“If we submit everything to reason, our
religion will have no mysterious and supernatural element. If we offend the
principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.”
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1669
I thought I
would pick a quote from the book I just recommended – Pascal’s Pensées. Blaise Pascal lived in the 17th
century (1623 – 1662) and was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor,
writer and philosopher. The quote above
is one of many from his book that I could have picked, and I’m sure there will
be more from this book in the future.
I’ve had
friends who would say “make sure you don’t check your brains at the door” when
you enter a church. They were making the
point that you should use your brain when it comes to your beliefs. They didn’t want to be swayed by some
fast-talking or manipulative preacher. I
agree with them and I’ve always felt that it was important to keep your mind
and reasoning abilities as a Christian. I
never wanted to be tricked or hood-winked into believing something that wasn’t
true. When someone sends me a story on
the internet, I immediately check it on Snopes.
Then I try to check up on Snopes to see if they can be trusted. Then, if it passes all of those tests, I put
it in the bin marked “probably not true” – that’s the best I’ll give it. So I agree:
to have faith doesn’t mean that you dump out your brains. Believe only what is reasonable.
But the great
thing about Pascal’s statement is the recognition that there are two sides to
this issue. I believe that Christianity
is reasonable, but that does not mean
that “reason” is the whole sum of my beliefs.
If your beliefs are against reason, then they are “absurd and
ridiculous” as Pascal states. But the
balance to this is that there are some aspects of faith that go beyond reason. They are supernatural. If absolutely everything you believe is
totally explained by reason, then what does God do? Why do you even need God in that case?[1]
You can’t
prove Christianity through reason alone.
The best you can hope to do is show that it is reasonable. I do believe you can show that it is reasonable. However, having done that, it doesn’t get you
to the true meaning of Christianity. You
have to go beyond where reason alone can take you. Don’t give up on reason. Follow it as far as you can. But
just don’t stop there. [By the way,
if you want to see where I go with that, check out the #1 Crazy Thing
Christians Believe.]
Miracles fit perfectly into this
kind of thinking. A miracle is not “reasonable”,
necessarily, but it is also not unreasonable.
I think Paul shows an excellent combination of reason and miracle when
he says that Christ’s resurrection is the central point of Christian faith, and
if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then faith in Christ is “in vain”
(I Cor 15). There is a logical aspect to
this belief. The historical aspects of
Christ’s resurrection can be subjected to reason. The centrality of Christ’s resurrection to
Christianity can be subjected to reason.
But the resurrection itself is a miracle. It is beyond reason. You can’t sit in the corner of a room and reason
your way to the resurrection. It has to
be revealed to you.
Don’t believe anything that offends
reason. That’s not smart. But don’t confine your beliefs to reason
alone. That is dry and boring. There’s more to life than that. Not everything can be explained by
science. Music and art are not arrived
at through reason alone. There is a
beauty to nature that is surely beyond reason.
Human emotions are surely real, and just as surely they are not always
based on reason! Allow yourself the
opportunity to wonder and marvel.
I know that many will say “you don’t
have to bring in the supernatural to experience wonder and awe at nature.” That is true, and there are plenty of
examples to support that. All I am
suggesting is that we not require of the supernatural
something that we do not require of the natural: that it must all bow to reason, and reason
alone. If the supernatural is there, do
not miss the opportunity to experience it because you artificially confined it
to a box that it can never fit in.
[1]
Some of course will say “exactly – why do you need God?” But this particular quote from Pascal is
written to those who already have a belief in God. There will be more to come from Pascal for
those who have already put belief aside.
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