Faith and Reason: What is the Biblical Concept of faith?

So, what is meant when someone says that faith and reason are opposed to each other? I think that ordinarily one has in mind the concept of faith as “blind faith,” a sort of stepping out into the dark, that of shutting off one’s brain – the exact opposite of reason. But the Biblical concept of faith does not lend itself so easily to such dichotomies. To begin with, faith, Biblically speaking, is not merely belief, or trust, or leaping into the dark of the unknown. Well then, what is it?

The best route for describing faith in such a short article may be to just throw it out there and then try to explain as much as possible. Here it is: Faith is a life lived, not an idea thought.

Faith and Reason: What Reason Says About Reason

You never know when the moment of epiphany is about to happen. I was sitting in a class entitled “Christian Apologetics,” minding my own business, when suddenly I was broadsided by a professor who had the nerve to wake me from my daydreaming with a provocative statement. He said, “The facts do not settle the argument; the argument settles the facts.” “Moron!” I quickly shot back in my mind. “Who could believe such dribble? Facts are facts, they do not lend themselves to argument, otherwise they wouldn’t be facts.” I now thank God that this little knee-jerk reaction was made in the privacy of my own head. Had I voiced it out loud I would have given my professor an open door to give me the intellectual ‘arm-bar’ of my life. As I continued to listen I realized that an epiphany was upon me.

Faith and Reason: The Challenge

As the famous American psychologist, William James said, “there is nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.” This is the case with the shadow boxing match between faith and reason. This false dichotomy has been repeated so frequently that it has become axiomatic in the minds of many.