Faith and Rationality

Faith is a word we bandy around without too much thought. For many, faith is the opposite of using our minds. Thinking is seen as the enemy of faith. For folks such as this, thinking is not a gift of God but a curse of the devil.

We need to revisit our understanding of faith. Faith has to do with trust. A child trusts their parents. They do not need to know all of the troubles mom or dad face on their jobs, nor do they need to know about family budgets. They just know that around 5 pm dinner will be served and later that they will tucked into bed with kisses and hugs.

But children grow up. They experience their own sorrows and trials in life. They learn how their parents struggle to survive. They begin to ask questions, some of which their parents cannot answer. Soon enough they are thrust into the world with their own questions, doubts, fears and insecurities.

When Jesus told us that unless we become as little children we cannot enter the kingdom of God he meant what he said. However, he did not say we must remain children. We too must grow up. We too must learn that our relationship with God and all things we have been taught about God come into question. We too must not be afraid of beginning to think through all of this. We too must grow up.

We are, as the apostle Paul says, not to remain babies, satisfied with breast milk but must grow teeth and learn to eat solid food. We can ill afford to mature while only drinking milk. If we do we will be malnourished. Our questions are our food. They evoke in us the desire to know God more clearly and to love God more dearly, day by day.

Real faith, is trusting that we are loved even in our many questions. We are loved in our doubt. We are loved in our working through theological problems. That is faith. Trusting that in spite of all our doubts and questions that we are loved. Real faith doesn’t have to figure everything out before it believes, but neither does real faith refuse to remain childish. Real faith has its own intelligence, it is not afraid to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to revisit presuppositions, to rework worldviews, to re-found one’s theology. Real faith relishes questions and learns the importance of asking good questions. Real faith does not simply take the Bible at face value. Real faith uses the mind, intelligence, and critical thinking to make belief contemporary. Real faith lives day by day, not seeking to have a perfect theology for tomorrow but an adequate theology for today.

Real faith does not remain satisfied with the parents answers. Real faith works out its own answers and solutions. Real faith does not jettison the parents answers and solutions but revisits that which works, is fair and just and reasonable and lets go of that which is an illusion, unjust and no longer workable. Real faith continually, generation by generation, works itself out so that the believing community can become more and more ‘faithful’ or ‘full of faith.’

Real faith does not work against the mind, or education or intelligence but works with and through the rational process. Real faith is not irrational, but fully rational. Is it not the case that we are called to “love the Lord our God…with all our mind?”