Faith Is Reasonable

by Doy Moyer

Faith is reasonable because trust, which is the heart of biblical faith, is reasonable. Faith does not require that every question be resolved before it can proceed, for that would not be considered trust.

A child does not wait for parents to answer every question about difficult matters before trusting them. The child simply trusts that parents know what they are doing, and the child takes comfort in that. Yet how much greater is the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of God? We act like we cannot show faith unless God first answers every difficulty to our satisfaction. This is not faith. It is, instead, an attempt to bring all of reality under our own finite reason, and that is itself unreasonable.

This does not mean that faith is naive or without evidence to back it up. Yet there is only so far we will go in understanding overarching reality and having the knowledge and wisdom to discern all matters of ultimate concern. If we cannot be humble enough to admit our own frailties, limitations of knowledge, and need for greater wisdom than we can offer, then our hubris will have destroyed us. Sometimes I fear it already has.

We all trust something or someone to provide a greater perspective on reality, moral authority, and wisdom. Choosing self or other people with the same limitations is self-defeating and unsustainable.

Even more self-defeating is relying on an ultimate nothing, for then we are trusting mindless, purposeless, accidental processes to give us a solid grounding for our own ability to think and reason. Yet how can that be considered reasonable? And what about denying that we have faith at all? That is unrealistic at best and dishonest at worst. We all place our trust in something.

In what, or in whom, do you place your trust? That’s where your faith rests. Is it reasonable? That depends on whether what or whom you trust is truly in the position for which such trust is warranted.

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright" (Psalms 20:7).