03.03. Chapter 3

III. THE RELATION OF REASON AND FAITH

There is a prevalent idea that the exercise of faith is incompatible with the function of reason. In relation to Christianity this has been urged in offence and in defence. Those in op position have treated the idea as axiomatic, declaring that to exercise the function of faith is to abandon the right to think, and to contradict the rational process. This attitude of mind has been indicated by the assumption of the name free-thinker on the part of such as declare that they refuse to believe in anything that cannot be demonstrated by the process of reason. The attitude is understandable in such cases, even though one may not agree with the reasonableness of the proposition. On the other hand, it has been affirmed by certain who declare that they stand in defence of the Christian position, that faith and reason are finally unrelated. They declare that we have no right to apply the reason in matters of faith, that it is necessary to receive certain statements and believe them to be true, even though they have no basis in reason.

These people declare that in matters of religion intellect is a peril, and that while men are justified in every other realm in making use of reason, they must turn away there from al together in matters of faith.

Such an idea is absolutely false, and when those in opposition declare it to be the Christian position, they reveal an ignorance of the facts of the case which makes it impossible to enter into any rational discussion with them.

Yet on the other hand, when it is urged in defence of the Christian position it practically abandons the very citadel, and so leaves the surrounding areas an easy prey to the enemies of religion.

There is the closest inter-relation between reason and faith. Faith which is irrational is irreligious. Reason which is unbelieving is illogical. The relation between the two is so intimate that it is almost difficult to find a figure of speech which perfectly expresses it. Between reason and faith there is not merely friendly relation as between areas which are contiguous but yet never identical, or between parallel lines which move in the same direction but never come together, or between hemi spheres which, while constituting one whole, are yet always divided, as North from South, or East from West. None of these figures suggests the true relationship between reason and faith, that relationship being more immediate and perpetual than any of these. Per haps we come nearer to an illustration if we speak of the relation as that between two dimensions in one whole, as on the plane surface of things there is relation between length and breadth. This relation cannot be escaped, not withstanding Euclid’s definition, which perhaps was necessary in order to an argument, but was utterly false as a statement, namely that a line is length without breadth. It is inconceivable that there should be length with out breadth, or breadth without length. Things are not always as broad as they are long, but if they are long they are broad, or if they have breadth, they have length. As these two dimensions are always present, each related to the other, so that they cannot be separated, so also are reason and faith. In order that this inter-relationship may be apprehended, I propose first a brief and quite elementary discussion of the evident relation between reason and faith in the ordinary consciousness, quite apart at first from the application of the subject to the Christian position; and then secondly, as briefly and as simply, I shall attempt to state the relation between rea son and faith as suggested in Bible terms, finally making an application of the relation as a principle of Christian life.

We begin, then, with the discussion of the relation in ordinary circumstances, and first of all attempt to come to an understanding of our terms in the most elementary way possible by enquiring first, What is reason? and secondly, What is faith? And first, then, What is reason? That enquiry I propose to answer by quoting a simple dictionary definition. The Century Dictionary defines reason as, “ An idea acting as a cause to create or confirm a belief.”

I think it necessary parenthetically at this point to draw attention to the fact that neither I nor any Christian apologist inspired that definition. A second definition reads, “ Reason; an intellectual faculty, or such faculties collectively.” The first of these definitions describes what we should speak of in general terms as a reason, that is, a statement made as accounting for some result in action or in speech. The second definition refers to what we should speak of as the reason, that is, the capacity which apprehends and states a cause. In the presence of these definitions it is competent for us to enquire, How does the reason, which is “ an intellectual faculty, or such faculties collectively,” act in order to create a rea son, which is “ an idea acting as a cause to create or confirm a belief “? In answer to this enquiry let me first give you a quotation from Dr. Oman’s “ Problems of Faith and Freedom,” in which he says, “ Reason is not the mere universal law, but is a process by which we are always passing to more detailed knowledge, to more concrete conceptions, a process which is always widening to embrace the whole fulness of the truth.”

I am quite aware that this statement does not explain the whole process of how the reason formulates a reason, but it indicates all that is essential to my present argument, namely, that reason is for ever conscious of vaster areas than it has apprehended, and is that intellectual activity which is able, from vantage ground already gained, to move on ward and outward for the inclusion of larger areas. When we speak then of reason as a faculty, we refer to the ability to apprehend truth, and to that which safeguards the consciousness from the acceptation of anything which is untrue, and when we refer to a reason we intend a truth apprehended.

Let us take our second question quite as simply. What is faith? This enquiry the dictionary answers by the following definition, “ Faith is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence.”

Now even at the risk of being charged with impertinence I venture to change one word in that definition, and read, “ Faith is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete demonstration.” This may appear to be a mere quibbling with words, and yet whatever the philological value of these words may be, in our ordinary use of them there is a difference of suggestion between the terms evidence and demonstration. Taking the words only according to the popular use made of them, I maintain that there are many things for which there is abounding evidence, but of which there can be no final demonstration. Faith then is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete demonstration, but for which there is sufficient evidence. From that simple definition I make the deduction that faith is conviction of truth, resulting from the action of reason, which truth nevertheless cannot be finally and mathematically demonstrated. The reason apprehends a certain fact. Faith finding foothold upon that apprehension, apprehends a still larger matter than can be demonstrated by the reason, but never consents to accept as true anything which is not finally founded upon the reason. May I reverently make use of a very simple illustration of what I mean, when I declare that there are many things of which I am perfectly certain by faith founded on reason, while yet I cannot demonstrate to the logical satisfaction of any other person. The illustration I suggest is quite a personal one, which I leave every other man to make for himself. I look into the face of my mother, and I know she is my mother by the activity of faith based upon reason. It is absolutely impossible to demonstrate the fact, but the evidence is over whelming. The relation of reason and faith in matters of everyday life may thus be stated: Faith which has no foundation in reason is not faith.

It is rather credulity. It is innocence, or ignorance, or insanity, in any case a negation of knowledge. On the other hand, reason that does not admit, or will not permit the larger deduction based upon its own activity, is either obtuse, or obstinate, or obscene, in any case the limitation of the intellectual.

There is therefore the closest relationship in ordinary life between reason and faith. Every thing which a man believes in the highest and most intelligent sense of that word, he believes because; and in the moment in which the word because is used, there is suggested and admitted the fact of the activity of the reason, leading up to, and compelling the faith. If I believe this because of that, the that is the reason inspiring the faith, and the this is the truth which faith apprehends as it answers the illumination of reason. Thus faith must be based on reason, and reason must fulfil itself in faith.

Thus it is evident that reason is compelled at times to allow itself to admit of larger areas than it is able perfectly to demonstrate, and in that admission it becomes faith. Thus what a man believes in the true sense of the word is always founded upon reason, but it is nevertheless a deduction including some truth more spacious than unaided reason is able to demon strate. Mark then the relation between the two.

Reason is the creator of faith. Faith is always created. It cannot be compelled. There is a sense in which it is perfectly true that a man can will to believe, but it is equally true that he can only do so when the possibility of faith has been created by the activity of reason. It has been objected that the Christian declaration that faith is the gift of God is a statement out of harmony with the method of science. Yet as a matter of fact faith is always the gift of someone, or something, the result of a process. To believe because is a commonplace formula, expressing the fact of a cause or creator antecedent to the belief. In this sense reason creates faith. The appreciation of a fact, the conviction of the fact, and the vision of the fact, even though the fact be still unseen, are due to the activity of reason. Reason proceeding along its proper line of scientific investigation comes at last to a point where it is impossible to proceed further unaided, but from which it is necessary in honesty to include as reasonable, things which cannot be logically demonstrated. Let me at once confess that to my own mind the relation between reason and faith becomes more remarkably clear when we turn to the terms of Scripture. It has been objected with the smartness which can only be characterized as ignorance, that the term reason is not a. common one in Scripture. As a matter of fact, the idea is repeated perpetually. The word “ reason “ does occur in our Versions, and is a translation of a word perpetually occurring, though in the majority of instances translated in another way. Peter in his first letter speaks of being “ ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.” Now the word there translated “ reason “ first occurs in somewhat strange surroundings in the midst of the King’s Manifesto, as recorded by Matthew. I quote the passage, not for the sake of its main statement of course, but that we may put our hand upon this particular word. “ Everyone that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress.” In that passage the word translated “ reason “ in the letter of Peter, is rendered “ cause.” Later on in his gospel Matthew tells us that Jesus said, “ Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” There again the word occurs, and is translated “give account.” In the house of Cornelius Peter enquired, “ I ask therefore, with what intent ye sent for me?” Again the same word, but rendered “ intent.” The writer of the letter to the Hebrews declares, “ All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.” Here also is the identical word, but translated “ to do.” Once again, in the letter of Peter, from which we took our first illustration, he says, “ Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead,” and “ give account “ is the translation of the identical word. These are instances only of one use of a great New Testament word. A comparison of them will reveal that it is a use that always indicated reason. In some senses it would be interesting, and even valuable in all these passages to translate in the same way. “ Everyone that putteth away his wife, saving for the reason of fornication, maketh her an adulteress.” “ Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give a reason thereof in the day of judgment.” “ I ask therefore, with what reason ye sent for me? “ “ All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to reason.” “ Who shall give a reason to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”

Such rendering illuminates the passages, but with them I have not now to deal. It certainly enables us to realize the New Testament recognition of reason. But now what is the word so translated? It is, as I have indicated, a common word in the New Testament, namely the word logos. The same word is used in the opening statements of the gospel according to John, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This word is used in the New Testament in two ways, the suggestiveness of each never being wholly absent from either. Its first and perhaps simplest meaning is that of speech as language, the expression of truth for the under standing of others. Its second and perhaps deeper meaning, is that of the absolute Truth itself, and as Thayer indicates, in that sense the Greek word logos is the exact equivalent to the Latin word ratio, from which we obtain our words rational, and reason. Thus logos is speech, and the truth spoken; or to state in the other order, reason, and its expression. The inter-relation of ideas in either use already referred to, is that the Word incarnate was the Speech of God, but being the Speech of God was the Expression of eternal Truth. The Word as Reason must express itself in a Speech which is accurate and true. It is necessary in the study of the New Testament carefully to discriminate by reference to the context as to which sense is intended, when this word is used. Sometimes it refers to speech as a statement made, sometimes to the essential truth out of which the statement came, sometimes both ideas are most evidently present in the use of the word.

Now the presence of the conception of reason is demonstrated, and its place in relation to faith is made perfectly clear. Ultimately reason in God is the intellectual cause out of which all His activity springs. In man it is the inspiration of that faith which produces action. The two ideas are brought into remarkabl erelation in the letter to the Hebrews, from which I have already made quotation. When the writer says, “ All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do,” he does so after having declared, “ the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.” If we take the first part of that whole declaration and its last, and translate the Greek word logos in the same way, we may read, “ The reason of God is living, and active...all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to reason.”

I do not suggest that that would be an absolutely accurate and full expression of the meaning of the earlier part of the passage, where the phrase “ the Word of God “ does most evidently refer to His revelation of Himself, but the other quality is most certainly included, for the word logos as a revelation implies the expression of the infinite Wisdom or Reason of God. It is this which when expressed is “ living — active — piercing — quick to discern,” and it is with that, man has to reason. Thus the exercise of the human reason is, according to the teaching of this passage, to be in the light of the Divine Reason.

Reason, therefore, in the Bible, is ultimately the Wisdom of God, that absolute Truth by which He for ever operates whether in creation, or redemption; and in man, it is the intellectual apprehension which produces conviction, and inspires conduct. But now turn to the New Testament word for faith. Faith is fundamentally conviction of truth. Romaine, in his book, “ The Triumph of Faith,” says, “ Faith signifies the believing the truth of the Word of God.” If we may venture to interpret Romaine’s use of the phrase “ the Word of God “ in the double sense indicated, we shall see what faith really is. It is conviction of the truth of the Word as the speech or revelation of God, and therefore it is conviction of the certainty of those larger areas which have expressed themselves, and yet not finally. No speech can ever express all the facts. It can express so much as to create a certainty of the existence of things unexpressed. The Word in that sense is the revealed demonstration of the “ secret things.” Faith convinced by the Word which is speech, is the certainty of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In this connection it must of course be remembered that in the New Testament presentation of the doctrine of salvation, the term faith is always used in such a way as to indicate the necessity for the action of will. The Greek preposition eis used with the accusative al ways denotes motion into; and this is the uniform method of referring to the faith that saves. “ He that believeth into the Son “ is the true formula, and this indicates more than the conviction of truth which it presupposes, namely, the answer of the will to that conviction. In the present study, however, we are not dealing with this aspect of faith, but with that which precedes the answer of the will, and which in order to salvation must be expressed in that answer of the will.

According to New Testament teaching then, it is evident that the relation between reason and faith is exactly the same as that already dealt with as existing between them in the common consciousness of ordinary human life. The ultimate Reason in the Universe is the Word of God, the thought of God, the intention of God, or let me venture to say it, the reasonableness of God; and this reasonableness of God is the outcome of the absolute truth of God. Thus the ultimate reason of everything is the reasonableness of truth. When that is seen, conviction is created, and that conviction embraces those more spacious areas of the essential and eternal facts which are evidenced, but which perhaps cannot be logically demonstrated. Thus faith is a deduction from reason expressed. Therefore faith is for ever created by reason, and reason creating faith, demands its rational deduction.

Let us finally attempt in all simplicity to make an application of this relation as a principle of Christian life, and in order to do so, we will once again take the terms in separation. Christianity affirms fundamentally that human reason must for evermore be tested by the Divine Reason. The necessity for this Milton exquisitely expressed in “ Paradise Lost.”

“ But God left free the will, for what obeys Reason is free, and reason He made right, But bid her well beware, and still erect, Lest by some fair-appearing good surprised She dictate false, and misinform the will To do what God expressly hath forbid.” The Christian position therefore, is not that man must not use his reason in matters of faith, but rather that man’s reason must for ever be corrected by the essential and eternal Reason; that all the thinking of man must be tested in order to accuracy, by the thinking of God. That thinking of God has been revealed to man in the Logos, in the Word, which was made flesh; the Word which was the Reason, and of which the Incarnation was an expression to man within the sphere of the possibility of his comprehension. Reason in God is infinite Wisdom. Of that the king sang, “ I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, Or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills was I brought forth, While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, Nor the beginning of the dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there, When He set a circle upon the face of the deep, When He made firm the skies above, When the fountains of the deep became strong, When He gave to the sea its bound, That the waters should not transgress His commandment, When He marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was by Him, as a Master Workman, And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, Rejoicing in His habitable earth, And My delight was with the sons of men.” Of that the apostolic seer declared, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men... There was the true Light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” The infinite and underlying Wisdom which operated in creation became incarnate in Jesus, for revelation and redemption; and the Christian position is that the exercise of human reason needs to be tested by that revelation of the eternal Reason. In this sense faith in man is the gift of God. The Word creates it. The Word spoken brings conviction, and therein is the creation of faith which for evermore knows God Whom to know is life eternal. The exercise of faith is that of obedience, and therein begins the responsibility of man in the realm of conduct.

If it be affirmed that the Christian preacher asks that men believe things he says because he says them, it is absolutely untrue. Our appeal is to the reason by the preaching of the Word.

Human reason, brought into activity by the authority of the Revelation, exercises itself by the larger conclusion, which is nevertheless for evermore to react upon the details of conduct.

All belief must be based upon reason. All reason must ultimately proceed to the activity of faith which apprehends an area larger than reason can discover. In conclusion let me make application of this study to those which have preceded it. Man’s spiritual nature includes the fact of his right of access to God, insisting upon it as obligatory.

How is this right of access to be exercised? By the inter-related activity of reason and faith.

Reason has to do with the things seen. Faith has to do with the things unseen. “ By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear.” This larger conception is based upon a true understanding of the things which do appear.

Reason deals with them, and compels the conviction that they are the outcome of things which are beyond the sphere of reason’s demonstration. “By faith... Moses endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.” His vision of the invisible was the result of his true apprehension of the meaning of things visible. The conviction of his parents which had preserved him, the observation of his people enslaved, the approach to God through the solitudes of the wilderness, the flaming glory of a burning bush, were all things under observation. Reason dealt with them, and discovered that there were things with which it could not deal touching all of them. Faith spread its wings, and soared, where the fine and heroic marching of reason ended, and thus he beheld the invisible and endured. Reason can deal with all the things that appear, but its final activity is the creation of a conviction that these came not out of themselves, but that behind the tangible is the intangible, beyond the ponderable is the imponderable, at the back of the revealed is the secret. Thus reason merges into faith, not by catastrophe, but necessarily. I cannot demonstrate, I cannot prove the existence of God, but faith born out of reason, affirms, and I know. I pass through the processes of reason as it investigates creation until faith discovers, for reason’s illumination, the Creator.

God is a Spirit. Thus man has access to God. His reason apprehends the Word of God as an Expression. His faith has confidence in the essential truth, and knows the larger thing which cannot be finally demonstrated. Reason and faith therefore are the warp and woof in the fabric of the spiritual life. There are many things in the presence of which reason can offer no explanation. In such places let us ever be supremely careful not to make the judgment blind. Let it rather accept the deduction which it cannot emphatically demonstrate. The first call of God to the soul is the call of Reason. “ Come now, and let us reason together.” He never asks for faith save on that basis. When man has heard that call, and has opened all the faculties of his being thereto and is convinced, He demands the activity of the faith which He has thus created. Therefore to the man who is enquiring, who finds himself confronted by mystery and difficulty, the word of the Christian faith is, Have no hesitation or fear, bring to bear on all your problems the whole fact of your mind; but never forget that in Christ the ultimate Reason has been revealed. He is God’s Speech to man, and as a man permits his reason to be tested and corrected by Christ, he will find himself led onward to the point where his reason passes into confidence, and he finds a firmer faith his own. The faith that does not come from reason is for evermore to be doubted. The reason that never finds such faith is for evermore to be feared.