Woke Church and Conscious Chistianity
Introduction
Theology and the Bible
First, let’s give a general definition of theology: “Theology is the application of God’s Word by persons in every area of life.”
Now, let’s talk about theology and the Bible. The question is, then, why do we need theology when we already have the Bible? Sometimes we give the impression that we need a further science of theology because the Bible in the form that it came to us is—there’s something defective about it, or something. Not that the Bible is defective, but the form is defective. Well, I would say this: that we need theology for our own sakes, because the defects are in us, not in the Bible.
Methods of Doing Theology
So let’s talk about some methods of doing theology. Now, the following methods are only examples. This is not an exhaustive list. So there’s many other approaches to theology, I’m sure, that haven’t even been discovered, out there.
Exegetical Theology
But let’s start off by talking about exegetical theology. Exegetical theology is the application of a particular passage of Scripture. Now, this is always contextual, because all verses must be understood in their context.
Systematic Theology
Another way of doing theology is what we call systematic theology—that is, the application of the logical relationships of biblical knowledge. A lot of times we think of systematic theology as theology in an outline form. Sometimes, we wish that God had given it to us that way—it would make it easier for teaching—but actually, God gave us the Bible in the form because He wanted to give it to us that way. That’s the best form it could be in.
Biblical Theology
There’s biblical theology. This is the application of the historical and narrative features of Scripture. Some people consider this studying the Bible on its own terms. Now, this can be really thrilling, but we have to understand this: there are limitations to all of our theology.
First of all, even biblical theology must not be made absolute. Biblical theology is still theology. It is not the Bible. It cannot reproduce the structure of the Bible without being the Bible itself. Biblical theology must be aware of its distinct nature apart from the Bible itself. It is theology. It is not Bible. Biblical theology, then, is no better than systematic theology because it is closer to the historical and narrative structure of Scripture. See? It is a way of organizing biblical knowledge.
Precedential Theology
Now, here’s one that’s kind of based on John Frame’s definition, but it’s one that I’ve developed in terms of as we talk about doing theology in the urban context, and that is precedential theology. I would define precedential theology as the application of the basic patterns of the biblical life situations. Now, this is especially useful when we deal with the subdominant cultures, or the urban cultures, or the minority cultures, because oftentimes the narratives of Scripture give us a handle on understanding the nature of how the sovereignty of God works out in our lives.
Accessibility of Scripture
Now, so talking about the way the Scripture comes, God gives us the Scripture, containing two things: didactic concepts—that is, things you know; “ABC, one, two, three” kind of a thing—and He also gives us historical narratives. Now, people today tend to be oriented one way or the other. They tend to be oriented more cognitively than intuitively, and then others tend to be more oriented intuitively more than cognitively. Well, the didactic concepts embedded in the Bible make Scripture more accessible to those who are more cognitive than intuitive. But on the other hand, the historical narratives embedded in the Bible make Scripture more accessible to those who are more intuitive than cognitive.
So when God gave us the Bible, He gave the Bible to us in such a way that we can all relate to it. If the Bible all came in the form of systematic theology, then maybe I wouldn’t understand how I should behave in a situation where I’m under persecution. Even though the concepts are there, I need to see these concepts embedded in the lives of real people like myself.
Modes of Theology
Now, having said that, there are basically two modes of theology—or at least two modes of theology.
“Classical”
There’s the classical mode of theology. This is a formal way of doing theology. It tends to be preformulated, and it is usually written. Now, this is what we’re most familiar with.
“Jazz”
But there’s another mode of theology that we haven’t really explored a whole lot, and I call that the jazz mode. As opposed to being formal, it’s dynamic. As opposed to being preformulated, it is improvisational, and it is usually oral.
Now, you think about Jesus as a teacher. You think about Jesus as He applied Scripture. What did He do a whole lot of when He spoke to regular people? He told parables, stories. He would say, “The kingdom of God is like this,” or “The kingdom of God is like that.” He was being very improvisational. And so when we talk about doing theology, especially in an urban context, we ought to be aware of both of those modes—classical and jazz.
I think of musicians. Every good jazz musician that I know knows classical music pretty well—and actually the classical musicians need to know jazz pretty well, as far as I’m concerned. But if we’re going to be able to do theology, we cannot go into a situation with preformulated thinking that we have a magic bullet. We need to go into a situation with the skill of being able to do theology on our feet.
Conclusion
Now, next time we’re going to talk about apologetics, but suffice it to say that we need to think about the nature of theology, and how we need to do it, in such a way that people can really perceive what God is really saying to them.
Apologetics
In the last section we talked about the nature of theology, and we gave some new definitions of theology and its various disciplines. Now we want to talk about apologetics. Now, this is of central importance in the contemporary context for ministry.
Defining Apologetics
Now, apologetics has some classic definitions. A general definition would be “getting oneself acquitted from a charge.” This is a courtroom kind of a concept—or it kind of pictures being cross-examined by lawyers, and that kind of thing. The traditional definition of Christian apologetics is the defense of the faith, or a positive presentation of the gospel.
Now I want to give you a new definition of apologetics, based on Dr. Frame’s concepts, and it is “the application of God’s Word to controversy.” Or another definition would be, “the application of God’s Word to unbelief.”
Doing Apologetics
Now, the practice of apologetics involves both the use of presuppositions and evidence. Now, sometimes people present evidence before the unbeliever, thinking that that will convince them.
Presuppositions
I remember one time I was engaged in a conversation with an unbeliever, and he didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I put a whole lot of evidence in front of him and all that, and he finally came around to saying, “Okay, I now believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” I said, “Okay, are you willing, then, to consider Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” He said, “Oh, no.” He said, “A lot of strange things happen in our world. I was reading in Ripley’s Believe It or Not that such-and-such a thing happened.” And so I presented all the evidence, but he put that evidence into a framework that denied the truth of what I was saying. So it’s not enough to present evidence only, but you have to challenge the person in the way they think at the most fundamental level, and that’s the presuppositional level.
Evidence
Now, the role of evidence in apologetics is very important, though. We don’t want to discount it. The role of evidence is to show the unbeliever that all facts point to God. Now, how do we do this? We present the facts in terms of scriptural presuppositions, and we present the facts to the unbeliever as applications of Scripture. A lot of times we get into a little bit of trouble because we don’t really understand how the unbeliever thinks. The Bible, in a sense, does this very same thing—Psa 19:1–4, for example:
“The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.”
Applying Scripture
Now, Adam—when he was in the early days in the garden, he was told to subdue the earth to the glory of God. And every fact he discovered taught him something about the earth itself, which was his environment, and something about God’s command to subdue the earth, and each fact was an application of God’s commandment. In order to apply Scripture, then, we must interpret facts in terms of Scripture and interpret Scripture in terms of facts.
Scripture itself is a finite book with an infinite range of true meaning and an infinite range of true application. It is the Word of God, after all. And we must learn about Scripture, not only in books but in life and experience with the creation. And see there, it goes back to this thing I was talking about earlier, that it’s not just the didactic concepts but it is also the historical narratives, because the historical narratives remind you that you are not alone, that somebody in the past has been through what you are going through in a very similar way, and you can learn a lot of wisdom that way.
Ethics
Another concept in this general idea of theology is ethics.
Definition
Now I’ll give you another definition. Ethics is the application of God’s Word to issues of covenant obedience or disobedience in every area of life. So ethics is not a branch of theology, but ethics is equivalent to theology—and why? Because all theology answers ethical questions.
Ethics and Epistemology
Ethics and theology are—let’s put it this way: there’s ethics, and then there’s epistemology. Now epistemology means, how do we know anything? When I was in Sunday school, as a kid, we learned a nice epistemological song: “Jesus loves me, this I know”—now, how do I know this? “For the Bible tells me so.” The Bible, then, was the epistemological base for knowing that Jesus loved me.
So when we talk about theology, then—theology is a single coin with two sides. It has an epistemological side, and it has an ethical side. The epistemological side concerns what we should know about God. The ethical side concerns how we should obey God. So one coin, two sides—ethics and epistemology.
Questions for Discussion
1. What is apologetics? What is religion? What is their relation?
2. Is there anything distinctively Christian about apologetics? Why or why not? Do all religions include apologetics? Why or why not?
3. How much do you think natural human reason can accomplish in religion? In general?
4. What good does it do to argue for your faith? What harm can it do?
5. What is the point of, or the reason for, the difference between the premodern notion of “reason” and the modern notion? What are the pluses and minuses of each?
6. How do you think reason is related to (a) authority, (b) love, (c) intuition, (d) mysticism, (e) symbolism, (f) hope?
7. How useful are merely probable arguments?
8. Can there be truth without knowledge? Knowledge without certainty? Certainty without proof? Proof without the scientific method? Why or why not?
9. Should methodology be a first and important question? Why or why not?
10. Is apologetics more or less appropriate today than in the Middle Ages?
11. Is Christian apologetics naturally and properly “conservative” or “liberal”? Why? Define these terms theologically.
12. Why do you think Luther called reason “the Devil’s whore”? Isn’t reason fallen along with the rest of human nature? If so, how can we trust it?
13. If we need God to validate reason and reason to validate God, how do we escape circular reasoning? Since any proof of God is by definition rational, if God does not validate reason, what else can? Reason itself? Something subrational? Our brain-computers were programmed either by God (a good spirit), the Devil (an evil spirit) or blind chance (no spirit, no mind); only in the first case are they trustworthy. Doesn’t this lead us straight into circular reasoning?
Faith & Reason
1. The importance of the question ➔
2. Definitions ➔
☐ Faith ➔
The object of faith is all the things revealed by God
The act of faith includes
emotional trust
intellectual belief
volitional love and obedience
the heart’s fundamental acceptance
☐ Reason ➔
The object of reason is all truths that can be
understood by reason alone
discovered by reason alone
proved by reason alone
The act of reason is all the acts of
understanding truths
discovering truths
proving truths
3. The relation between the objects of faith and reason ➔
Five possible answers
☐ Rationalism ➔
☐ Fideism ➔
☐ Identity of faith and reason ➔
☐ Dualism ➔
☐ Partially overlapping: there are three classes of truths ➔
Known by faith and not by reason
Known by both faith and reason
Known by reason and not by faith
4. Why faith and reason can never contradict each other ➔
☐ Only falsehood can contradict truth ➔
☐ God is the single teacher in both faith and reason ➔
5. Objections ➔
☐ How can we understand God’s infinitely superior mind by our reason? ➔
☐ Isn’t it humble to demean reason’s powers? ➔
☐ Isn’t it proud to claim reason can know much about God? ➔
☐ Why are there rationally brilliant unbelievers? ➔
☐ Aren’t Christians’ reasons really rationalizations? ➔
☐ Doesn’t reason take away the merit of faith? ➔
Postscript ➔
Definitions
It is especially crucial to clarify our definitions of faith and reason, because these terms are often used either vaguely or equivocally. Defining removes vagueness. Distinguishing two possible meanings and confining ourselves to one at a time removes equivocation.
Faith
We must distinguish the act of faith from the object of faith, believing from what is believed.
1. The object of faith means all the things believed. For the Christian, this means everything God has revealed in the Bible; Catholics include all the creeds and universal binding teachings of the church as well. This faith (the object, not the act) is expressed in propositions. Propositions are not expressions of the act of believing but expressions of the content believed. Liturgical and moral acts express the act of believing. However, the propositions are not the ultimate objects of faith, but only the proximate objects of faith. They are manifold, but the ultimate object of faith is one. The ultimate object of faith is not words but God’s Word (singular)—indeed, God himself. The propositions are the map or structure of faith; God is the real existing object of faith. (God is also the author of faith—both the revealer of the objective doctrines believed and the one who inspires the heart to make the free choice to believe them.)
It is equally wrong to stop at propositions and not have your faith reach out to the living God, or to denigrate propositions as dispensable or even harmful to living faith. Without a live relationship to the living God, propositions are pointless, for their point is to point beyond themselves to God. (“A finger is good for pointing to the moon, but woe to him who mistakes the finger for the moon,” according to a wise Zen saying.) But without propositions, we cannot know or tell others what God we believe in and what we believe about God.
2. The act of faith is more than merely an act of belief. We believe many things—for example, that the Bulls will beat the Celtics, that the President is not a crook, that Norway is beautiful—but we are not willing to die for these beliefs, nor can we live them every moment. But religious faith is something to die for and something to live every moment. It is much more than belief, and much stronger, though belief is one of its parts or aspects.
We can distinguish at least four aspects or dimensions of religious faith. Ranked on a hierarchy from less to more important and essential, and less to more interior—that is, as coming from ever more central aspects of the human self—they are (a) emotional faith, (b) intellectual faith, (c) volitional faith and (d) heart faith.
a. Emotional faith is feeling assurance or trust or confidence in a person. This includes hope (which is much stronger than just a wish) and peace (which is much stronger than mere calm).
b. Intellectual faith is belief. This is stronger than emotional faith in that it is more stable and unchanging, like an anchor. My mind can believe while my feelings are shaken. This belief, however, is held tight, unlike a mere opinion. The old definition of intellectual faith was “the act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the grounds of the authority of the One who revealed it.” It is this aspect of faith that is formulated in propositions and summarized in creeds.
c. Volitional faith is an act of the will, a commitment to obey God’s will. This faith is faithfulness, or fidelity. It manifests itself in behavior, that is, in good works. Just as a hope deeper than a wish is central to emotional faith, and a belief deeper than an opinion is central to intellectual faith, so a love deeper than a feeling is central to volitional faith. For the root of volitional faith—the will—is the faculty or power of the soul that is closest to the prefunctional root and center called the “heart” (d).
d. Faith begins in that obscure mysterious center of our being that Scripture calls the “heart.” Heart in Scripture (and in the church fathers, especially Augustine) does not mean feeling or sentiment or emotion, but the absolute center of the soul, as the physical heart is at the center of the body. The heart is where God the Holy Spirit works in us. This is not specifiable as a kind of interior object, as emotions, intellect and will are, because it is the very self, the I, the subject, the one whose emotions and mind and will they are.
“Keep your heart with all vigilance,” advised Solomon, “for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov 4:23). With the heart we choose our “fundamental option” of yes or no to God, and thereby determine our eternal identity and destiny.
The faith-works controversy that sparked the Protestant Reformation was due largely to an equivocation on the word faith. If we use “faith” as Catholic theology does—see the old Baltimore Catechism definition of faith in section (b) above—and as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 13—that is, if we mean intellectual faith—then faith alone is not sufficient for salvation, for “Even the demons believe—and shudder” (Jas 2:19). Hope, and above all love, need to be added to faith (1 Cor 13:13). But if we use “faith” as Luther did, and as Paul did in Romans and Galatians, that is, as heart-faith, then this is saving faith. It is sufficient for salvation, for it necessarily produces the good works of love just as a good tree necessarily produces good fruit. Protestants and Catholics agree on this. The Pope even told the German Lutheran bishops so over a decade ago, and they were startled and delighted. The two churches issued a public Joint Statement on Justification, a statement of agreement. Protestants and Catholics do not have essentially different religions, different ways of salvation. There are real and important differences, but this most central issue is not one of them.
Reason
Here again we must distinguish the subjective, personal act of reason from the object of reason.
1. The object of reason means all that reason can know. This includes three kinds of things, corresponding to the “three acts of the mind” in classical Aristotelian logic. It means all the truths that can be (a) understood by reason (that is, by human reason alone without faith in divine revelation), (b) discovered by human reason to be true and (c) proved logically, without any premises assumed by faith in divine revelation. (See figure 1)
a. For instance, we can understand what a star is made of by human reason alone, and this is not part of divine revelation. We can also understand why the universe is so well ordered: human reason tells us that there must be a superhuman intelligence behind its design. This second example is also part of divine revelation, while the first is not. A third case: we cannot understand what God’s plan to save humanity is by human reason alone, only by divine revelation.
b. As to the second “act of the mind”—we can discover that the planet Pluto exists by human reason alone, and this is not part of divine revelation. We can also discover the historical existence of Jesus by human reason alone, by historical research. But this truth is also part of divine revelation, while the first is not. But we cannot discover by reason alone that God loves us so much that he died for us. We can know this only by faith in divine revelation.
c. Finally, we can prove the Pythagorean theorem in geometry by human reason alone, and this is not part of revelation. We can also prove by reason alone that the soul does not die as the body dies, by good philosophical arguments (see chap. 10). This is also part of revelation. But we cannot prove that God is a Trinity; we can only believe it because God revealed it.
2. The act of reason, as distinct from the object of reason, means all the subjective, personal acts of the mind by which we (a) understand, (b) discover or (c) prove any truth. The ancient meaning of reason included all three of these “acts of the mind,” classically called (a) “simple apprehension,” (b) judgment and (c) reasoning. But the meaning of reason narrowed in modern times, beginning with Ockham’s nominalism in the fourteenth century and Descartes’s rationalism in the seventeenth, to mean only the “third act of the mind,” reasoning, calculating, proving. We use the older, broader meaning of reason here.
Reason is relative to truth; it is a way of knowing truth: understanding it, discovering it or proving it. Faith is also relative to truth; it is a way of discovering truth. No human being ever existed without some faith. We all know most of what we know by faith; that is, by belief in what others—parents, teachers, friends, writers, society—tell us. Outside religion as well as inside it, faith and reason are roads to truth.
The Relation Between the Objects of Faith and Reason
Having defined our two terms, we are ready to ask the question about the relation between them. When we ask this question, we do not mean “What is the psychological relation between the act of faith and the act of reason?” but “What is the logical relation between the object of faith and the object of reason?” How are these two sets of truths—those knowable by unaided human reason and those knowable by faith in divine revelation—related?
There are always five possible answers to the question of the relation between any two classes or sets of things:
1. All A’s are B’s but not all B’s are A’s.
2. All B’s are A’s but not all A’s are B’s.
3. All A’s are B’s and all B’s are A’s.
4. No A’s are B’s and no B’s are A’s.
5. Some but not all A’s are B’s
and some but not all B’s are A’s.
Applied to the faith-reason question, the five possibilities come out as follows:
1. All that is known by faith is also known by reason, but not all that is known by reason is known by faith. Faith is a subclass of reason.
2. All that is known by reason is also known by faith, but not all that is known by faith is known by reason. Reason is a subclass of faith.
3. All that is known by faith is known by reason too, and all that is known by reason is known by faith. Faith and reason are interchangeable.
4. Nothing that is known by faith is known by reason, and nothing that is known by reason is known by faith. Faith and reason are mutually exclusive.
5. Some but not all that is known by faith is also known by reason, and some but not all that is known by reason is also known by faith. Faith and reason partly overlap.
Keep in mind here that reason can mean one, two or all three of the objects of the three “acts of the mind”: what can be understood, discovered or proved by reason.
Let us now consider each of these five possible answers.
1. Rationalism
Rationalism holds that everything we know by faith can also be understood, or discovered, or proved by reason, but not vice versa. Faith is a subclass or subdepartment of reason.
Very few Christian thinkers have claimed this. Anselm seems to have been one, for he tried to prove even the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation by strict rational philosophical arguments, what he called “necessary reasons.”
Hegel was a very different kind of rationalist. He radically reinterpreted the content of revelation to fit his philosophy (e.g., he denied creation out of nothing and Christ’s unique divinity). This is Christian rationalism only if we stretch the term Christian beyond any useful historical definition. Hegel believed that the historic Christian faith, traditionally interpreted, was a primitive, only symbolically or mythically true precursor of his philosophy. Today Hegel’s kind of rationalism is quite popular, but Anselm’s is (as far as we know) totally extinct.
2. Fideism
Fideism contends that the only knowledge, or at least the only certain knowledge, we can have is by faith. While rationalism denies the existence of any truths of faith unprovable by reason, fideism denies the existence of any certain truths attainable by reason without faith.
Now there is no explicitly religious faith involved in knowing things like the existence of Pluto or the Pythagorean theorem. Therefore fideism must mean either that all such truths, outside religion, are uncertain, or that if they are certain they come under some kind of nonreligious faith.
The first choice seems simply ridiculous. We may not be certain that the sun will rise tomorrow, but we are certain that 2 + 2 = 4. We do have some certainties. Therefore it must mean that all certainties come from some nonreligious faith. The main candidate for this “nonreligious faith” is faith in reason itself.
Pascal, for instance, argued that to trust reason in the first place must itself be an act of faith, and not rationally provable. For if trust in reason were proved by reason, we would be committing the logical fallacy of “begging the question,” assuming what we are supposed to prove. Pascal further argued that if the source of our reason is not an intelligent and trustworthy God, but blind chance or some untrustworthy evil spirit, then our reason is not trustworthy at all. Who would trust a computer programmed by chance or a deceiver? But how do we know there is a good and trustworthy God who created and designed human reason? If we try to prove such a God by our reason, we again beg the question and argue in a circle. We try to validate God by reason and reason by God. The only way out, argued Pascal, is a nonrational leap of faith in the beginning.
We think this argument is a strong one, but it does not necessarily lead to practical fideism: the refusal to try to prove any of the doctrines of faith. It only contends that the ultimate theoretical justification for reason cannot be reason itself. Pascal himself offered many rational arguments for his faith in the Pensées.
3. Identity of Faith and Reason
Position 3, that of an identity between what is knowable by faith and what is knowable by reason, is a logical possibility, but no one we know of has ever held it.
4. Dualism
Dualism is a popular position today because it reflects the “separation of church and state,” religion and philosophy, sacred and secular, that characterizes the modern era. Dualism simply divorces faith and reason, placing them into two different compartments. It usually does this by (a) reducing reason to scientific, mathematical and empirical reasoning, and (b) reducing faith to a personal, subjective attitude. Thus reason and faith correspond to the public and private sectors.
It seems reasonable to hold such dualism if you believe some esoteric Eastern religion based on private mystical experience; but unreasonable if you are a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim (all of whom have been called “the People of the Book”), someone who believes in a religion of public, propositional revelation.
It also seems cowardly not to meet the unbeliever’s challenge to fight on a common field (reason) but instead to withdraw to a private one (faith as conceived here in a merely subjective way—a fundamental misunderstanding of “faith,” judged by historic Christian standards).
5. Partial Overlapping
Most people would agree with us that the fifth position is the most reasonable and correct one. It distinguishes three different kinds of truths:
a. truths of faith and not of reason,
b. truths of both faith and reason, and
c. truths of reason and not of faith.
Truths of faith alone are things revealed by God but not understandable, discoverable or provable by reason (e.g., the Trinity or the fact that Christ’s death atoned for our sins). Truths of both faith and reason are things revealed by God but also understandable, discoverable or provable by reason (e.g., the existence of one God, or an objective moral law, or life after death). Truths of reason and not of faith are things not revealed by God but known by human reason (e.g., the natural sciences). If this is the correct position, it follows that the Christian apologist has two tasks: to prove all the propositions in class b and to answer all objections to the propositions in class a.
We cannot prove the propositions in class a (e.g., the Trinity), but we can answer all objections to them. For example, suppose a Unitarian objects to the Trinity because “it splits God into triplets.” We can show that this is a misunderstanding; it does not mean three Gods, but one God in three Persons. Or suppose a logician says it is a contradiction to call anything both one and three. We can reply that God is one nature, not three, and three persons, not one. This is not a contradiction, any more than we are: we are two natures (spirit and animal, mind and matter, soul and body) but one person.
Christian thinkers do not all agree about how many of the propositions of faith can be proved by reason, but most have held that some could (thus apologetics is possible) but not all (thus apologetics is limited).
The doctrine of the Fall teaches that human nature, and thus human reason, is corrupted, but still valid and usable—like a crippled body. It can walk, unlike rocks, but not well. We must distinguish reason de facto (“in reality,” or “in fact”) and reason de jure (“by law,” or “by right”), or reason in its everyday use and reason in itself, or reason improperly used and reason properly used. Used properly, it is powerful but not all-powerful. Reason can persuade you to walk to the beach, but you must make the leap of faith into the sea of the living God. Fideism says it can’t even bring you to the beach; rationalism says it can put you into the sea.
Why Faith and Reason Can Never Contradict Each Other
There are two basic questions about the relation between faith and reason:
1. How much of the faith can reason prove?
2. Can faith and reason ever contradict each other?
We’ve already seen that there are different answers to question 1—all, some, none—and that the best answer seems to be some. Now what of the other question?
Only Falsehood Can Contradict Truth
Aquinas’s answer to this question in Summa Contra Gentiles I, 7 seems to us irrefutably true:
The truth that the human reason is naturally endowed to know cannot be opposed to the truth of the Christian faith. For that with which the human reason is naturally endowed is clearly most true; so much so, that it is impossible for us to think of such truths as false. [If we only understand the meaning of the terms in such self-evident propositions as “The whole is greater than the part” or “What has color must have size,” we cannot think them false.] Nor is it permissible to believe as false that which we hold by faith, since this is confirmed in a way that is so clearly divine. [It is not our faith but its object, God, that justifies our certainty.] Since, therefore, only the false is opposed to the true, as is clearly evident from an examination of their definitions, it is impossible that truth of faith should be opposed to those principles that the human reason knows naturally.
Thus, either Christianity is false, or reason is false, or—if both are true—there can never be any real contradiction at all between them, since truth cannot contradict truth.
Aquinas is speaking of faith and reason objectively, not subjectively. The objective stock of propositions revealed by God for us to believe, and the objective stock of propositions provable by our reason properly used, do not contain any contradictions. But subjectively, we fallen humans can easily err. We can misunderstand the faith, and we can misuse our reason. Opinions can certainly contradict faith, but reason itself cannot.
Objections
Objection 1: But God’s ways and mind and nature are infinitely far above ours; how can we expect to understand them?
Reply: But we can understand what he has revealed to us. Otherwise he is a poor teacher. A good teacher communicates effectively, translating the advanced truths he knows into the proper level of understanding for his students. We cannot completely understand divine truth, of course. We know God by revelation, but we do not comprehend him. We touch him but we do not surround him or define him with our reason.
Objection 2: Isn’t it humble to demean the powers of human reason?
Reply: Reason is created and designed by God. It is part of God’s image in us. It is God’s opus, not ours. (Did we invent the human soul?) We do not praise an artist by demeaning his work.
We must distinguish reason de jure from reason de facto and be aware of the great limits of the latter. The proper place for humility is regarding our use of God’s gifts (including reason), not regarding those gifts themselves. If your mother knitted you a beautiful sweater and someone saw you wearing it and said “That sweater is beautiful!” it would not be humility to reply, “No, it’s not really very beautiful at all.”
Objection 3: But you are claiming a lot for human reason even de facto, as used in practice. Isn’t it proud to think human reason can know a lot about God?
Reply: It is more arrogant to say that we know so much about the limits of reason that we can lay down limits in advance for reason. If we know so little, how do we know how little we can know? It is more proud to use reason to limit reason than just to use reason. It is also self-contradictory, for “to draw a limit to thought you must think both sides of that limit” (Wittgenstein).
Objection 4: What about all those intellectually brilliant unbelievers, the counter-examples to Justin Martyr? If Christianity is so reasonable, why did Celsus, Plotinus, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Melville, Jefferson, Shaw, Russell, Franklin, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud and Skinner all reject it?
Reply A: Christianity is reasonable but it is not obvious. It is more like E = MC2 than like 2 + 2 = 4.
Reply B: If Christianity is so irrational, why have so many brilliant minds accepted it? The assortment of unbelievers mentioned above is easily overcome by Paul, John, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Bonaventura, Scotus, Luther, Calvin, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Berkeley, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Newman, Lincoln, Pasteur, Kierkegaard, Shakespeare, Dante, Chesterton, Lewis, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, da Vinci, Michelangelo, T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Milton, Spenser and Bach, not to mention a certain Jesus of Nazareth.
Reply C: Brilliant minds often reject Christianity because they don’t want it to be true, because it is no longer fashionable or because it commands obedience, repentance and humility.
Objection 5: But aren’t Christians’ reasons really rationalizations? Aquinas didn’t really arrive at the existence of God by means of the reasoning in his five proofs; he learned it from his mother. Then, as an adult, he looked for some reasons to confirm the faith he had already adopted for nonlogical reasons. That’s not reasoning but rationalizing.
Reply A: Even if that were all Aquinas did, it would not invalidate his proofs. An irrational subjective motive does not necessarily mean an irrational objective argument. Suppose Einstein had discovered that E = MC2 because he was a Nazi who wanted to invent the atom bomb to conquer the Allies and win the world for Hitler. That bad motive would not mean that E does not equal MC2. The objection commits “the genetic fallacy”: confusing the psychological origin of an idea with its logical validity.
Reply B: Looking for good reasons for your faith can be perfectly honest if you are also open to reasons against it, as Aquinas certainly was. The objections against the many doctrines he defends in the Summa are manifold, fairly stated and objectively answered.
Reply C: Although Aquinas first learned about God by faith, Aristotle didn’t. He knew nothing of the Scriptures, but much about God. History proves that human reason unaided by faith in divine revelation can come to know the existence and some of the attributes of God—for example, that he is one, eternal, perfect, intelligent and the uncaused cause. Aristotle did just that. His reasoning was not rationalizing, for he had no faith to rationalize (except faith in reason itself).
Revelation takes us for an easy ride up the mountain of truth in a divinely provided helicopter. Reason struggles and scrambles up the hard, slow footpath, and doesn’t get nearly as far up. Neither way invalidates the other. But millions can get to the top in the helicopter, while only a few Aristotles can get more than a few feet up the path by walking.
Objection 6: Doesn’t reason take away the merit of faith? There is nothing praiseworthy in believing something because you see it, whether with your eyes or with your mind; but it is praiseworthy to trust a friend. To prove what you believe removes your merit, or praiseworthiness, in believing it; so it is not advantageous.
Reply A: Since we are supposed to grow up and figure things out for ourselves, understanding and proving our faith is praiseworthy. Our parents don’t want us to remain children who don’t understand them but can only trust them. (Nor do they want us to stop trusting them.) What is praiseworthy is obeying God’s will in all things, including his will for us to grow up.
Reply B: Reason is not more perfect virtue than faith, but it is more perfect knowledge. Faith is secondhand knowledge, through authority. In heaven there will be no need for faith. We will see and understand for ourselves. Insofar as we can do this on earth, this is progress, for heaven is the standard of real progress.
To add reason to faith is progress, but to demand reason before faith is not. If I demand proof before trusting you, that means I trust you less. But to desire to rationally understand the one I trust is not a weakening of the trust.
Reply C: Finally, we still need faith even after we know a truth by reason, to stave off irrational doubts. Reason and faith are not rivals but allies against irrational doubts, passion, prejudice, propaganda, fear, folly, fantasy and fallacy.