says they are futile in their thinking and possess foolish hearts that are darkened.  None of these descriptions of the reasoning faculties of unbelievers seems to amount to what the synthesis view claims about man.

FSU Defended Historically

Early in Church History, theologians such as Irenaeus, Hilary of Poitiers, and Clement of Alexandria held to a view of faith and reason fitting with the latter classified faith seeking understanding position (Irenaeus Demonstration 3, Hilary On The Trinity 12.57, Clement Miscellanies 5.11.71).[6] Later, Augustine solidified this way of thinking when writing in his homilies on the Gospel of John, stating that rather than trying to understand in order to believe, he began with Christian belief, and only by it did he assess that he could come to valid understandings.[7]Credo ut inteligam is the Latin phrase in which this idea took shape.

Later in the medieval era of Church History, a theologian named Anselm of Canterbury developed this framework further in his prayer written in his Proslogion, where he set out to construct the ontological argument for God’s existence; he says, “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand”.[8] Immediately after this, Anselm cites Isaiah 7:9, confirming his conviction with Scripture. The order of beginning with Christian faith in the process of reasoning is affirmed again.

In the Reformation era, the famous John Calvin of Geneva taught in the beginning of his Institutes of the Christian Religion that human reasoning must be done through the spectacles of Scripture.[9] For Calvin, human reason isn’t lost entirely, but it certainly is darkened and needs the guidance of Scripture to confirm a right interpretation of matters contemplated. He cites the 19th Psalm, which begins with affirming theology in nature, but Calvin notes that right after the psalmist says this, it moves immediately to stating that the law of God is perfect and able to revive the soul.

In eighteenth-century America, Jonathan Edwards laid out his thoughts on reason as it pertained to this topic. Edwards makes several comments: one is that reason must have a proper standard. Whose reason is correct when contrary conclusions are presented all under the same name? Edwards saw the divine mind as the standard for right reason. Edwards taught that because of the fall, man’s mind was the most contrary thing to reason since it was darkened, as Paul said.[10] Like those before him, Edwards saw reason as needing faith in the divine mind to be rightly grounded and guided.

What About Natural Theology?

Natural theology can be defined as the study of theological truth in nature apart from the special revelation in Scripture. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them” (Rom. 1:19). “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Ps. 19:1). These verses clearly teach that theological information is in nature. In that sense, natural theology must be affirmed. However, there is more to the situation, namely, those who are studying this information. If there were never a fall of man into sin, natural theology would be an endeavor done every day without difficulty. In the garden, Adam talked with God and enjoyed viewing all of nature in light of God’s truth (God always spoke to man). There was no sin in Adam’s mind to inhibit his view of nature and seeing God’s handiwork in it. Since then, man has chosen not to honor God for who He is and has become futile in his reasoning (Rom. 1:21). They now suppress the truth about God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). Their minds are darkened, and they are fools (Ps. 14). The situation is now different, though nature reveals God truly, the students of nature have jaundiced eyes. There is a doctrine in Christian theology called common grace, which states that God, in His mercy, does not let sinful man experience the full consequences of his sin in this life. This seems to account for the fact that even though non-Christians cannot come to know anything on their own epistemology, God restrains them from being entirely consistent and thus lets them contemplate His truth in nature in spite of their anti- Christian worldview. Referring back to Calvin on Psalm 19, right after the first six verses declare the fact that creation speaks of God’s truth, in verse seven the focus shifts to saying “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” (Ps. 19:7). In other words, man in a sinful state needs Scripture to serve as an infallible guide to confirming interpretations on nature, without it, disputes on nature can never be settled. Some may object to this, pointing out how Scripture cannot be studied without first assuming the validity of and using man’s reasoning faculties. However, this is to mistake a logical point for a chronological point. Jason Lisle points this out in his book The Ultimate Proof of Creation, explaining how Christian presuppositions may not be needed first chronologically for one to study nature, but they are needed to be logically prior, and can be confirmed after the fact.[11]  In sum, in the current sinful state of man, natural theology is only possible due to a degree of common grace provided by God and requires Scripture to guide and justify its interpretation.

Why Christian Theism Is Rational

A century ago, Christian philosopher Cornelius van Til said, “… if the Christian theory of creation by God is not true, then we hold that there cannot be objective knowledge of anything.”[12] That is to say, only in light of the Christian faith can knowledge be possible. Van Til taught that for anything to be rational, that is, for something to be reasonable or make sense, the preconditions of intelligibility must first be met. Conditions such as the general reliability of human sense perception, the uniformity in nature, laws of logic, absolute moral obligations, and other things. Some systems of thought call these first principles and argue that they do not need justification. However, it is arbitrary to claim this. The first principles do need justification. Which worldview can account for these? It is only Christian theism presented in the Scriptures that can. God in the Bible reveals that His mind is the foundation for laws of logic, His character, which never changes, is the ultimate standard of goodness, and He obligates His creatures to obey this ethic. God promises to uphold the world in a generally predictable way, making science possible. God also made man in His own image and equipped man to exercise dominion over the rest of creation, establishing man’s sense perception as reliable. The ontological trinity depicted in Scripture grounds the unity and diversity found in the world, an issue that has plagued philosophers for thousands of years. This all comes into play when the question of establishing the rationality of Christianity is called into question.

In 1944, C.S. Lewis delivered a lecture at the Oxford Club and made this comment about the rationality of Christianity: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.”[13] In other words, it is not as though Christianity must be shown to be rational merely by direct appeal to pieces of evidence here and there, but rather, that belief in Christianity as a presupposition makes the appeal to evidence possible. To assume neutral ground in human reason and relations to God in arguing for the Christian system is to be out of accord with the testimony of Scripture, as well as to take for granted the preconditions of intelligibility mentioned above. Going back to Anselm’s Proslogion, he says in one place, “… you (God) cannot even be thought not to exist.” (emphasis mine)[14] Meaning that if one tried to epistemologically consider a world in which the God of the Bible did not exist, the hypothetical exercise would fail, since it would not be able to justify the preconditions of human intelligibility.

Why Anti- Christianity is Irrational

Often, the objections to the Christian faith today come from those who identify with the rationalist school of the Enlightenment era, a couple of hundred years ago. This school views the human mind as being sufficient and independently able to come to knowledge about the world. What is often overlooked is that the human mind is both finite and fallible. This means, for one, that each individual has limited experience. No one human has been able to empirically verify whether laws of logic exist in a distant galaxy, or whether math works the same for every person who has lived. This inhibits secular rationalists from ever being justified in making universal statements. How then can we make sense of the world in light of this finitude? How can they account for their own claims that cruelty is always wrong, or that two plus two always equals four, or that the regularities of chemistry will hold tomorrow? It has been argued that it is every anti-Christian system of thought that is ultimately irrational since it posits that some matters can never be known. However, for the Christian, rationality is ultimately satisfied by the absolute omniscient God revealed in Scripture. Christians will never know all things or be able to make sense of all things, but they know their God does.

The fallibility of the independent human mind also amounts to irrationality since the very properties of man’s sense perception and reasoning tools can never be verified as reliable. This is the old idea of solipsism, namely, that one is locked into one’s own inner experience without ever being able to establish one's ability to access truth in the real external world. It must be admitted that on this point, the fallibility of every knowledge claim made by a secular rationalist must be granted. This also extends in application to every other non-Christian position. It is also the Muslim belief system that is irrational since it internally destroys itself by offering contradicting claims about the facts of Jesus’ deity and crucifixion. It is also the Hindu position that is irrational, since the unity of all things is affirmed, while the diversity in experience is relegated to maya, which is illusion. To circle back to Jonathan Edwards’ point made earlier. It is the persons using reason and rationality apart from the guidance of the Divine mind revealed in Scripture that can never come to adequate justification in its claims. The history of philosophy shows that myriads of autonomous appeals to reason amount to an ocean of contradicting and competing systems on how the world is to be made sense of. It is this absurdity that confirms that Christian theism is the only possible rational position.

Conclusion

It has been shown that in the history of the Church, various approaches to faith and reason have been defended, from Tertullian’s view, which was most antithetical concerning the two, to Aquinas’s position, which synthesized the two. Problems were shown Biblically with both extreme views, and the notion that one must begin their thinking with Christian faith to then justifiably and accurately study and interpret the world was defended. The. The idea of natural theology was assessed, showing that based on Scripture’s teaching on the noetic effects of sin, fallen man studying nature without the aid of Scripture is only possible by a measure of common grace and is done despite one’s allegedly neutral presuppositions. Lastly, the challenge of whether Christianity is rational, meaning, is it supported by reasons and can it make sense of the world, was answered in the affirmative. It is concluded that the rationality of Christian belief goes far beyond the piecemeal appeal to various arguments, such as causation, miracles, or design, but rather that Christian belief is needed as a presupposition in order to make sense of any appeal to evidence or argumentation. The reader here, if they be not yet a Christian, is incited to consider what has been said about the irrationality of their system of thought and whether the case made is true. If convinced, they should come to believe in Jesus and find the riches of knowledge that are in Him. If the reader is a Christian, their faith should be strengthened, knowing that not only is their faith rational by individual arguments, but that even more, their belief system makes the whole enterprise of rationality possible.

Author: Troy Goldsmith, founder of Aletheia Ministries, husband and father to four children, and graduate student at Liberty Theological Seminary.

References

[1] Gregg R. Allison, The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2016), 81.

[2] Rudolph Bultmann, "pisteuo ktl. A I, 1," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 176-177, s.v. "pistis".

[3] Gregg R. Allison, The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2016), 180.

[4] Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Reason: A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 15.

[5] Tertullian, De Praescriptione Hereticorum 7.9, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903).

[6] D. Jeffery Bingham. “Patristic Theology”. A Handbook of Theology, edited by Daniel L. Akin, et al., B&H Publishing Group, 2023. 171.

[7] S. Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel according to St. John, and His First Epistle: Hom. 1–124, S. John 1–21 and Hom. 1–10, 1 S. John, vol. 1 & 2, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of the East and West: Translated by Members of the English Church (Oxford; London: John Henry Parker; F. and J. Rivington, 1848–1849), 421.

[8] Anselm of Canterbury. The Major Works. Edited by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. (Oxford University Press, 1998), 87.

[9] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 1.6.1.

[10] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman (1834; reprint., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 2:476.

[11] Dr. Jason Lisle, The Ultimate Proof of Creation: Resolving the Origins Debate (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2009), 239. 

[12] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 67.

[13] C. S. Lewis, “Bluspels and Flalansferes,” in Selected Literary Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 265.

[14] Anselm of Canterbury. The Major Works. Edited by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. (Oxford University Press, 1998), 88.