The Necessity Of Reason

I think it would be important very early on in the life of my blog to offer the Biblical and epistemological basis of being a Christian rationalist.  For those who do not possess familiarity with the term, epistemology is the study of knowledge and how it is justified or obtained.  Another thing I need to clarify is that when I identify as a Christian rationalist I do not mean I belong to the group of the same name that does not practice actual Christianity.  I mean instead that I am a Christian who is also an epistemological rationalist.

I do not want anyone to assume that the only reason or even the primary one that I am a rationalist is because the Bible commands it.  With or without the Bible it is necessary for people to realize that nothing is true because one wishes it to be true, feels it is, or agrees with others it is.  The exclusive way to discover truth is through the use of reason.  Sometimes reason can be accompanied by other helpers like experience, testimony, or divine revelation, but reason must always be present.  People can claim they hold Scripture over reason but they inevitably and inescapably must use reason to even interpret the Bible or support their understanding of it.  People can argue and have argued with me (and they are usually religious people) that ultimately reasons don't matter.  But probe beyond the statements declaring this fragile position and people begin to provide reasons why they think reasons don't matter or why blind faith is benevolent or comforting.  This is inconsistent, as they are appealing to reason to create a case they think demonstrates reason is unnecessary and useless.



Reason is the indispensable key to all knowledge.  Apart from it
we would be adrift in ignorance and stupor.

Assumptions are the most dangerous of ideas in epistemology because they are the intellectual equivalent of arriving at a T-intersection on the road and, without stopping, turning blindly without even bothering to check for traffic at all.  Yet many base their entire lives and positions on almost every issue on nothing more than intuition, preference, ignorance, and inconsistency.  For instance, Christians will often refer to subjective emotional experiences with God as proof of his existence.  This fails for a number of reasons:

1. If I was an atheist or agnostic, listening to someone explain their personal story or experience(s) does nothing to even confirm to me that it even happened or that it occurred as explained by the one who allegedly had the experience.
2. Emotions are not a sufficient basis for believing in almost anything.  There is an entire logical fallacy called emotional appeal that identifies this.
3. Followers of almost every religion will cite this as evidence or proof that their own religion is true, even if it is not an officially recognized theology or belief system.  If Christianity can be verified and accepted on such grounds, then so can Islam, Greco-Roman polytheism, Mormonism, and every other religion.  This argument, even if a valid reason to believe in God, basically does nothing to reveal which God exists or any specific details about him.

Of course one must physically look to see if any vehicles are approaching before one can conclude it is safe to turn at an intersection, and in the same way one must use rationality, evidence, and proof, where it is limitedly available, to decipher truth.

I have displayed a sample of some relevant Scriptural passages below to highlight that the Bible itself commands reason.


--1 Peter 3:15--"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect, . . ."

--1 Thessalonians 5:21--"Test everything."

--Hosea 4:6--". . . my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.  Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; . . ."

--Proverbs 19:2--"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

--Isaiah 1:18--"'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord."

--Matthew 22:37--"Jesus replied, '"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."  This is the first and greatest commandment.'"


The Bible is not only thoroughly pro-intellect but it repeatedly demands that we apply out intellects to the testing of "everything", not only those things we feel comfortable testing or the beliefs we do not have a personal investment in.  So whether or not Christianity as a philosophy or as a religion is wholly correct, no objective person can claim that the Bible does anything to oppress the human mind.  Unfortunately, many who identify themselves as followers of Christ are often the ones who belittle the gift of reason they claim God imbued them with.  If you read this as a Christian, remember that if your own worldview is true then there is nothing to fear about rational thought or investigation into the claims of Christianity.  After all, if Christianity is true, then science, philosophy, and reason do not oppose but affirm it.  Those Christians who attack reason or exclude it from their priorities and lives because they view rationalism as antithetical to the Bible do not understand reason or Christianity or both, or they would find no contradiction between them.  Faith without knowledge is not something to be admired, imitated, or encouraged, but instead is a dangerous and deceptive self-justification for believing whatever one wishes or a way to avoid the difficulties of deep thought.

Reason is God's gift to humanity to enable us to discover his
existence and understand the Bible.  The Bible speaks very
highly of reason--because it is part of God's very nature.

There is so much to discover and contemplate about reality and truth: science, beauty, ethics, philosophy, theology, logic, history, anthropology, etc, each of which can be divided into subcategories with more precise and narrow branches.  Science breaks into biology, cosmology, geology, among other things; philosophy divides into epistemology, ontology, and so on.  Acquiring knowledge of these subjects and growing to comprehend them may require much time and devotion, but nothing could be more valuable or necessary than inquiring into the nature of how things are and using every tool available to do so.

Christians, of all people, who claim to have the illumination of divine revelation in addition to these things, should be the ones embracing them the most and should encourage awe and love of them.  Paul, in his extensive missionary travels, certainly did not avoid them, using them to support his case for Christian theism (Acts 17 and Romans 1 in particular come to mind).  Unfortunately, the church is immersed in deep anti-intellectualism and many of its opponents recognize this.  It is my desire that Christians will abandon the abominations of ignorance, contradiction, blind faith, emotionalism, and apathy, and I hope also that they begin to deconstruct the objections and accusations of anti-intellectualism hurled at them by others.