Faith vs. Reason?

Indy: Do you believe the Grail actually exists? BRODY: The search for the Cup of Christ is the search for the divine in all of us. Brody sees that Indy is unsatisfied by this response. BRODY: But if you want facts, Indy, I have none to give you. At my age, I'm prepared to take a few things on faith.

"The path of flood. Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."

It's... a leap of faith. Oh, God.

Michael Ramsden

If you pick up a Hebrew dictionary and look up the noun ‘faith’, you know what you will find? Nothing. Because there is no noun ‘faith’ in the language. You can’t have a faith, the faith – there is no noun. Even in Habakkuk 2:4, in the Hebrew, there is no noun there. But they did have a verb. The verb was the process of putting your weight and trust into something which you knew was true and real. It was connected to truth and reality.

In Greek, you could have two words for faith. ‘Pistis’ and 'Nomizo' – the second one doesn’t occur in the New Testament so you may not know it, but it still occurs in Modern Greek. There are two words. This word, pistis, ultimately comes from the verb "peitho", which means "to be persuaded". ‘Pistis’, therefore, the noun, carries the same kind of connotation. It means that you are persuaded as to something’s truth and reality, therefore you can trust it. ‘Nomizo’, which was used by the Hellenistic and also classical Greeks, was the verb which they used to describe belief in their own gods because the Greeks had a whole pantheon of them, and it means, "I believe" but with no specific basis. This (pistis), however, does not mean that. As a matter of fact, even the word belief in Scripture actually comes from the same verb.

What’s amazing is how has this changed? … in the English language, up until what we call the Middle English period, faith was a verb, in distinction to belief, and the verb faith was the process by which you put your trust in something because you were sure of its reality. Even during the Middle English period, both Chaucer and Shakespeare used the verb faith. But that’s not what the word means for most people today, is it? apologetics apologetics

Augustine Faith is necessary for us to come to a knowledge of truth. Before we can believe we need to depend, at least to some small degree, on reason in order to process the information that is necessarily a part of our believing.

Anselm I believe so that I may understand.

Thomas Aquinas Existence of God is not evident to all. He used premises that all rational beings were obliged to accept. God can be proven through appeal to natural reason without any appeal to God’s special revelation in Christ or in Scriptures. First God then Christianity.

Martin Luther Luther jpg Reason can be used to examine God’s created world. Against arrogant reason. Use of the reason to trespass into the domain of faith

John Calvin jpg Faith and reason are hand in hand. We cannot clearly and properly know God unless the knowledge of ourselves be added.

Points of contact between Christians and non-Christians A sense of divine A desire for transcendence An idea of morality

Two ways Theory of Rationality Criteria for knowing whether something is rational or irrational is not the same for all cultures and all times. Makes reason autonomous Our beliefs Breaking free from rationalism and empricism reasoning is not the only source of valid beliefs.

Rene Descartes Guilty until proven innocent Thomas Reid Innocent until proven guilty /09/rene-descartes.jpg

Coherence Comprehensiveness Consistency