Imagine that the Apostle John approached you and said, “Believe in Jesus. Later I will tell you who he was and what he did.” What would be the content of your belief? Faith must be in something. A level of understanding precedes faith. Faith then opens the door for greater understanding.
A famous 20th Century theologian, Cornelius Van Til, argued the reverse. He argued that, unless God exists, no understanding can be possible to man.
Faith comes at the conclusion of a reasoning process—not as the presupposition to it. Let’s look at the disciples for a demonstration.
The disciples saw Jesus heal the sick and bring the dead to life. They saw him walk on water and calm a storm. These facts convinced them to have faith in Jesus, believing him to be the Son of God (Matt 16:16).
First Comment!
Hooray for my first reader comment!
I want to encourage interaction at my blog, so I’ll reproduce the comment and my response:
A friend asked:
“What does ‘faith’ mean in this context? To come later?”
He wanted to know what I mean by faith. I wrote back:
“Here faith means trusting God. It means believing that God has spoken, and believing God’s promises. Faith comes at the conclusion of a reasoning process–not as the presupposition to it.”
If you have read my Top 10 Lessons in Thinking, this is a deeper look. Again, the ideas are from Leonard Peikoff.
I sequenced this list so as to follow a flow. Enjoy!
Here are my favorite principles of logic and reasoning, collected from Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
While these do stand on their own, they become most useful if you study them individually and in depth. For that, I recommend Peikoff’s book.