Faith vs Reason

Faith vs. Reason: A False Dichotomy?

There are probably twenty different views about the relationship between faith and reason in this very room. These views can be intensely personal and based in large part upon experience and education.

Evidentialists think that faith can be established on the basis of firm evidence. I think particularly about the growing field of creationism. I will refrain from making any statement as to its validity.

Pragmatists, like Blaise Pascal, think that faith can’t be founded on evidence but that it can nevertheless be rational because it is in our interests.

Fideists think that faith, by its nature, is irrational, that it cannot be supported by reason, but that this reflects the limitations of reason rather than of faith.

Skeptics think that faith cannot be supported by reason, and that this shows the limitations of faith.

The following quotations are representative of these diverse views.


William K Clifford, a noted 19th century geometrician and philosopher said,
“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”


Richard Dawkins, a 20th century British evolutionary biologist said,
“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.”


Benjamin Franklin, an important 18th century American practitioner of the scientific method, said,
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”


William James, a late 19th and early 20th century psychologist and philosopher whose work included the seeds of Bertrand Russell’s and John Dewey’s pragmatism, said,
“Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.”


Søren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish Christian apologist, devoted to anti-Hegelian thought, said,
“Certainty... lurks at the door of faith and threatens to devour it.”



Martin Luther, the most prolific of the protestant reformers of the 15th and 16th centuries, said,
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”



Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French mathematician and Christian philosopher, said,
“Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.”



Bertrand Russell, a prominent 20th century Welsh Logician, said,
“We may define ‘faith’ as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.”





Paul Tillich, a German American 20th century Christian existentialist philosopher, said,
“Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.”


D Elton Trueblood, American Quaker Theologian of the 20th century, said,
“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.”


Mark Twain
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”


Voltaire, a witty 18th century French playwright and one of France’s most celebrated citizens, said,
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”


Hebrews 11:1 (NRSV)
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.


The work to which God has called me, an evangelical ministry called Light Over Europe Ministries, which we started in 2005, has placed me in the synthesis of this argument between faith and reason. More correctly, I should say that this work has placed me in the middle of a landscape which is completely defined by the victory of reason over faith, as if there was a need for an all out war between reason and faith. Europe is a spiritual wasteland conquered by resentment for the church and everything it represents. Even many of the seminaries in Europe teach theology as nothing more than philosophy or even pure fantasy. The High Historical Textual criticism of the Germans has humanized God right out of the Bible. This view is pervasive throughout German theological education. The home of the protestant reformation has become the home of the secular reformation. Don’t misunderstand me please, I see a real place in Biblical scholarship for historical textual criticism. It strongly shapes my own personal hermeneutic. However, I stop short of the German critics.

I was on a German train one afternoon going from Frankfurt to Koblenz. I often try to situate myself on the train so that I sit by a young (a very relative term) German. In this case it was a 23 yr. old fraulein. As we talked, we got around to the always eventual question, “what brings you to Germany?” Please know that I am in no way ashamed to be involved in Christian ministry, not at all. However, I know that in these situations, when I respond thus, I must be prepared for the onslaught. Because it is inevitable. The first question is, “how can you possibly believe in God?” I respond as eloquently in my somewhat limited German as I can. Then, the discussion continues in English without missing a beat. She asks, “don’t the big bang and evolutionary theories show you the folly of faith in God?” I explain how both of those theories also require faith. There is not complete evidence to support either of those theories. And, finally, as always, the comment comes. “How can you support something that has been the cause of so much human suffering. Look at the crusades both Medieval and contemporary, and the inquisition. How can you explain those away?” Its at this point that the discussion often breaks down.

Europe’s a-spiritual landscape results from a post-Christian ideology. One which says, reason, or science, is the ultimate in the human quest for understanding. It is a landscape in which faith and reason cannot co-exist.

What about the United States? 40 years ago, 30-40% of the population in Europe claimed to be regenerated believers in Jesus Christ. Today, in the United States, the numbers are similar. My concern is that in 25 years or so, the US spiritual landscape will be like Europe’s today, with less than 1% of the population claiming a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. One of the reasons for the spiritual decline in Europe is that there the Faith vs. Reason dichotomy came to a rather violent conclusion. There is no need for faith. Scientific discovery will reveal everything man needs to know.

I want to revisit one of the aforementioned quotes. Blaise Pascal said,
“Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.” Pascal was a mathematician by trade, a child prodigy, finding mistakes in the geometry of Renee Descartes at the age of 13. Then, after an accident involving a four horse team and a coach in which he narrowly escaped with his life, he met God. As he was working out his own faith in God, he said that there was a wager worth taking. He said when it comes to believing in God, there is “a chance of gain against a finite number of chances for loss.” From here, his faith grew, believing as we have already seen that Faith is above reason. For Pascal as for many other important thinkers, Faith and Reason were and are not mutually exclusive.

During the American Revolution, Orthodox protestants turned to Francis Bacon to explain the use of reason and revelation together. Bacon was a rationalist, committed to a shrewd and analytic process which did not accept things unless they were founded on hard evidence. A process later known as the “Baconian Method.” Herbert Hovenkamp writes in his book, Science and Religion in America, that the Baconian method “symbolized the belief that knowledge about God and knowledge about the world are of the same kind, that in the process of investigating one a person always makes discoveries about the other.” Francis Bacon’s conclusions seem to be strongly impacted by the Apostle Paul who wrote, “God has revealed enough of himself in nature, so that man is without excuse.” Romans 1:20

A normal eventuality is that when we investigate the world, we consider the things that we cannot know, the things of God. Then as we investigate God, we must investigate scripture. In Germany, the textual critics conclude that the Bible does not accurately record truths about God. That any real investigation of God must come through purely philosophical exercise. German theology is now much more representative of Hegelian philosophy instead of Lutheran thought. Martin Luther considered the Bible to be not only spiritually but also historically authoritative. Hegel, arguably the most important of all German philosophers, said, “real truth is spiritual,” albeit not in the religious sense. His philosophy came to be known as Idealism. Hegel and his disciples promoted a way of thinking which says we can never really know God. That the truth of his existence is too ideal, to perfect for man to even relate to. This idealism applied to faith ultimately takes away the need for faith. Karl Marx would start with Hegelianism and end up in atheistic communism.

Soren Kierkegaard recognized the danger of Hegel’s views and defended faith against them saying, “the thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.” For Kierkegaard, real truth is not a matter of detached, abstract speculation. It was a matter of painful heart-searching.

Can a rational mind conceive of God?? Perhaps this question is where the problem lies. Any attempt to describe God with our limited human language will always fall short. In his book, Warranted Christian Belief, Alvin Plantenga comments on Kantian philosophy as follows, “the claim would be that Kant believes that our concepts do not apply to God, in which case we cannot refer to or think about him.” Alvin Plantinga is the John A O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and one of today’s leading epistemologists. His conclusions about this Kantian problem are as follows, “Kant believes there are two realms of objects; our experience is only of one realm, the realm of phenomena, which themselves depend on us for their existence; if we should go out of existence, so would they. That is because the phenomenal realm is somehow constructed by us out of the given, the data, the raw material of experience. The noumenal realm, however, is not thus dependent on us but is also such that we have no intuition, no direct experience of it. Finally, there is nevertheless a connection between the two worlds in that something like a causal transaction between the noumena and the transcendental ego produces in us the given out of which we construct the phenomenal world.” Plantinga says it much better than I can, faith and reason must exist together. Faith which cannot accept reason is incomplete, just as reason which leaves no room for faith.

What does this discussion have to say about our Wingate classrooms? Those classrooms which are full of impressionable students, some of whom are intensely interested in nurturing their yearning for spiritual knowledge. Other students simply do not have any room for faith in their life, it is irrational to them. Many of those students are in our religion classrooms only because they are required to be. How do we teach religion to a faith sterilized community of students? These past two semesters I have begun my Biblical survey courses by asking a simple question, “have you ever read the Bible, not all the way through, just at all?” Less than one percent of my students have answered yes. So, it seems reasonable to conclude that our classrooms have many students for whom faith has no meaning. How do we teach religion to a community of students who are themselves the result of an increasingly secular society? I am convinced that many of our students believe that faith and reason cannot co-exist. That the two concepts cancel each other out. As we teach religion without blatantly proselytizing, we must teach with passion, integrity, and authenticity. Our passion should flow from our own belief system and our own love for students. Our integrity must pervade our lesson plans, content, and the relationship built with students. And finally, our authenticity must be utilized to create a safe, open environment where we as teachers feel free to be personal, even intimate with our students about what we believe without insisting that they must also believe it. Rather, that authenticity and openness will create an environment in which our students will also feel free to investigate their own spiritual selves and perhaps even share their findings with their peers.

We must leave room in our hearts and our minds for both faith and reason. One without the other is inadequate. Our pedagogy must leave room for faith and reason. Our students must be encouraged to look at life as requiring both faith and reason. Remember what the Apostle Paul said, “for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen by studying nature.”