Reasoning from Trust

Date May 27, 2009 Posted by Aaron Snell

First, a specification: this post is intended for Christians, specifically those Christians who are struggling with the issue of faith and reason. Not that it wouldn’t be instructive (hopefully) for our non-Christian readers, but I will be speaking in a way that presupposes a Christian commitment to the God of the Bible and to the Scripture as authoritative.  I am merely giving humble advice for the growing Christian, and not offering (here) an apologetic for the position I am presupposing.

Some Christians struggle at certain times with what they perceive to be discrepancies between what they think they are being asked to take on faith and what their reason tells them. One friend once put it to me this way: At what point do we disengage our minds for faith? At what point is it reasonable? At the point where it forces us to deny Scripture? That must be the dividing line, right?

I really think that Augustine had it right – “faith seeking understanding.”  To live by faith is not to disengage your mind.  We trust (pisteo) God, both His God-ness and his word, and this gives us sufficient ground to stand on from which we can seek understanding.   So take what you find in His Word on faith/trust (it’s not a blind faith, He is trustworthy), but don’t stop there!  Work to understand, to see how the pieces fit together.  In this way we can glorify God by pursuing knowledge of Him.

When I’m seeking to understand what I believe on trust, here are some helpful operating premises that I use:

1. The truth will be consistent.  The more consistent my views are with one another, while in no way guaranteeing their truth, the more confident I am that I’m on the right track.

2. Just because something doesn’t make sense to me now doesn’t mean it won’t after some hard work.  A lot of people have been thinking about these things a lot longer than I have, and I have a lot to learn from those who came before.

3. Reason was given to us for our discernment, among other things, and is the faculty by which we apprehend God’s truth.  So reason is crucial for us to determine what is true and what is false.

4. When my reason seems at conflict with Scripture, there are two options for me as a faithful Christian: my reason is correct and my understanding of Scripture is incorrect, or my understanding of Scripture is correct and my reason is incorrect.  I always try to start by letting the Scripture say what it says, and then list all possible interpretations that don’t do violence to the text.  Some really can only mean one thing; at other places, there might be two or three valid understandings.  If my confidence in what I think the text is saying outweighs my confidence in what I reason philosophically to be true, then I adjust the latter in light of the former.  If, on the other hand, there is a valid reading of the text (that isn’t just me trying to find a loop-hole) that comports with what my reason tells me, then I tend to go with that.

5. There are certain areas that I expect to be unable to fully understand so that all my questions are answered (the Trinity being one example).  However, I think too many people put too much of what Scripture labors to teach (so that we might know!) into this category (election being one example, in my view).  I only want to put those things there that in principle belong, and I want to understand as much as I can before I give up.

I’m a truth hound – there’s little I like more than hunting down the truth.  This gives me the drive, I think, to keep looking for ways to make sense of what the Bible teaches when others might give up and just say, “You just need to have faith.”  I do have faith – I’m convinced God’s Word is true – but I want to know how it all makes sense and works together, and this is a crucial part of the adventure of my Christian walk.

Related posts:

  1. Is 'Personal Trust' an Essential Component of Saving Faith?–I
  2. Faith & Reason Through the Ages
  3. Truth in The Da Vinci Code: The Villain’s View
  4. Was Paul a Good Christian?
  5. Real Contact With God
  6. Confusion About Meaning

Category Posted in Aaron's Posts, Main Page, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, The Christian Life

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