Faith and reason never conflict huh? Well I have faith that the earth is flat. Pretty unreasonable, but according to this council I am right and the world is flat no matter how unreasonable that may be.

Faith in nothing is nothing. Faith in the unreasonable is unreasonable.

The only time faith and reason don’t conflict is when faith is the product of reason.

Faith has an object. Discussing the merits of faith in regards to reason is meaningless without addressing the object(s) of that faith.

I have no faith that a council regarding faith will come up with any meaningful message if it does not have a real understanding of faith and it’s dependency on an object. - Let’s see if anybody else can use the word faith that many times in one sentence.

All the mischief is in the reasons.

rea·son (rē’zən) n. - The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction. See Usage Notes at because, why.

Faith is being unreasonable. Thank God.

Now, if only their priests, Imams, and parishioners would follow the lead. Mike, rather than criticize the summary of what was stated, why not actually think about it?

Good works.

Seven powerful statements were made.

If I was there I would polished up #2 a little more, but all in all very good work.

#5 Is my personal favorite.

“Christians and Muslims should go beyond tolerance, accepting differences, while remaining aware of commonalities and thanking God for them. They are called to mutual respect, thereby condemning derision of religious beliefs.”

Mike - If you can use reason to come to a logical conclusion, then faith is not needed. Faith is a concept that allows you to accept a conclusion when reason falls short, i.e., there is a God. My personal belief is that God gave us the capacity for both, therefore, they are both intrinsically “good”. But faith is not needed when reason is available.

So in your hypothetical example, the fact that you believe the world is flat ignores your God-given gift to reason. Instead you disregard the facts and rely on a certain form of faith to believe the world is flat. I don’t believe God’s gift of faith was intended for that purpose.

Faith in the reasonable is nothing. Faith in the unreasonable is faith.

mogoid,

You compared the differance in faith and reason in such an awsome way. great job!

Faith and reason never do contradict, how correct #2 is.

“But faith is not needed when reason is available.”

I’m being picky here, but I think it is important.

Neither faith or reason are “needed.” We have all that we need, “like the birds in the fields.” (This does not dismiss them, only acknowledges that it is choice that accepts them.)

Faith and reason operate independently. They do not support each other, nor are they substitutes for each other. Those that use reason to support faith or substitue faith for reason diminish both.

Faith is manifested through powerful choices independent of reason, and sometimes in the face of it.

Knowledge and reason are very useful, and they serve us well.

Faith is the art of being.

Faith vs Reason

One of the great struggles of the church is the relationship to reason. Great caution is needed here. The question is, what are we faithful TO? To a dogma (an established point of small-f faith)? Or, are we faithful to God?

Whenever reason intersects with dogma, then what I find I need to do is to deepen my faith. If the evidence of my eyes says one thing, and my dogma says another thing, then the answer is not to ignore what my eyes are saying. The answer is to examine my faith and determine if the dogma I proclaim is actually revealed truth.

The fact of Shi’a and R.C. dialogue is fantastic. As I said earlier, it would be nice if the front-line priests and Imams, and the worshipers, would hear this message and use it themselves.

Yes, it’s nice that they’re talking. I do not mean to discount the significance of that. But, if the end result becomes “all of us have faith, it’s all equal so we should get along” then a huge problem is created. If we must water down belief systems in order to get along, then the dialog will fail.

mogoid, I’m with you pretty much up until your last sentance, but that’s where you turn towards being very wrong. I’m sorry, but that is just not an understanding of christian faith. We are called to a reasonable faith. God gave us the gift of reason you mention, but did not ask us not to use it. Like you say we are to use both faith and reason, but you seem to think we use them independantly of eachother. We cannot divorce faith and reason. If you find the object of your faith unreasonable then you cannot have faith in it. It would be a false faith. One must assent to the truth behind the object of faith prior to having faith in that object, therefore real faith necessitates a reasonable object.

hs, you hit it on the head in your second post. It’s about what the faith is in, not just having faith.

There’s a lot of work by christian apologists in this field, none of which comes to the conclusion that we are to believe in the unreasonable. Our God is a being of rationality and reason - He is the author of both. We should not expect to force ourselves to believe in the unbelievable.

Faith and reason and collapsing them into each other is the biggest danger to faith.

“We should not expect to force ourselves to believe in the unbelievable.”

It is by definition impossible to believe in the unbelievable. There is no call to believe in the believable. If you are arguing that believing is obvious, it is not.

Are you proposing that you reasoned your faith into existence, or that others have done that for you?

What Jesus did was unreasonable to me in every way. He was required to demonstrate it, and still there are those who do not believe.

If I understand what you are saying, it is that every choice must have a reason, a basis or motive for it.

I would argue you are collapsing choice and committment into reason and action. I choose what inspires me and create commitments to those choices. I am then compelled to take actions to remain in integrity with my choices and committments.

Reasons are in the same realm as justification, and must be held to the same level of integrity to align with your choices and committments. Reasons are explainations for choices, and were the mischief resides.

The power of choice is to acknowledge that you do it freely independent of reason.

What is a challenge to reconcile in faith is the source of the choice.

You may be asking how can I choose without a context of reason, of understanding what its I am doing or committing to, if I can not make sense of it, if I can not explain it convincingly to another.

There is another source for choice that is not limited by reason. It is within each of us. We are born with it. Many are numb to it. They have drowned out that inner voice that calls to them. They have replaced it with the voice in the head. The voice that considers knowledge and information, and decides for itself in that realm. The voice that manipulates reasons.

Within reason is the temptation of judgment and justificaton. Reasons are not essential or truths or facts. We create them, and use them to our purposes.

Intellectuals will argue their faith, and it will always circle around on itself. I don that, and I must be diligent to maintain the distinctions.

The age of reason and enlightenment gave many the opportunity to move away from the freedom of choice. They began to investigate, to understand, to decide things on facts.

If you have to say, I choose “X”, because…..(insert a reason). It is not a choice.

Accepting that choice is in another realm than reason is the biggest obstacle to faith.

In your words, there is no object to faith, no purpose to it. It is the purest expression of choice. There is no because or why. I do not have to explain faith. I share it.

If you choose in a manner that you are inspired by your choice, moved, and touched by it. You are in the presence of God.

If you must reason your way to faith, you are lost. At this point, it is best to stop and listen for the voice that speaks without reason.