Reason and Faith

I am blessed there are countless people in this world that are more intelligent and learned than I am.  My life and perspective has been greatly enriched by their contributions--even when I was not in agreement with those with different biblical interpretations and conclusions.  This has goaded me to dive into the Scripture to ensure I am convinced in my own mind concerning doctrines as well as I can and worked to sharpen my own views with greater precision.  Like a sharp blade requires maintenance to operate at peak performance, so a biblical worldview is improved by sound doctrine put into practice.  Carbon steel knives rust simply by exposure to the air, and unless we are grounded in God's word inhabiting this sin-steeped world tends to dull us.

Recently I read an abridged letter sent by Galileo Galilei (yes, THE Galileo) to the Grand Duchess Christina to defend his position from those who criticised his scientific discoveries as incorrect and heretical when they had little to no knowledge of mathematics or astronomy.  At some points I feel he articulated skillfully what I have felt at times concerning those who dismiss wholesale physically demonstratable evidence because of their own interpretation of a verse or word of the Bible.  Galileo held God and the Bible in very high esteem, yet some in the church branded him a heretic because the hard evidence he presented ran contrary to their assumptions--that he ought to abandon reason and evidence for spurious interpretations of Scripture.  He quoted an "...ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes."  Rather than being hemmed in, Galileo was free to delve into mathematics and all the sciences, giving God the glory for the order and meticulous details he came to comprehend.  He went on to write:

"It is the function of expositors to seek out the true senses of scriptural texts. These will unquestionably accord with the physical conclusions which manifest sense and necessary demonstrations have previously made certain to us. Now the Bible, as has been remarked, admits in many places expositions that are remote from the signification of the words for reasons we have already given. Moreover, we are unable to affirm that all interpreters of the Bible speak by Divine inspiration for if that were so there would exist no differences among them about the sense of a given passage. Hence I should think it would be the part of prudence not to permit anyone to usurp scriptural texts and force them in some way to maintain any physical conclusion to be true, when at some future time the senses and demonstrative or necessary reasons may show the contrary. Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known? Let us rather confess quite truly that "Those truths which we know are very few in comparison with those which we do not know."

 We have it from the very mouth of the Holy Ghost that God delivered up the world to disputations, so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. In my opinion no one, in contradiction to that dictum, should close the road to free philosophizing about mundane and physical things, as if everything had already been discovered and revealed with certainty. Nor should it be considered rash not to be satisfied with those opinions which have become common. No one should be scorned in physical disputes for not holding to the opinions which happen to please other people best, especially concerning problems which have been debated among the greatest philosophers for thousands of years. One of these is the stability of the sun mobility of the earth, a doctrine believed by Pythagoras and all his followers, by Heracleides of Pontus (who was one of them), by Philolaus, the teacher of Plato, and by Plato himself according to Aristotle..." (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Public Domain, © Paul Halsall Aug 1997)

It is evident by this letter Galileo was troubled by coming to a conclusion concerning the physical world based on factual evidence by careful observation (the movement of the earth around the sun), only to have his discoveries dismissed entirely without consideration or rebuttal by other physical evidence contrary to his theories.  As Galileo intonated, mathematics is not a matter of faith:  in a sense he said if his sums were wrong, he would be pleased to humbly receive correction.  Those who castigated him could at least confirm his errors by showing their work with the correct solution.  To dismiss his sound arithmetic with unsound Bible interpretation was problematic--and being accused of heresy for utilising his God-given skill and understanding was repugnant.  God has provided the heavens which declare the glory of God, and the natural sciences do this incredibly well with a God-honouring lens.  Our Creator has also provided the Bible to reveal Himself to us personally, and thus in matters of faith and the observable world the LORD has supplied all the evidence required to know the truth.  Reason and faith are not contrary to one another but pair perfectly in the Christian faith.  Ours is not a blind faith, for we are those whose eyes have been opened and born again into a relationship with God--who sees and knows all.