When I was a younger Christian I was told it was wrong to believe Christianity should have any interaction with philosophy at all. To eliminate any reason or science from faith is often called fideism. Below are quotes from famous Christian leaders. Read below and pick which one you identify with most in the this long-term debate in Christianity. I am going to keep things a bit on the edge and not disclose who is behind what quote. That way it will not at this point be about what denomination one may identify with. 1: “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”- – 2: -“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”- – – 3: Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves
Discussion
14 comments
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With only 3 to choose from, I’ll take #2. It is a question rather than a statement of opinion; therefore it is an attempt to gain knowledge. L&P
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There should be a 4th as I simply cannot identify with either. Here is why.
It depends on your tool for reasoning.
Mark 2:8, And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
Is it wrong to use your heart as a tool of reasoning?
Jeremiah 17:9, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
How shall you reason a matter with a deceitful and desperately wicked tool?
Acts 17:2, And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
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I dont think I fit neatly into any of them but on a scale I would be like a 2.75.
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Definitely 3
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I think if you are going to have a realistic conversation about this you can’t relegate Martin Luther, or his relationship to philosophy to a sound bite. Did he refer to reason as a whore, or as the devils whore? Sure. But there was more to it than that, representing a more complex understanding, something pretty much any Luther scholar will remind you of. For him reason had its place, and even in faith it had its place, but it never was to usurp Scriptures, finding its place secondary to it
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Christians need to be defenders of the faith. Advancing theological position through refined philosophy is that pathway. Particularly if they are going to declare themselves apologetics.
Science has overruled philosophy in areas it does not belong. The sciences are incapable of asking “what is the meaning of existence?” Metaphorical thinking has been conceded to atheistic scientists without proper debate; most atheists have theologically and philosophically weak arguments. The reality is our reasoning matters to evangelism and appealing with truth to the world. As science has gained an unjustified position we have perpetually neglected philosophy. Look at the great apologetics such as CS Lewis or incredible minds like J.R.R Tolkien, there hasn’t been Incredible literary Christian philosophers truly at their level since. There’s a philosophical gap in the realm of modern day apologetics
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I am assuming anyone on an apologetics page would say that reason has a role to play in defending Truth.
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Isaiah 1 verse 18, come let us reason together. Most people have difficulty reasoning and even thinking. Thankings when you put two thoughts together at the right end there, most people let other people do their thinking for them, they just also say amen amen amen.
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its rather ironic that eventually the protestan reformation is the basic platform for entlightment movement in europ and its descendant of its golden Age..in the so called the Age of Reason in liberal Protestanism in USA…
Pietism is a seedbed of (rational) liberal Protestanism…which usa is the social projection of its philosophy..
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“but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”
1 Peter 3:15 NASB -
4. None of the above.
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1. In the flesh reasoning amounts to nothing. Ask any ex-atheist that has come to Christ, and the answer will be that reasoning was not behind their conversion, but that revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior was.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:20-25 ESV -
Number 3 all the way. What a great way to put it. Faith will never contradict reason nor reason faith.
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