How should a Christian view the relationship of faith and reason?

It is noticeable that not the apostles only come to consider the matter. Those set in the place of founders of Christianity — Christ's special gifts to the Church for that purpose — do not assume on that account to sit in a conclave of their own, and simply let others know the decision they have arrived at. Just so much the more as the Lord has endowed them with special gift, so much the less need have they to fence themselves round with the claim of authority which after all is found in the word they bring, and must have its confirmation in the conscience and heart of those that listen to it. Those whose history we have before us here are evidently men who believe in full light and fresh air, — who allow discussion, and appeal themselves both to Scripture and reason. Reason is not a revelation, and must be subject to revelation; but which will enlighten, not contradict it. The more they were persuaded of the truth they had being indeed from God, the more freely could they take the ground of one of these apostles, "I speak as to wise men" — sensible men, as we speak commonly — "judge ye what I say" (1 Cor. 10:15). The cry against the mind so often made by assumed spirituality is most contrary to God, who has made us altogether for Himself, and claims us altogether. Mind is not a product of the fall, though the fall has darkened and enfeebled it. We need God here as everywhere, to deliver from the power of sin which has enslaved naturally all our faculties; but a man without mind is simply an idiot, and the lack is one which no spiritual work that one ever hears of provides substitute for. Mind is a gift of creation, not of new creation. The new-creative work is spiritual, and not mental, however much the whole man is enlarged and blessed by it.

Yet it is quite true that to a conscience quickened and enlightened by the word, God's ways approve themselves. The light brought in manifests itself as such by revealing to the opened eye the beauty and the deformity of things not before apparent. It is conscious knowledge: "one thing we know; whereas we were blind, now we see." Still the horizon is limited, and if the true light now shines, the darkness is yet passing only, and not passed. He that sees farthest sees most the limit. He that judges himself most truly will own most fully God's judgments to be a great deep. It is not credulity to do so, but the most clear-sighted wisdom. Reason and faith are not at war. The apparent discords are but the evolution of a more perfect harmony.

Thirdly, we observe that when we thus view the foundations of the faith as one whole we find that While they are so great as to elude the grasp of our reason, there is nothing about them which is repugnant to reason.

We are far from exalting human reason as a standard or test. We rather affirm that man's reason, like every other part of him, has suffered as the result of his fall. His reason has become fallen reason, and hence is peculiarly unreliable, when dealing with the things of God. Even when, as the result of conversion, the Christian's reasoning powers are restored to something at least of their proper use, they are by no means infallible; yet there is absolutely nothing about the Christian faith that is unreasonable, or that puts a strain upon reasonable intelligence as do false religions or the corruptions of Christianity. If we view items of truth as isolated fragments we may perhaps find intellectual difficulties, but never when once we gain some conception of the truth in its entirety — in the wide sweep of its majestic circle.

Faith should be of course characteristic of the devout in any dispensation, but there is no dispensation in which it is so emphatically necessary that men should not walk by sight as in this, the church era: for even Israel had to take some cognisance of the providential and national movements around them, and shape their policy to some extent accordingly. But now we are told, "Ye are not of the world." "Set your affection — or regard, or mind, ta ano phroneite — on things above." It is well to be accurate here: walking by sight does not mean the exercise of reason, sight refers to the outward evidences of mere external things, and may be contrary to faith, as every day we find it may be contrary to reason; for instance, if we look down over the bulwarks of a ship in progress, sight tells us that the water is rushing to the rear and our ship is stationary, but reason convinces us that it is the ship that moves and not the water. Reason — true reason not mere "reasoning" — never can contradict faith but travels in the same line, though in an infinitely lower plane. However much it is condemned in theological writings, the exercise of reason is nowhere condemned in the scriptures, where it is said, "Come, let us reason together," and that Paul "reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath."

A powerful opponent of Christianity says in a sarcastic passage, "Our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it, to put it to such a trial [the trial of reason], as it is by no means fitted to endure." This foolish kind of attack no doubt has got some encouragement from well-intentioned persons who spend their time in reasoning against the use of reason, as if it were not God's very best providential gift. Nor is sight itself to be condemned; is that not also a divine gift? It is the walking by it that is condemned, for it is a mere "dead reckoning," and no sailor would travel by such means — that is, by calculation from the log and the steerage, when there is a single star visible in the heavens to guide him. [ David Hume.]

But, Scriptures gives us principles and not a complete code of divine law. This necessitates inference at every step. Inference can't be separated from a rational life, and God condescends to reason with His creatures, “Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1:18). The argument against reason in God's things has been carried to lengths that are as unscriptural as they are irrational. Scripture nowhere discredits any God-given faculty that man has. In speaking against what God has given, we necessarily speak against the Giver. God is honored as Creator when His creation is honored.

Sin has come in and perverted every faculty, but the work of God is to purify and not destroy. When one begins to realize his relation to God, reason becomes most reasonable in accepting the creature-limit, and rationality fills the life and character of the new man in Christ. One might as well say that, if we have light, we don't need our eyes, as to discredit reason in the things of God. It is only in the light that the eyes are of any use!

It has been suggestively remarked that the right eye would speak of faith, as the left would of reason. So far from being fanciful, this seems perfectly simple. The right is the place of priority and importance, and surely faith is above reason; and yet reason has its place even in the things of God. We are not deprived of that, but where it is under the control of faith, reason can put forth all its powers without danger of leading us astray.

If we were simply willing to bow to the word, reasoning really would not be necessary. We should need divine teaching to have our understandings opened, but we should learn — not have conclusions to draw. However we are not so simple as this; and there is pleading and reasoning; and if carried on in the spirit of grace, and continually tested by the word, it elicits truth, though it calls for watching one's spirit very closely. God has so ordered it. There is a convincing of gainsayers, as well as teaching the truth. We need the Spirit of God for this as for all else. How bright examples do we see in scripture, as Paul, and Stephen, and others, of this power of confounding the opposers of truth! Discussion and enquiry, if rightly pursued, if there is, through grace, a love of the truth, are a means of enlarging and deepening our own thoughts also, as well as of convincing others; of correcting them too, of course, w here needed, of perfecting them, rendering them, if in the main true, free from such objections as may apply really only to adjuncts to them, but serve to cast doubt on the truth we hold. Thus the truth and all its bearings are better known as they stand in the divine counsels, and it is held as from God (that which is alloy being removed).

Fully admitting the value of reasoning to convict gainsayers and expose the futility of their captious arguments, I lay it down as an axiom that in revealed truth it is and must be simply a question of a divine testimony, which is given to be believed, and which binds the conscience even of him who rejects it through unbelief. If physics require patient induction and comprehensive grouping under general principles or laws, if mathematics demand a strict and necessary demonstration, if the mixed sciences admit of both, the written word of God claims faith in His testimony which tests the moral state of him who hears. The faith which receives it traditionally and with indifference is of no value, and will under pressure give it up with the same otiose facility in which it assented. Certainly to doubt is not to believe; yet one could almost allow the saying to pass, that there is more faith in some doubts than in such traditional faith as characterises Christendom, save those in it who are born of God. For the soul which begins to be really in earnest is apt to hesitate till it has adequate motive to believe; while the flesh which so promptly offered to obey at Sinai is just as ready to say its Amen to the Athanasian creed.

It is not, therefore, reason that responds to revelation, but faith. God makes Himself known to faith. So we read that the righteousness of God is “revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). Faith is not unreasonable, but it transcends reason. It dwells in a region far outside that of reason or science. It has to do with God in His proper sphere.

It would have been possible for Christ to have come into this world without any preparation for His coming, He might have come as a bolt from the blue, but how difficult it would have been for men to have believed on Him. It is true that faith is “the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8), and that “the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). But when a man has faith, he has in the Old Testament the material “to give an answer to every man that asks [him] a reason of the hope that is in [him] with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15). Faith is not unreasonable.