The Unreasonable Reasonableness of Faith

God and Reason (1)

When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. Luke 8.51-53

Not uncommon
It was not uncommon, during the period of His incarnation, for the Lord Jesus to be looked upon by the people around Him as not quite having it all together. How, for example, could He insist that a child was merely “sleeping” when everyone who had been there long before He arrived knew she was dead?

Regarding Jesus with incredulity began early on in His life. His mother expressed disbelief that He would lag behind in Jerusalem, without advising His parents, leaving them to worry about Him for three days. What was He thinking (Lk. 2.41-50)?

When, later, Jesus preached in His hometown synagogue, the people were at first happy to hear Him opening the Word of God to them. Soon, however, they regarded as altogether unreasonable His views on the subject of hope for the Gentiles, and sought to kill Him (Lk. 4.16-30).

The religious leaders of the Jewish community considered His claims to be able to forgive sins as not merely unreasonable, but heretical (Lk. 8.17-26). Even “His own people”, seeing the goings-on around Jesus, considered that He was “out of His mind” (Mk. 3.21).

People considered it unreasonable that Jesus should consort with the lower and vulgar people; should want to know who among the thronging multitudes had touched Him; should denounce the religious leaders of His day as hypocrites and toadies; should teach that being “born again” was a criterion for entering the Kingdom of God, or that one should turn the other cheek to whoever strikes him; should claim to be the Son of God and heir of David’s throne; and should walk unarmed onto the turf and into the grasp of those who planned to kill Him.

None of this made sense to the people who observed Jesus.

Jesus’ contemporaries listened to His preaching and observed His behavior, and many—indeed, most—of them struggled to follow His reasoning. His way of thinking was unfamiliar to them, abnormal, confused, discomforting, and even dangerous. 

So we’re not surprised that even those who followed Him became objects of the same opinions. Peter and John were considered to be unreasonable because they did not submit to the demands of the Jewish leaders. The people of Thessalonica were alarmed at the witness of their neighbors who had come to faith in Christ (Acts 17.1-9). The apostle Paul, testifying before Agrippa and Festus, was accused of being out of his mind because he was full of Jesus (Acts 26.24).

Unreasonable
The accusation persists in our own day. Christians are subjected to the same charges as Jesus and His first followers. We’re not reasonable. We are opposed to science and rational thought. We’re out of step with contemporary morality. We are easily duped, mindless, naïve, ignorant, medieval, superstitious, and even dangerous. 

Sadly, we in the Christian community have sometimes invited this opprobrium upon ourselves, by being ill-informed, lacking in tact, sounding judgmental and condemning, and acting hysterically in the face of supposed threats. Our preaching and worship at times appear too emotionally-charged to be any intellectual good. Our arguments in defense of our views are often shallow, incomplete, merely subjective, or unpersuasive. We make demands on sinners without considering their point of view. We expect government to treat us as some kind of special case. We cite spurious historical examples and precedents, or make up “facts” out of thin air, to justify some position or point of view. We wrench, twist, and contort the plain meaning of Scripture to accommodate our convenience, justify our views, or pass ourselves off as “scientific.” We seem unable to appreciate the many good things which have resulted from the best efforts of talented, hard-working well-meaning wrong-believers. 

Indeed, we seem to position ourselves against everything this age considers to be normal, acceptable, and reasonable.

And when our wrong-believing age, steeped in its own flimsy religious views of life, charges us with being unreasonable, and points to its own views and achievements as being more in line with what “everybody knows” to be true, we respond by some variation of “So’s your old man!” and go off in a huff.

But is it true?
It is certainly true that the Christian worldview flies in the face of every wrong-believing philosophy of life. The Kingdom of God challenges every existing order and society, and seeks to turn the upside-down world rightside-up for Jesus Christ.

But does this mean that Christianity is not reasonable? Is it true that Christians are the foes of reason? That reason and faith just don’t mix? And that we have no practical use for thinking, logic, persuasion, or reason?

The answer, of course, is “No.” God is reasonable, the faith of Jesus Christ is reasonable, and we who know God and believe in Jesus must learn to use reason in ways that honor God and further the faith and Kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

Christians must learn to be reasonable in living our worldview and holding out expectations for others. But being reasonable is no guarantee that we will be regarded as such. Instead, like Jesus and the apostles, we must be prepared with reason to assert our convictions boldly, clearly, and confidently, so that we leave our detractors to consider in a new and brighter light, their own reasons for not believing the Gospel.

For reflection
1.  What does someone mean who says of another person, “He’s not being reasonable”?

2.  Why do you think Christians appear to be unreasonable to certain of our contemporaries?

3.  What is the role of reason in religious faith? What is the most important reason behind why we believe?

Next steps—Preparation: We’re going to be investigating the role of reason in Christian faith. What are your goals for this study? What do you hope to learn? Jot down some goals and then offer them to the Lord in prayer.

T. M. Moore

If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).

An excellent companion to this study is our book, If God Be True, which is free as a PDF download by clicking here.

This week: Our Read Moore podcast continues readings from our book, The Joy and Rejoicing of My Heart. In our Crosfigellteaching letter, we are studying examples of the spiritual poetry of the Celtic Revival. And in our daily Scriptorium column we are studying the Gospel of Matthew. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you. 

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