Monday, December 30, 2013
The Dumbest Thing I Have Ever Read
No really, it is. Charles Stanley writes:
But it is precisely this kind of nonsense that has landed religion backed so deeply in the corner in our society. We have accepted, and now take for granted, the argument of those arrayed against us that faith and reason and enemies. They are not. They, in fact compliment each other. Reason untempered by faith leads to atrocity. Faith is the root of reason, not its enemy.
I understand the temptation to make this argument, but in doing so, we concede ground we should not concede. When we do so, we are forced to cordon off our faith into certain corners of our lives because most of the world operates on reason. We cannot set our reason aside at work or school. We cannot set our reason aside even when doing mundane things like reading or watching TV. We cannot recognize, let alone combat the forces of evil that assault us from every direction if we set our reason aside and simply wait for revelation. God wants to temper our reason to be used for precisely such things.
Don;t set aside reason as the enemy, rather submit it to Christ and watch it flourish.
faith reason
Reason can be the enemy of faith, because it attempts to "trump" trust in God by encouraging us to rely on human intellect. This kind of logical thinking places confidence in man, but since we are not all-knowing or all-powerful, it leads to insecurity and worry.I mean honestly, reason wrongly used is the problem, not reason itself. This is like saying, "Someone could hit you over the head with a hammer and kill you, therefore, the hammer is the enemy of life." But then arguing against reason, I don't guess someone can be asked to be reasonable can they?
But it is precisely this kind of nonsense that has landed religion backed so deeply in the corner in our society. We have accepted, and now take for granted, the argument of those arrayed against us that faith and reason and enemies. They are not. They, in fact compliment each other. Reason untempered by faith leads to atrocity. Faith is the root of reason, not its enemy.
I understand the temptation to make this argument, but in doing so, we concede ground we should not concede. When we do so, we are forced to cordon off our faith into certain corners of our lives because most of the world operates on reason. We cannot set our reason aside at work or school. We cannot set our reason aside even when doing mundane things like reading or watching TV. We cannot recognize, let alone combat the forces of evil that assault us from every direction if we set our reason aside and simply wait for revelation. God wants to temper our reason to be used for precisely such things.
Don;t set aside reason as the enemy, rather submit it to Christ and watch it flourish.
faith reason
