A Life of Apologeticts

In the book Adventures in Missing the Point, Tony Campolo recalls an experience he had with two of his advisees at the University of Pennsylvania. One was a brilliant, neo-Marist-atheist, and the other was a committed Christian, yet not an intellectual. Both decided to go to Cornell for graduate work, and were to be roommates. Tony was worried that the neo-Marxist who loved to argue would overwhelm the Christian and drag him into his atheistic beliefs.

You can imagine my surprise a year and a half later when I visited with them both at Cornell and discovered that the neo-Marxist had become a Christian. How was that possible? I asked seeing what a good arguer he was.
“I always won the arguments,” the ex-atheist said. “It seemed like every evening I would give him an array of good reasons why religion in general was ludicrous, and how the belief that Jesus was the incarnation of God was untenable. But at the end of every argument, after I had won the confrontation decisively, my buddy would always say, ‘But I know that Jesus is real. I know that Christ is alive. I sense his presence. I have experience a sense of his leading in my life. You may have won the arguments, but you cannot undo what I know to be true. Jesus is alive in me.’
“What could I say to that? Sooner or later my attacks were no match for his defense. How could I unconvince him of something so obviously real in his life?”


What a powerful testimony of faith! Even when his position seemed un-defendable and when his intellect knew that he had lost the arguments, he continued to believe in that which he knew was true; that which he had faith in.

I’m starting to realize that most worldviews, most positions, most opinions, and our choices to follow these ideologies are chosen by a priori commitments. We choose what to believe and then go on constructing are arguments after the fact.

I am finding that apologetics and intellectual defenses do great work in reaffirming one’s faith. I love to read Lee Strobel and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. But my question is can these create faith or do they just confirm for those who are seeking faith?

I recall a story about a well-known Christian apologist that had traveled to secular schools debating with atheists and student bodies over the proofs for Christianity. At one such event a student came forth and asked a question. The apologist quickly answered and twisted the question back towards the student. The student stuttered for a moment and answered as best he could, but his answer was met with a flurry of other, more difficult questions. Finally the student answered the only way he had left … “I don’t know.” The apologist answered “As such, do you really think you should be asking me questions.” As the student body was clearing out one young lady was over heard saying “I don’t care if the (explicative) is right, he’s a jerk and I’m not buying it.”

A life lived in accordance to the Gospel is the most powerful apologetic that we can share. We has humans are emotional beings and the choices we make are as influenced by those emotions as they are our logic and intellect.

THOUGHTS?

Reason defined?

Now if anyone else was writing this particular blog and they did not define what “faith” and “reason” meant early on I would be upset. I would be the jerk in the comment box that was saying “how can you say that when we don’t know what the words mean to you.” So I’m going to do my best of defining these two terms. If you have a better definition that you think would help I would love to hear it.

Reason: rea·son n.
1. The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction.
2. A declaration made to explain or justify action, decision, or conviction: inquired about her reason for leaving.
3. An underlying fact or cause that provides logical sense for a premise or occurrence: There is reason to believe that the accused did not commit this crime.
4. The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; intelligence.
5. Good judgment; sound sense.
6. A normal mental state; sanity: He has lost his reason.
7. Logic. A premise, usually the minor premise, of an argument.

I think that each of these has probably a bit of what I mean. Numbers two, three, and seven are probably the ones I will be dealing with the most. That which is logical. Not only that which is logical, but that which conforms to logic.

So what does this look like in a church or faith sense? Well I don’t really know exactly. Obviously their must be some sort of order or logic behind that which we believe. If there wasn’t then there would be no way to communicate it or really to live it out. However, does everything have to fall into the neat and orderly categories that reason likes to put it in.

Faith and Reason

So, in the last few blogs I have been looking at for the past few weeks, there has been a common theme in my thought process. What's with "reason"? So I know that's a broad thought, and it is one that can be dealt with for a long, long time, but I want to at least play with it for a little bit.

How important is reason to the Christian walk, and furthermore to the everyday walk that all people deal with. There seems to be a great tension with “faith” and “reason” whether it be in Science, Religion, Govt., Church matters, or well just about anyplace else.

We are all children of modernity, well most of us anyway. We were taught a modern view of science (that it is objective and totally correct). Matter does not move without being acted upon first. FACT! Electrons float around in these nice little lines around the outside of the nucleus of an atom. FACT! The speed of light is always constant. FACT!

And then I came to college. There I learned that Science is not objective, but biased just like everything else. I learned that matter does move without being acted upon (quarks inside of atoms), and Electrons are flying all over the place we don’t really know where they are all the time, and the speed of light has actually slowed down over time.

This put me in quite the predicament. Reason was being tested and losing on multiple fronts. I learned that matter can take up the same space at the same time as long as we don’t observe it, and other crazy facts. This then started to change my view of scripture, philosophy, and life in general.

So I think I’m going to play with this idea in my next few posts, but I’d like some reactions first. Where does reason fit in with religion? Where does Faith fit in with life as a whole … Am I exercising it at least a bit when I take a step, or sit down?