“3. Either God’s final intention leads to the greatest good, in which case God’s original intention does not, and includes unnecessary immediate suffering, or
“4. God’s original intention leads to the greatest good, in which case God’s final intention does not, and therefore produces less than best final outcomes, and unnecessary final suffering.”

Why? Why can’t it do both? God is omniscient. He knows the situation, the process and the outcome. Why can’t it be said that God’s initial intention will lead to the greatest good, and through prayer, his altered intention lessens the suffering present and still produces the greatest good. I know I’m the “pie in the sky” girl who wants “good” all the way around, but who doesn’t?

There are so many examples of God allowing prayer to change his original path and still end up with His purpose coming to be. Abraham praying on behalf of Lot in Sodom, Elijah and the widow’s son, too many instances with David. I know there are many more situations in the bible where people pray for deliverance (of their own will and way) yet God says no, and we see the good in the final outcome, even with their suffering.

Saying that prayer may or may not change things rattles my faith. I don’t pretend to have a magical power by praying, or some greater thought than God. However, I do believe that Jesus interprets our prayers and comes to God on our behalf. That he is loving, compassionate and hears those prayers, and yes even sometimes answers them in the way we had hoped. I find that very loving. I find God saying “no” and bringing about the greater good very loving as well, even when it hurts like hell and may not make sense in my lifetime.

I may have mentioned this book to you before. If so, my apologies:

God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God by Greg Boyd

It deals with some of this very issue, with a somewhat different slant on the implications of true “free will” and what kind of universe that means God has made, and what God CAN know about the future in that universe, because of the way He chose to make it.

I’ll say this: I was frozen in the paralyzed state of doubting the efficacy of prayer, based on lines of reasoning very similar to what you describe. I’m not there anymore. This book had something to do with it.

I think the key is in understanding that “free will” is not just a characteristic of how God made US, but a characteristic in some other sense (call it chaos theory, if you like, or the butterfly effect) of the entire universe, and our very ability to HAVE free will depends on that essentially unpredictable character of the universe, because God made us as beings who are of this universe and live in it, for now.

In some way, I think free will may be impossible in a universe where random bad things can’t happen that aren’t necessarily a part of anyone’s choice. How could beings of free will, whose thinking processes are partly determined by physics (not totally, but that’s a different subject), exist in a determined universe? If only random good could happen to me, what moral character could my free will HAVE, except to enjoy it all and smile a lot?

The comet strikes now and then.

In my case, it’s the damn birds…. twice in one week, even, about three years ago. They got me in Home Depot [who knew birds fly around in there], and then again a few days later as I was leaving the Warren Music building. (Sometimes it is an advantage not to have hair on top of your head.) I really, really doubt either event had anything to do with any bad choice made by any human, or any action of Satan, or sin, or The Fall, or anything but the fact that we live in that kind of universe, the kind necessary for beings with free will to exist.

God listens. And according to scripture, in any kind of straightforward reading, He is affected by human action, including prayer, and does change His mind, can even be surprised at what we do, etc. Otherwise, the notion that He is “in relationship” with us would not be as meaningful. It’s popular to declare such passages anthropomorphic and deconstruct them out of clear meaning, due to philosophical presuppositions not found in scripture… and I’ve been guilty of that, too. I am repenting of that.

But in some sense, I think Greg Boyd (and some others) are teaching me to read the Bible somewhat more literally than had been my habit.

[...] Prayer, Suffering, and the Nature of God | Addison Road [...]

I’ve been mulling this over since yesterday, wanting to respond but not quite knowing exactly what it was I wanted to say or how to say it. I knew there was something in there about how important it is to think well and deeply about the character of God, but coupled with a caution about thinking ourselves out of obedience. (Prayer doesn’t make sense, so I’m not going to do it!) Then I was tooling around the tubes and stumbled on this:

Pondering the nature of God is essential, but it should be done with fear and trembling…. What can we say about God? What dare we say about God?

God is love. God is a father, and a son, and a whispering ghost. God struck down nearly all of humanity in a killing flood. God nursed at the breast of a woman who freely chose to be grieved. God wept for the dead. God climbed unto a cross for his children. God is a consuming fire who will come again in power and glory and majesty.

Who then can know God by mind alone? Who will stand before him on that day and declare: This is why you have done these things, Lord, for these reasons that I have explained in my books and sermons? Who claims to discern the entire essence of God? Who sees him more than in a mirror darkly?

Intellectualize him at your peril.

I have high regard for good thinking (even though I know I’m one of the knives that gets pushed to the back of the drawer for use only when all the sharp ones are dirty). But I’m also pretty sure that reason isn’t the answer to everything; in fact, thinky thoughts are particularly unhelpful when it comes to “figuring out” God. Not only that: Reason can be idolized just as easily as sex, wealth, notoriety, art, etc., etc., etc. — and when it keeps us from doing things (such as prayer) that help us know God in ways other than intellectually, it has indeed become an idol.

You know all this shit. You’re one of the knives in the block on the counter. I’m just reminding you to use more than your brain to find some answers you can live with.

Aly, you’re absolutely correct about “over-intellectualizing” if by that you mean doing frighteningly sophisticated logical operations on a small data set, convincing yourself that you know more than you actually do. A corollary to GIGO is NMINMO: “Not Much In, Not Much Out”.

On the other hand, we have no choice but to think, evaluate, try to make sense of it, try to harmonize seemingly conflicting statements from scripture, etc.

By the way, I’m a serrated knife with all the points rounded off, and difficult to re-sharpen. So I used to be good at tearing things up quickly (as opposed to slicing cleanly), and now my remaining utility is as a butter knife. Sigh.

I don’t think anyone with any sense believes that “we can know God by mind alone”, but we have to use our minds to understand His revelations to us, and also to protect ourselves from false teachings with a patina of credibility.

Mike, having thought a bit, I have a question. In your syllogisms you used the terms “good” and “love” as if we all have agreed on the meanings. Is it possible that those definitions are the root of the problem?

I guess I mean this: please distinguish “love”, if you wish, from “maximum gentleness and ease-making”. You’ve used it, perhaps, in a way where that phrase would fit about equally well.

And please distinguish “good”, if you wish, from “what makes human life easier, more pleasant, and less painful”. It’s also possible your use of the term “good” sometimes fits with “maximum possible spiritual benefit” or “maximum number of souls saved” or something of the sort, but that’s a good deal less clear to me, since some of your instances of “not good” are purely about life on earth, frequently physical consequences, etc. I suppose all of these share a focus on specific outcomes.

Given those definitions, your syllogism is indeed compelling… but with other definitions, perhaps there are other perspectives.

Phil - Yes, “we have no choice but to think, evaluate, try to make sense of it, try to harmonize seemingly conflicting statements from scripture, etc.” All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t be surprised when we sometimes get to the end of our minds’ abilities to make sense of God. It might even be appropriate to feel relieved at those times.

Michael - I agree with Phil that some definitions would be good (and by “good” I mean “helpful for communicating with maximal clarity and minimal misunderstanding”).

Well, I’ll just say this, Aly. I’ve gotten lots more comfortable with what I never really expect to understand, and sometimes pleasantly surprised when I find myself feeling like I have learned something useful (that doesn’t happen often… I’m a slow learner).

God’s ways are indeed sometimes inscrutable… and other times, they are just blindingly simple and clear. Or not.

Well, to all of you knives - sharp, dull, and in-between - remember this: it could be a lot worse.

Sincerely
A marble

I guess I am a baby Christian when I read the question and then read the answers I was confused even more.

My view is this. Sometimes God has a plan that we cannot see no matter how hard we try. I think that if people pray, maybe the whole reason the child was sick was to bring someone to a relationship with Him, regardless of the outcome of the sick child. The other option is perhaps God sees it rather simply, the child would have had an awful life and God saw fit to take the child rather than heal the child to bring her to His glorious place to live rather than suffer on earth. Remember even if God did not let the child die it does not mean that the child has a wonderful life with no more suffering.

God listens to us, God tells us to pray, maybe it is a way of getting us closer to Him? I know that God always answers prayers, sometimes, yes, sometimes no, sometimes wait, but He always answers.

If a child was sick and the people pray around her, regardless of the outcome God will still be there, to comfort, to rejoice, to help with mourning, or to move them through celebration. Sometimes it is not about the person they are praying for but rather the people who are brought to pray.

I’m a spoon. And, Aly and Mike are my superheros. (I’m sending you both tights for Christmas. And I never, ever want to personally view you, Mike, in them.) I like you too Phil.

I think the answer is really quite simple: God loves me more than you, hence the Red Sox won and the Angels lost. I’m just trying to figure what I did to tick him off last night… ;-)

But seriously, I have struggled with this question off and on most of my life, usually whenever something happens to ME, or whenever I happen to think about it, or both. That isn’t meant to be flip. Whenever I stop to think about it, I come up with the same tangle (although you put it much more succintly). Most of the time I don’t think about unless it affects me personally.

A week ago, my car was stolen from in front of my house (while I was home, no less). Undoubtedly this is God’s punishment for failing to support the Angels, but it really sucks and I did spend considerable intellectual energy wondering, “Why me?” “Why did God DO this to me?” “Why did God LET this happen to me?” Of course, I prayed that I’d recover my car intact.

My car was found, but stripped of just enough parts and trashed just enough to be declared a total loss. Did God answer my prayer (I’m not even sure I’m asking rhetorically, just reporting)? All sorts of questions are churning up - Who would do this? Why did the thieves have to trash my car instead of just taking the parts they wanted? Why doesn’t God stop evil? Or more accurately, I suppose, why doesn’t God stop evil from affecting ME?

On the other hand, I’ve experienced incredible kindness and grace. It was my car that was violated, not my daughter. Nothing irreplaceable was lost. My neighbor lent me her car to get my daughter to school. The family business I work for has lent me the shop van until I find another car. Someone at church offered to lend me transportation as well.

Thanks for suggesting Greg Boyd’s book, Phil. It sounds like what I need to get some insight and some perspective.

If the unthinkable happens and the Red Sox do win tonight, will I still be allowed to post here?

Eric

If the Boston Evil Sox of Boston manage to squeak out a victory (no doubt due to home-town umps and outright cheating) then this blog will immediately self destruct in a flaming pile mocking posts from Mr Chad.

And that would be … “good”?

I don’t really know what I’m talking about (I’ve only taken Intro to Philosophy), but I’ve been thinking about this and decided to share my thoughts. (Please don’t bully the undergrad student for lack of clarity or understanding. I might cry.)

If you’re definition of God in this question is “the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe,” then one of your final choices must be wrong. If God is unhearing, He is not omniscient. If He is unable, He is not omnipotent. If He is unloving, then God is not perfect. Therefore, either your definition of God is not the same as mine, or there is some error in the logic that caused you to arrive at these conclusions.

I just don’t know exactly what that error is. This is the only thing I can think of: If you take a characteristic of God (i.e. He is unloving) and try to describe what He can (or must) and cannot do, then you are limiting Him, when really, He is limitless. I don’t really have a great answer for this problem, and it’s actually the first time I’ve ever considered it, but those are just a couple of thoughts I had when I read this.

I understand the desire for a “limitless” God. Keep in mind that some ways of thinking, however, are really attempts to limit God’s choices in how He designed the creation, how He maintains it, what His relationship is to it, etc.

Consider: it is impossible to have a totally loving God and a totally just one, if you define love as total unwillingness to do or tolerate harm, and justice as completely balanced consequences for choices.

This is sometimes called “conflicting imperatives”.

I still think the problem is one of definitions. That fact that God can’t make a rock so heavy that he can’t lift it is not evidence that He is not omnipotent. While many of the examples we give are not so inherently silly, they frequently have the same flawed reasoning behind them.

None of our superlatives (omnipotence, omniscience, all loving, omnipresence) can MEAN anything in the absence of God the Person… that is, it’s impossible to describe an omnipotent person who is not omniscient and omnipresent, etc. To have any of these traits may require a Being who has them ALL. What we can’t wrap our heads around is the total package…. I mean, you can SAY God is omnipotent, but what does that mean if you can state things that God can’t do… like die forever.

Not to get all historical or anything, but the Bible doesn’t precisely say that God knows the entire future in exhaustive detail. It refers to specific things He prophesies…. and even then, it isn’t precisely clear if He is “predicting out of foreknowledge” or stating his “omnipotent intent” to bring them about by whatever means He deems necessary. This is not a knock on God’s omniscience. It may mean that God created the universe so that the precise future we will have cannot be known, even by Him. If you say He is unable to create such a universe, you’re saying He is not truly omnipotent. Again, conflicting imperatives…. Oddly, this (future not fully known) understanding of God requires a God who knows MORE than just the one future we’ll actually have. It requires a God who knows all possible futures, and knows He can work His will in each, and how He will do it in each case… which doesn’t have to be the same in each.

So, oddly, the “God who doesn’t know the future exhaustively” knows MORE than the God who only needs to know ONE future, the one He has either pre-ordained or merely foreknows.

Sorry about this if it seems like mumbo jumbo… It’s my clumsy attempt to recap one of the perspectives in the Greg Boyd book I mentioned earlier in this thread.

It really is worth reading.

Okay, so I skimmed the post and read the responses, thus creating a bias in my answer and forcing me to go back and read the actual post. As far as knives, forks, spoons and even a marble, I am more like a rake in a land of lawn vacuums. I still get the job done most of the time but not without a bunch of hard work.

I am not much more than a pastor and believe these discussions have a great value as long as we do not fall in love with the sound of our own voices (read questions and thoughts) When the call comes in at 2:00am and it is the parents of a 6 month old boy who died in his crib, these answers do not help me love them. And when I stood with the family of the 19 year old who was run down by a car and we prayerfully pulled the plug, and then cried as life left his body, none of these questions or answers mattered. I can think of a thousand more instances where these questions do not really help.

Please do not misunderstand, I think these questions and discussions hold great value and I am not trying to demean them, we must be able to ask questions that force our thinking to stretch.

Very often when these questions are asked the people asking them (not you Michael) often end up feeling bigger and feeling as though God owes them an explanation. I believe God can stand the scrutiny but I am not sure we can handle our temptation to scrutinize God and find him wanting.

In the end of the day, there will be much more about God I do not know and cannot know than I do know. Faith tells me to work of what I do know in order to trust him with what I do not know. I have a ton more but 24 season 6 is due back and I still have one episode to watch.

Leonard, I’m not at all suggesting that these answers belong in the pastoral handbook. They belong in fireside armchairs, or in the lecture hall, or at a web-based backyard BBQ. They don’t belong next to the hospital bed, or at the graveside, or in the counseling session.

But this is also more than just idle musings. This is a serious stumbling block for me in my understanding of God, and I am incapable of surrendering reason at this point of inquiry. I find reason to be a deep expression of God’s breath within us, the purest reflection of his mind onto our own, so strongly knit into our nature that when He calls on us to “know” and to “believe”, he is striking the fundamental tone of our being, and every other human thought is the resonance of that fundamental, the rational being.

God expects us to be rational. He gave us reason as our primary tool for investigating the world, to understand it, and by means of it to see him revealed in it. Every corner of creation obeys the laws of reason, by necessity, and it is so complete a tool of inquiry that, as Paul tells the Romans, God holds us accountable to know his laws of justice and love simply by application of reason to the data of the universe.

God desires to be known by us. God fitted us with reason as our most trustworthy tool of knowledge. I must believe that God expects us to apply that tool in our search for him.

I cannot accept that such a God, who crafted such a place, would expect those who are striving so earnestly to know him to lay aside the first, best tool he gave them at their moment of deepest inquiry.

I share Phil’s concern with the “limitless God”, the God who at any time can do anything at all, who can chose any possible path without consequence. Removing all constraints from God’s freedom to act, including constraints based in his own nature, makes God again directly responsible for all suffering in the world.

If I am able to rescue a drowning person, but stand by and do nothing, I am responsible for that person’s death. If God is likewise capable of freely meddling with action and consequences with no constraints, and yet stands by to allow suffering, he is responsible for that suffering.

Such a God may exist, but if he does, he deserves no allegiance, and no loving praise.

I do not believe in such a God. I do believe in a God who is perfectly loving, and all-powerful. As such, I believe that the only limitations on his actions are those imposed by his own nature - the limitations demanded by love, by justice, and by the pursuit of the best possible outcome for all his created beings.

But I cannot reconcile that fundamental belief in the goodness of God with a God who is limitlessly free, in response to prayer, to alter any and every circumstance to eradicate suffering, in the overwhelming presence of so many circumstances where he does not.

Michael, not trying to suggest these thoughts and conversations are not necessary. I also believe you know the place for these, if I intoned any different I apologize.

I challenge that Reason is the primary tool given to us. I agree Paul told the Romans in Romans 1 that they were heal accountable for their poor use of reason, because reason often requires a bridge of faith in the places were our limits create a gap. You know this because you live this daily.

Faith is the primary tool God gives us because it overpowers reason. But faith requires me to give up my control of the “gaps” my reason cannot bridge. Hebrews 11 states it is BY FAITH WE KNOW… This is huge. God defies reason and where God does defy reason it is not because he is inconsisten but because my reasoning is limited.

I believe we are to use reason to discover God, the world around us and to know and reason our faith. I study and have studied my whole life, I believe in reason it is just the older I get and the more I know, the more I realize that God works on a different standard than I do. Kind of like his ways are not mine.

This past week I had someone accuse me of a double standard in how I acted and how they acted. As I listened to their tale of a double standard, this thought came to me. It is not a double standard, it is two standards all together.

It was not a double standard as if we were equal, it is to different standards because we are not equal. I have a different set of duties, responsibilities, accountability and much more. I don’t have to work off the same standard and to do so would be to limit my work. For my co-worker to hold me to the same standard as himself is a misunderstanding of his place in our church. He allowed the assumption of a double standard to erode trust and build mistrust. In essence his ability to reason what did not compute began to erode his faith.

I am not saying this is you Michael, but is is true of many I know. If it is okay with you I would love to extend the dialog here.

Your posts are so well written and filled with so much all at once. I would with your patience keep engaged in this since I too believe it is important.

I would take a different view of the relationship of faith and reason.

Faith does not exist “in spite of” reason. Faith is a reasonable response to evidence.

Yes, there are people who reason poorly, and people who reason well from incorrect presuppositions. For such people to arrive at faith, it will have to be “in spite of” their poor use of reason and evidence. The answer for these people, however, is to work with them in the quality of their reason, and the quality and nature of the evidence and presuppositions they accept as the starting point for reason.

God’s primary vehicle for revealing himself is the scripture, even acknowledging the role of inspiration and the Holy Spirit. The scripture is in words. Our job is to try to understand the words, as a step to knowing God. Sometimes the words appear to be contradictory on a surface analysis. At that point, reason is our primary way of working through the problem, and arriving at a conclusion that allows us to live fully.

I would argue that it is faith that allows us to use our reason effectively. “Faith seeking understanding” is a very old idea. But it runs both ways. Reason, well employed, increases faith. And it takes faith to take the risk of where reason may lead.

Faith and reason are not opposites, nor are they in conflict, correctly employed. They refine each other, and correct each other. They are inseparable twins.

Regarding the pastoral implications of correct reasoning about this, I can only (again) recommend Greg Boyd’s book, already linked earlier in this thread. Boyd is a pastor. He believes that the “open view of the future” has been very useful in helping tragically bereaved people reconcile God’s love and providence with the experience of their lives. It removes the necessity to “blame God for what He could and should have prevented”, yet it does not deny the power and love of God in any sense. And, it is based on hope, of the Pauline sort, and the promise that, in spite of it all, God is STILL working the future to bring about good for those who love Him (and many who don’t, for that matter).

Phil, Greg Boyd is not, by any chance, your pen name, is it?

I wish. I could use the royalties.

@ Leonard:

If it is okay with you I would love to extend the dialog here … I would with your patience keep engaged in this since I too believe it is important.

I’d like that very much.

By the way, nothing you’ve said here reads as belittling or dismissive or insulting in any way - we have a policy here of granting every comment the charitable reading, whenever possible. It serve us well!

Pull up a chair, grab a cold one, and stay a while.

I want to put a disclaimer saying I have not read any other comments before posting mine so I hope that I am not interrupting anything or repeating anything. I have only read the original post.

…Also my undergraduate level of understanding comes into play and I am still new to philosophy, be warned….

Personally I refer back to the original 7 phases of Creation and I question that everything was Good up to when he created us. I feel that this view was written down and taken as a biased perception that God would not create suffering or Evil but contradicts the aspect of God being the Creator of Everything.

In truth I feel that suffering and Evil are stages in which were necessary parts of development in order to create life in the beginning. Without Good there is no Evil without Evil there is no Good and in turn as a result he created Free-Will to give us (as well as any other organism out there with Free-Will) the choice. To put it more mathematically and realistically I see that when God was writing down or waving his hands to create the heavens and the earth and the universe he began to create equations for Free-Will and Suffering and Good and Virtue and Evil and Hatred that would go in turn with the balance of everything in order to create life. (I want to go more into this but honestly its a new concept that i’ve picked up from reading your post….more to come in the future from this)

So what does this have to do with after billions of years of creation he still allows us to suffer?

The very existence of Free-Will. You simply can not blame God for cancer, for poverty, for famine but in turn we the beings that were created in the image (or as I view it the reflection) of God that are to blame. With the ability of Free-Will we are Free to add to the great equation of life and fail to follow by the rules throughout time and instead fall into the seven deadly sins.

Is God suppose to treat us like his innocent children for all of eternity? Being the only thing in existence that can cure things with a snap of a finger? And how will that truly play into the balance of everything?

In truth as the human race continues to progress through time I feel that God will become more and more distant but not in a bad way, but rather in a fatherly way. I feel that it is this distance that has caused events to occur such as the Great Flood and the Crucifixion of the anointed one. We have yet to learn. We fail to remember that we are not alone in this universe but rather a small piece of this great puzzle. Astronomers are finding that small specks of black in our sky are filled with millions of galaxies farther and farther away. But what does this mean about suffering? Just as you’ve said and i’ve said, there can not be Good without the presence of evil and even though people try to say that those are points of views I have to say that those points of views can be seen very commonly throughout any being of Good or Evil. We are all here in this universe on whatever planet we are one to learn and in my opinion reach a point where we can be understood mentally and physically to be balanced entities to sit at the throne of God.

This is where I believe the concept of Heaven and Hell truly come from, but that is another discussion completely.

Don’t be too harsh on me this time but rather I look forward to reading remarks to what I have to say. I want to write more but I feel like it would take much of my time and its 1:46 in the morning with class in 6 hours so I better get to sleep. I hope to continue on with what i’ve already said because this is the points of discussion I find to be important. It will be when people can sit and discuss the aspects of realty and existence hand in hand with the cause and effect of instances that we will find truth in the world as well as balance both mentally and socially.

“we have a policy here of granting every comment the charitable reading, whenever possible”

Hah. What about the times somebody decides it ISN’T possible?

Sigh

[weeping quietly]

then, the flames.

You literally have NOTHING to do during your sabbatical, do you Phil?

:-)

Nope. Writing music is WAY too easy.

So far I’ve built a large redwood bridge (to connect my driveway to my mother-in-law’s house across a wash) and a really huge bird play area. (Thinking of going into business making these.) I’m teaching my son chemistry and music, and researching guitars for him.

Actually, I’m thinking of mounting a last minute run at the Presidency as a write-in candidate.

My platform is simple: things will not get worse. Or, at least, not much.

After reading a few comments, I would like to take time to comment first and foremost about the reasons and explanations to contemplate the reasoning of God.

I feel that this is a better practice than debating how pretty we are, judging how much greater our art is vs your art or finding a higher price to put on our art in order to make the gap between rich and poor even larger. When we understand the rational reasoning for topics such as suffering via the influence of God we can gain more control over the chaotic nature that is existence.

Another point I would like to bring up is the relationship between religion and the middle way that is Buddhism. I want to bring up this point because of the definition of karma. Buddhists believe that Karma follows you throughout your journeys of lives, so lets say a simple explanation for someone suffering from cancer is that in a previous life they may of gotten away with multiple murders that were caused for the only reason of their own desire and lust for power over other humans. A simple conclusion I know but an interesting concept relating back to the overall equation that could be the interrelationships of our existence.

Phil,
I am going to be kind of simple in this dialog as I do not possess the intellect you guys have or Greg Boyd.
You get no argument here that faith and reason can and should co-exist. But let me be a bit of an antagonist for a bit. I just returned from India and where I was there are many extreme Muslim and Hindu people. These folks are extreme not on the basis of reason but on the basis of blindness, history and illiteracy. Many of them cannot read. Their brand of extremism comes from tradition and hype and fear, not reason and faith. Then, into a village comes a mobile medical clinic we built about 18 months ago. The village gets treatment for sickness, medicine, vaccinations for preventable disease and love and kindness and dignity.
After a short while some in the village become Christians because in their own words; “even our own people will not love and care for us this way. But you, people we were told were our enemies, show us love.” In other words, these people experience something that defies reason and faith blooms. Then the respond in a way that defies their reason. Reason says, “hey, if you follow Christ, you will get beaten, suffer, be an outcast and die.” Faith says, “because of the kindness of God I have seen and the healing of God I have received, I will follow Him.” This is actually what takes place in John 9 and several other places in the Gospels.
In nearly 30 years of ministry, I have rarely answered with information a question that made someone come to faith. I have seen literally thousands upon thousands of people come to Christ, but it is so rare that this approach brings faith. I know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but that does not necessarily include or preclude reason. It sometimes involves the simple story of God’s love on the cross and the resurrection. Both of these key gospel pieces defy reason, at least my reason.
Most people I am privileged to lead to Christ make a step of faith on the basis of something personal. Or let me rephrase, in the face of reasons inability to piece together everything. I know I am talking below the level of this discussion, but I think it necessary to understand that trust in God, faith as it were, is what leads to assurance in God in the face of what is unseen, unknown and unknowable.
I came to Christ on the basis of something personal in my life. My dad abandoned us when we were young, leaving a hole inside me. It was not reason that drew me to Christ is was the promise I would have a father, a Heavenly Father. Every adult I lead to Christ has the same story.
I met with a guy recently and told him; If I could answer every question you had about God right now, would you give your heart to him? His answer was no. When he finally did, it was because in spite of what he did not know, he needed to be forgiven. It was personal.
Take another step. (I am sure you already have) Enter into the mix free will. My view of free will is not me having the ability to do whatever I want, rather it is me having the ability to choose my master. I am sure there are many holes in this, please be gentle. I have never been free to do anything and everything, I have only been free to pick a path. For example, I can say, I don’t want to work anymore, I am free. I can make this choice but my freedom as to where I live, what I eat, what I wear, how my family survives… all is impacted. I am not free to do this. I have responsibilities that limit my freedom. I have morals that limit my freedom; I have values that limit my freedom… I am not free. In the Garden of Eden, Mankind exercised free will and chose a different master than the one they walked in the cool of the evening with. They chose to “eat” and in doing so were left with the consequences of that choice and so are we. Choosing the wrong master has huge ramifications. Jesus spoke about truth and freedom, but a careful read points out that freedom in Jesus’ economy is submission and obedience to his words.
Let me go a step further. Now I am in dangerous waters. God’s Sovereignty is in essence his ability to do whatever he wants with whatever he chooses. Hand me a pile of bricks and there is a huge number of things I can build, but all of those things will be limited by me and by the materials I work with. Hand God a pile of bricks and he can build a zebra if he wants to. He can build a car, a cat or something with bricks. He is not limited to building with bricks only that which can be built by bricks.
Translate that to my life. God has taken the pain of my life (bricks as it were) and built with said bricks something not made of brick. He has taken hurt and anguish and made trust and wholeness. He has taken weakness and made strength. He has taken sickness and disease and made hope and health. His sovereignty means that whatever I hand him he can use. We say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but god is not limited to this. When life hands us lemons and we pass those on to our heavenly father, he can make salsa if he wants. He can do what he wants with whatever he wants.
Adam and eve handed God a brick of sin. He took it and from his own account, created redemption. Acts 4 gives us the pinnacle of this sovereignty. They took the only innocent human that ever lived and murdered him but God had a plan and that plan was to make from murder soup and redemption feast. That is why their prayer starts “Sovereign Lord.”
Forgive me for my infusion of homey thinking. I do not mean to short circuit the dialog of a fireside armchair, it is just that I have lived so long in other places I rarely get to go to the fireside armchair. Thanks for the indulgence.
Let me stop here except to say, we cannot ferret out certain attributes of God as individual traits. They are all him and inseparable from each other. He is or he isn’t. Could this be a part of what he meant when he said I AM? I also hope this is not the conversation killer kind of post. We have seen Chad do that before. (I would put a little smiley face here with a winking eye if I knew how)

(Did someone say “art?!”)

Leonard, I think you might be working from a more limited definition of reason than I am. Reason is not the whole body of philosophy, working through the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, or anything like that. Those things are all the fruit of reason. Reason is the tool, not the result.

I’m defining reason as the basic set of knowledge tools that all people are born with:

If this, then this
If this, then not this

The example you gave of conversions on the basis of loving acts, your final summary statement is an almost perfect statement of reason; “because of the kindness of God I have seen and the healing of God I have received, I will follow Him.”

In that case, it is reason that allows the person to evaluate the value of the God revealed against the cost of the suffering to follow, and to chose belief.

I can see what you say Michael. Would it then be fair to say that our reason is damaged by sin? and if so to hold a God, undamaged by sin accountable to reason damage by sin makes me question the reason not God. Just say warmer or colder and that will help me.

I see sin as acts opposite of reason (Michael may see this differently) because if you take for example Greed. If the higher authorities in a certain area become fearful and hoard the food to themselves they cause famine in the lower (or poorer) part of the area, thus resulting in suffering and in turn the need for virtuous men/women to save that area (playing more as the hands of God answering prayers)

Hopefully that is on the right track. Saying rather it is not damaged but a path opposite of reason that is the overall actions of evil in and of itself.

“Just say warmer or colder and that will help me.”

Funny man, funny man.

I think I would say that the structure of reason, the basic laws of reason, are part of the furniture of the universe, unimpeded by sin. Like the law of gravity, or thermodynamics, it just is, and human frailty doesn’t have any impact on their existence.

Sin causes us to use reason in improper ways, or to give undue weight to some data, or to prefer certain outcomes over others. If I reason that I should hoard my excess food against the possibility of future famine, and do nothing to ease the immediate hunger of my neighbor, that’s not a failing of reason, that’s a failure to give charity its due value in the equation.

I find this to be true of many, if not all, of the cases where the bible seems to relegate reason to the back seat. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, the wisdom of the world is failing, God’s truth is foolishness to those who do not believe - these are all indictments of a faulty data set. We value things that God does not, God values things that we do not, we are all too willing to use the tools of reason to accomplish unreasonable things, or things that would be unreasonable if we acted out of a godly perspective on the world and those in it.

I think this uncorrupted aspect of reason can be seen in how we use it as a corrective to poor choices. If someone who is part of our worshiping body chooses to engage in repeated acts of sin, we appeal to their reason. “Think of what this is doing to your family”, or “Scripture clearly points out that this is contrary to God’s will”, or “Is this really worth the cost to break communion with God in this way?” These are appeals to reason, albeit appeals that rely on a set of values that seem foolish to unbelievers. Even when a person is in obvious sin, we assume that their faculty of reason is still intact.

Could it be that terminology is causing some confusion, Mike? You write that “the basic laws of reason are…unimpeded by sin,” but in the next paragraph, “Sin causes us to use reason in improper ways.” I understand the subtlety (I think), but it seems as though it would be fair to say at least that our reasonING (the way in which we apply the laws of reason) is certainly damaged by sin, or at least by our limited (and generally egocentric) viewpoint.

All the “reasonable” arguments used to appeal to those of us in sin can’t counterbalance the faulty “reason” of, for example, addictive or compulsive behaviours.

Eric

I might put it this way:

The basic laws of reason are unimpeded by sin.

Our ability to apply those laws correctly is impeded by our finiteness, first, and our sin, second.

But consider: the very FIRST sin we have on record was a result of faulty reasoning. It cannot be correct to say that it was the RESULT of sin, because sin hadn’t appeared in humanity yet. Eve reasoned incorrectly, i.e., she was taken in by a faulty argument, and THEN she sinned. The record is quite clear.

Now here is what I meant by faith and reason being correctives for each other. If Eve’s FAITH had been stronger (that God loved her, wanted the best for her, knew what that best was, and would lead her to it in due time, in His way, to her benefit), her faulty reasoning, abetted by the serpent, would have generated questions for her to ask God, but would not have resulted in sin. Or, if Eve’s REASON had been stronger, even though her outright faith in God was weak, she would have asked the obvious question of the serpent, “Exactly who are YOU, and why should I believe anything you say?” That would have been the beginnings of epistemology.

There is a further point. One way to discern the faith a person has is by the choices they make. Eve seems to have had a failure of faith in God’s good will and providence for her. In addition, she seems to have had faith in the serpent, enough to act on the serpent’s advice and false information and reasoning. In other words, she had faith in the wrong person, or the wrong thing, as proved by her choice. The story is a perfect illustration of the fact that faith is insufficient without reason. One may have faith, great faith, in a great many false things.

Both her reason and her faith failed. And she sinned. The same is true for Adam, who would have done well to ask a few skeptical questions of her, born out of REASONED desire to understand the situation clearly, but who also would have been rescued had his FAITH in God been stronger.

Leonard, I have to point out that Hamas does many of the things in Gaza and the West Bank that you did in India. It provides food, clothing, medical care, even jobs and housing. And, I have to say, the reason that so many Palestinian people feel positively towards Hamas is because it seems to them that Hamas cares for them. It would be possible to take what you wrote about serving the Indian people, and substitute the Palestinian people, and take what you said about leading them to Christ, and substitute Allah and Islamic radicalism. It would be possible to take your comments about people choosing Christ, not out of reason, but out of faith in the source of the love they have received from Christians, and substitute people believing the revelation of Allah, not out of reason, but out of faith in the love and care they may feel from Hamas. And, it is surely clear that the faith they have is “unreasonably” self-sacrificial…. frequently explosively so.

Reason is the only defense you have from someone who treats you with apparent love, but for false motives. (There are some political implications in this, as well, but that’s a topic for a different thread.)

The church, all too often, has lionized faith to the detriment of reason, not understanding that the Biblical definition of faith was not the ability to believe twenty impossible things before breakfast, but the ability to live as if you believe things that are TRUE, and which, at a minimum, cannot be proved false by anyone. Even that minimalist standard requires reason. It is quite simply impossible to read the letters of Paul, in particular, and not grasp how critical reason is to the Christian. Paul uses reason to combat faith in false things constantly, as he does battle with Gnostics, Judaizers, pagans, and other false teachers. He doesn’t just say, “That’s wrong,” he says WHY, using the tools of reason working on correct information as starting points.

He would be a difficult person with whom to debate, I think. And he is the model for all missionaries, is he not? Please understand, I’m not suggesting that debate was his primary evangelizing tool (though he certainly used it that way on occasion), but I am suggesting that he was a very thoroughly grounded person intellectually, able to show the falseness in some seemingly logical teaching, by using the tools of reason. It is no accident that God chose Paul as the original missionary to the Gentiles (with his intellectual background, education, and scholarly credentials), and we would do well to emulate ALL of his characteristics, including a strong integration of faith and reason.

Phil, I actually think we agree on the reason/faith combo. I prepare to speak hundreds of times a year and reason is always a part of my preparation and presentation. I also agree that reason is a primary tool in the development of faith as well. I am not suggesting otherwise, or at least I am not trying to suggest otherwise.

As a primary tool Paul would find a synagogue, go reason and see if any Jewish people wanted to discover the Messiah, he was often backed up by miraculous power. Both of which were empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring about faith. Which by the way is the big difference in Hammas and our work in India. The Holy Spirit and the Gospel.

If reason is its own entity so to speak with a governing set of rules or law, can you tell me what those laws are? That would help me understand your OS here in this discussion.

I think that even if reason remains untainted that we do not. We kind of get in the quagmire of greed. Greed is not only about stuff it is about knowledge, power, information, influence and I am sure you can think of more as well. Reasoning corrupted is a some of the most fertile soil for greed to plant its seeds. The human hearts capacity to be deceived and to deceive itself makes the corruption of the reasoner almost limitless and almost undetectable to the reasoner. Pride (loving the sound of our own voice and thoughts) tends to move us deeper into a quagmire (one of mt smart words) of self deception, corrupted reasoning and eventually landing us under the hand of a perfect God. This is my summary of Romans 1.

I have a tendency to be a bit self preoccupied in my reasoning, so even if reason remains uncorrupted by sin, I do not nor do you. For reason to be effective in the area of THE Faith, the reasoner must be regenerated, submitted, and humble. Even then we have a million kinds of Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Nazarene, Church of Christ… you get the picture. Some of which are absolutely convinced of the reason used to create their faith structure and doctrine. And this is with the help of the Holy writ and God the Holy Spirit.

Every few years someone comes along and says all the reasoning used before was wrong and now there is a better way to reason, a better starting point, a better set of questions… They say you misunderstood all along, and were off in your original interpretation… This is what could be classified as church history or just the emergent movement, or the reformation, or the great awakening, or the charismatic movement from Azusa Street in 1906 or …

Boil that down and you have some pretty big questions and some pretty small answers.

What if as a part of our corrupted reasoning we were asking questions we were not meant to ask? Kind of like the 7 year old who is supposed to be asleep but interrupts his parents intimate moment with the question… What are you two doing in there? Most parents are not going to answer the question with a detailed explanation of sex, but rather an immediate “GO TO BED” followed by a simple. Mommy and Daddy were praying… you get the point.

One of the most devastating impacts of too much information on the hearts and minds of kids today is they ask questions they cannot answer nor could they handle the answer if they had it. We call this the loss of innocence. Much faith loses its innocence simply by its demand for answers.

When I got the call that my 5 month old cousin had dies of sids and his parents needed me, I hopped a plane and spent 8 days with the family. When I walked up the driveway the parents ran to me and fell into my arms. We stood in the driveway for an hour and cried together in each others arms. We then sat down and cried for a few more hours, in silence, in pain but together.

In the morning we sat down and began to work on the “next” thing to do. for 2 days we cried, moved to what was next, cried moved to what was next and then the question came. WHY? Why did this happen? Was it our sin, was it God’s fault, WHY? Why? why…

My response was “I don’t know” then we cried, got angry, cursed (me too) cried, got depressed, and did what was next. In the final couple days there I sat with the parents, grand parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, all people of faith.

I asked them; other than an explanation, what do you need from God right now. Comfort, confidence and hope were their answers. In that moment, the gap between understanding God and human pain and reasoning powers gone wrong was so big and trite “all things work together” quotes sounded like bullshit.

I encouraged them that while “why” was a natural question to ask it was a thief. It was the one question that would steal from them what they needed from God. Why steals our confidence in God’s love, power and kindness. Why, demanding and answer, leaves us trapped in a place without hope. Why keeps us stuck in a place where comfort look in on us but never stays. Why is a thief. One reason is that even if it were answered, we would not think the answer worth it. If God told me why, I would not say, Okay God, that is fine, its worth the death of my baby, my dreams and the plans we made for his life. Thanks for answering me.

I tell you this, not because you are missing some piece of information but because it illustrates how stinking damaged we are as reasoners. Even with the Rules of reason firmly entrenched I am damaged interpreter of the information my reasoning or others reasoning brings and I am a damaged investigator because my questions come with a damaged bias.

Just thinking out loud here Warmer…? Colder…?

Leonard, I’ll jump in the middle just to address your question on what the rules of reason are. Wikipedia has a decently well-written reference page here. They are basically:

The Law of Identity: a thing is itself [A = A]. Red is red.

The Law of Non-Contradiction: a proposition and it’s contradiction cannot both be true at same time and in the same manner. [if A=B, then A ≠ not B] An apple can’t be both red, and not red, at the same time and with the same meaning for all the words.

The Law of the Excluded Middle (sometimes a subset of the law of non-contradiction): A proposition is either true or false [if A=true, then A≠ not true] If it is false that all apples are red, then it is not true that all apple are red.

There’s a case to be made for a fourth law, sometimes called the law of sufficient reason, or the law of causality. It was more popular a hundred years ago, before Einstein and quantum weirdness, but I think a good case can still be made for it.

Thanks Mike. I’d like to exclude some of MY middle.

It’s also worth pointing out that these foundational laws of reason also give rise to several extensions, both in terms of principles that get us someplace, and in terms of definitions of logical fallacies.

And, even with laws of reason in place, we’re still stuck with having to discern the quality of our starting facts and presuppositions.

Leonard, I don’t think there are ANY questions we shouldn’t ask. But there are times when asking particular questions can be more helpful, and times when asking the same questions can be less helpful.

The time to be doing your careful thinking about the WHY of human suffering and loss is not right after your right arm has been accidentally cut off…. Or, as you point out, when your child just died. The time is much sooner than that, so that you are a least a bit better prepared for the suffering and loss we all face, sooner or later. No one has a corner on it.

I continue to believe that certain theological perspectives are simply less “comforting” than others. And, in my opinion, the less comforting ones are frequently less supported by scripture. That’s why I keep recommending a certain book… read earlier in the thread for that.

I certainly agree with the role of the Holy Spirit working in us to lead us to proper perspectives. But surely there is no chance that the Holy Spirit will lead you to believe that Moses was also Abraham, or that one could be a Gentile and Jew at the same time, or that some pagans are really Christians, or whatever. Yet, equally silly propositions have been put forth by people, frequently claiming the Holy Spirit as their origin.

The Spirit works in me (I hope and believe), but I am unlikely to directly see it in someone else. All kinds of people claim the operation of the Spirit as their reason for doing and believing all kinds of things. My primary defense against such is less likely to be the Spirit whispering in my ear “Don’t trust THAT guy” than it is to be my reasoned evaluation of what is claimed, in the light of scripture and tradition. Paul tells us to test everything, and this is part of what he meant. And, Paul tells us what spirit-filled people are likely to be like, how they are likely to live and respond to life, etc. I don’t recall much direct scriptural support for the notion that the Spirit, in me, will tell me directly that something someone else is doing or saying also comes straight from the Spirit.

If that were the norm, to be blunt, we would not need scripture, or at least only about 20 verses or so. The scripture is as large as it is partly to provide multiple attestation, and partly because it has so much guidance in it to keep us from error. That implies it’s pretty darn easy to fall into error. As Eve demonstrated, you can fall into error from either lack of faith in what has been clearly revealed to you, and also from lack of reason in asking questions that need to be asked.

I pray, in faith, for clarity of reason. I pray, in faith, to see clearly what are the starting points from which to reason. I reason from the scripture as a way to keep from error, and to correct faulty reasoning I may have done about one part of scripture, when I discover an apparent contradiction in another part. (Note my presupposition: scripture, to be scripture, must not contradict itself in significant ways. When it appears to, we hold our conclusions in abeyance, waiting for a better idea, which hopefully is provided in the Spirit. What we DON’T do is dogmatically cling to a conclusion that seems to flow from one passage, but is not supported by another.)

The pastoral use of reason is critical in preparing Christians with concepts and perspectives that will help them defend themselves in hard times. But unless it’s just a reminder of a concept or perspective that has already been built in the Christian, reason has very limited immediate application in alleviating suffering. I wouldn’t try to convince someone of God’s providence using the “open view of the future” or “open theology” when they’ve never heard it before. Or, at least, not until some considerable time had passed.

But if someone has just suffered a terrible loss, and in a moment of anguish cries out, “Why did God let this happen?”, or worse, “Why did God DO this thing?”, and has been pastorally prepared with clear teaching and reason on the matter, scripturally based, at an earlier time, I think it’s just inevitably easier to provide comfort, after first “weeping with those who weep”. I certainly don’t recommend “reasoning” with someone who has just experienced a great loss…. all you can do, sometimes, is just be there, and let them say what they need to say, and be God’s arms around them.

The central point, as scripture makes clear in the comments about rain falling on us all, just and unjust, is that the universe is NOT totally controlled by God in every particular, not because He can’t, but because of how He designed it in the first place to satisfy His reasons for creation. It boils down to this: the desire to feel no pain, and to experience no loss, is the desire to be dead, or the desire to be in heaven. It is just not the nature of life on Earth, even before sin. There is no scriptural reason to think Adam did not have pain nerves, and never stubbed his toe.

But it’s better for this lesson to be taught before the pain or loss, and the reasoning from both scripture and science that supports it.

We have strayed quite far from the specific topic of how prayer affects things, and particularly how prayer for the relief of pain interacts with God’s actions and the nature of creation itself. Yet, I think it’s all connected in this way: the Scripture tells us many times when God has “changed his mind” due to prayer and human pleading. And it says that God hears. More troubling are those scriptures that imply that all we have to do is ask in faith, and it will be ours. We feel unworthy when we pray, we hope in faith, and no apparent answer is forthcoming, nor apparent divine intervention in the problem about which we prayed.

That fact has led to lots of bad reasoning about the apparent “faith status” of the people doing the praying.

Phil,
The central point of rain falling on the good and bad is not that God doesn’t control everything but that much of what he controls or has put in motion impacts people without partiality. Rain falling on some is a good thing, rain falling on some is a bad thing, but the rain falling is a part of what God put in motion.

As for Adam never stubbing his toe and the loss of a child; two very different kinds of pain. Prior to the fall Adam did not know the pain sin brings about. Did he stub his toe, I don’t know nor is it relevant to reason or faith. Did he know the loss of a child, did he know the sting of a lie, did he know the poison of shame, did he know the impurity of desire turning to lust… NO.

To want a life without pain is not what most people I see wanting and defies reason. To live a life where my pain is manageable is what people want. Most people want a life they can manage and be in control of, but this is impossible. Our problem as humans is we cannot manage our pain that well. So we resort to crazy things like drug abuse, people abuse, life abuse and much more. We take a drink just to take the edge off, we eat a sandwich just to enjoy something we like in the midst of struggle even though we are not hungry. We hoard when people around us are starving. Why? Because we are sinners and we must manage the pain sin brings into our lives.

As for where prayer enters the mix. Certainly there area few times in Scripture where a prayer seemed to change the mind of God. How that works I don’t really know. But the times are few where this is recorded and in the face of a vast realm of scripture, drawing conclusions from a smaller piece is not usually a great idea.

Here is what prayer seems to do in my opinion. Prayer changes me much more than God. John said we would be like him because we will see Him as he is. Something about entering into God’s presence changes me. It changes my prayer, changes my heart, changes my attitude, changes my perspective, changed my reasoning, changes my faith, changes my understanding and in changing all these things aligns me much more with God. In one very real sense prayer is something people do when life is unmanageable, as a tool to manage life. But this kind of “Life management prayer” has its greatest impact when people give management of their life over to God.

Michael scenarios are all difficult because they go past our ability to reason. When your reason strengthens your faith it probably is on a healthy trajectory. When your reason weakens your faith it probably is not on a healthy trajectory. When your reason empowers your ego it is probably not on a healthy trajectory, when it brings a proper placement for you in this world and with God, it is probably on a healthy trajectory.

Michael the reason this is such an important IMO discussion is that unhealthy rarely produces healthy. For us to help those who hurt, which I would hope is at least a huge part of asking these questions, we must develop some semblance of healthiness.

I think too much reason or better said maybe unsatisfied reason will almost always lead to a few places.

1) Pride. The puffing of the ego and straightening of the will is a direct result of unsatisfied reason. We can get a little big for our britches at times. We can get a bit cocky before God at times. Sort of the “if I were running the show God, things would be different” attitude.

2) Superstition. People will often fill gaps in reason with superstition. If this worked this time it will work again and eventually superstition gains ground. It is how some people dance for rain because somehow that worked before and reason said it was what caused the god of rain to act. It is why base ball players eat the same meal every day game or wear the same socks or undies.

3) Rebellion. Simple and true, rebellion is often the result of unsatisfied reason. Think Solomon for a moment. Everything under the sun, I will try it all, every part. Why? Reasoning gone bad.

I don’t fully get the reason as a pure entity and people are the ones who get it wrong thing. I may not be smart enough to wrap my mind around that. I do get this however. If reasoning is pure and sin corrupts the reasoner or limits the reasoner then God is the only one uncorrupted and unlimited in his reasoning ability. The gap is ours not his, to close it will require relationship with him. To close it took an act beyond reason, the sacrifice of his son. I wouldn’t do it. Not because my love for my son is greater than his but because my love for you is smaller than his. If I have to choose between you and my son, you are going to die. God knew the way for his Son to die so I could live, then for his son to live again so I would never die. I can draw the map but the journey itself defies reason. Sorry to be a preacher but as Popeye said, I am what I am.

Leonard, I love this discussion. Thanks for your continued contributions.

I’d counter that some of the things we consider great central tenets of the faith are actually bits of theology worked out over generations of believers grappling with apparent contradictions in God’s revelation, until the appropriate application of reason produced such a deeply satisfying answer that it became part of the canon of faith.

On that list are things like the trinity and the fully-god-and-man understanding of the incarnation. All of these took generations to work through, hundreds of years, and at every point up until the resolution, the apparent contradiction of data seemed unreasonable.

Look at the trinity, for example. Generations of believers looked at the biblical data and said, “It just doesn’t make sense to believe ‘God is One’ and also to say ‘God is the Father, and God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit’.” Many did still believe it, but they did so unreasonably. I can imagine many in the early church cautioning believers that “these things are just beyond our understanding, don’t question them, just accept them.”

Yet it was the unsettled irrationality of the statements as they stood that led to the long project of building the theology of trinity. The purpose of that project wasn’t to probe the unfathomable mystery of God’s inner workings, that part of himself that God give us no access to. Rather it sought a rational framework harmonizing the data, the revelation of himself that God HAS provided us in scripture.

The power of that doctrine is demonstrated in how many other areas of our understanding of God are reinforced and reformed with better understanding based on that doctrine. An understanding of the trinity that is rationally formulated gives us better understanding of everything from creation to atonement, from Jesus’ explication of the church’s on-going status of becoming his body to our understanding of the Kingdom of God. Think of how much poorer our conception of atonement would be if it did not include an understanding of the trinity.

There are several areas of Christian thought that are now being “held in escrow”, if you will, until a reasonable resolution of apparently contradictory evidence is reached. Creation / Evolution / Intelligent Design is one such area. Biblical data and the data of the physical record seem to be in contradiction. For some, the only two possible resolutions are to abandon reason and cling to an interpretation of biblical data that take no account of any outside evidence, or to abandon faith wholesale and become brute naturalists.

I think most of us here would agree that those are not the only options. Faith commits us to accept the truth of the biblical data. Being human, and therefore rational, commits us to accept the truth of the empirical data. Reason compels us to find resolution for the apparent contradiction, and I believe it has done so: a narrative interpretation of the Genesis account, along with a humble acknowledgment of the mathematical improbability (almost impossibility) of such high complexity arising within the parameters and time frame of the earth’s existence, apart from divine intent and guidance at key points.

If we look to the church fathers at Nicea and Chalcedon, we find that some acted out of hubris, but many more acted out of a humble and earnest sense of obligation to a God who has given us both revelation of himself, and rational minds, and who expects us to employ both in our pursuit of Him and his will.

Leonard, I too appreciate your part of this conversation. If more folk were like you in their general approaches to the faith, things in the church would be better than they are.

I think we agree that much of what God “has put in motion impacts people without partiality”. In some ways, that’s the central point I’ve tried to make. I think it’s important to understand that this fact of our lives was an essential feature of a universe in which we could have something like free will. It isn’t that God doesn’t care, or can’t be reached, or is powerless, it’s that God understands something we don’t about the ontological requirements of a universe for intelligent beings with free will.

I’d have to agree with you in this, “God is the only one uncorrupted and unlimited in his reasoning ability”, except that it isn’t clear to me that God actually reasons. Reason is a tool for extending knowledge, and God knows everything that CAN be known. Reason is more something like eyes, a tool for finite beings to use in surveying their world. When we cannot see everything it once, reason is our way of extending our immediate perceptions. Angels, being finite beings, may need and use reason… and if so, it appears that a failure to correctly apply reason would be a critical component in Lucifer’s original rebellion. After all, who tempted Lucifer? And whatever gave him the idea that he could be God, or like God? Powerful as he was, Lucifer was finite, and made a very (I hate to say this) human decision, enabled, at least in part, perhaps, by flawed reasoning.

I think this points to will. The Bible isn’t terribly clear about the status of angels, but they are surely finite, created beings, with different limitations than humans. Lucifer’s rebellion was surely even more an act of will than a failure of faith (after all he KNEW God in a way we do not), and perhaps a failure of reason (correctly judging consequences) was a part of it. On the other hand, I think many people sin knowing full well the consequences, so it is not a failure of reason with them, either, but a sheer excess of selfish will.

I’d have to say that your list of dangers in reason is equally applicable to faith, especially faith uncorrected by reason.

Pride — well, you know. I know people who are very, very proud of just how much faith they have. In fact, they’re proud of their “ability” to have unreasonable faith. They have no protection, or little protection, from false teaching, because they do not possess the ability to distinguish what sounds good (or especially spiritual, even) from what IS based on a clear, reasoned understanding of scripture. Personally, I think pride flows from a lack of reasoned understanding of one’s place in the creation, and a lack of reasoned self-examination.

This in particular gives them little defense against

Superstition — Which in my reading of history is WAY more likely to appear in people of great faith and small reason than vice versa. Cult members often have incredible faith, self-sacrificial faith, great obedience flowing from that faith, etc. And back to pride, for a moment, the people who are most absolutely convinced of their personal rightness AND righteousness seem to be cult members. However much superstition you may want to lay at the door of reason, far more lies at the door of incorrectly informed and reasoned faith.

As noted above,

Rebellion does not appear to flow primarily from incorrect reasoning, with the first Rebel being a case in point, but rather an excess of pure, selfish will, a “damn the torpedoes” attitude, if you will. That excess of selfish will can manifest as faith in the wrong things, rationalistically justified, of course, as in cults, but not limited to cults.

We may be talking in circles here. I think faith has a very critical role for any Christian, and I suspect you think that reason does. In fact, you’re using reason in making your points in this thread. You seem to fear the perversion of reason more than you fear the perversion of faith, however, while I fear both, and therefore I want to stress the corrective nature of their integration.

I think the “meta-message” of the existence of scripture, the way it is written, the behavior of the apostles, the ways they characterized their faith, and th