The great philosopher of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, argued that there are three big questions in life: What can I know? What ought I to do? For what may I hope?40 With regard to his last question, the Bible understands my need for hope.
Reason and its Limitations
To encourage trust in the Bible as the book that understands us may seem to some an invitation to folly. Isn’t it asking for a sacrifice of the intellect? By “intellect” usually it is reason that is on view. Here we need some clear thinking. Reason does not exist apart from persons. Persons reason. By that I mean they mount arguments, offer refutations, marshal evidence for or against a claim to truth.
A figure from the past, Martin Luther, has some wise analysis to offer with regard to the human capacity to reason. He viewed reality in terms of a heavenly kingdom and an earthly one. Carefully understood, reason can operate usefully in both. Luther used three categories in his analysis. First, there is the natural or productive reasoning that is used to do things like cobble shoes. This is reason at work in the earthly kingdom. Then there is faithful reasoning that serves God with the mind. This is reason in serving mode in the heavenly kingdom. Lastly, however, there is a use of reasoning that Luther rejected. For him this was unfaithful reason or the Devil’s whore (Frau Hülda).41 This use of reasoning is in evidence when the human capacity to reason is wedded to an attitude of hostility and presumption towards God.42
The human ability to reason is not an attitude free zone.
An Examined Faith
One of the earliest philosophical texts that I studied came from ancient Greece. It was Socrates’ Apology. He was on trial before his fellow Athenian citizens for allegedly corrupting the city’s youth. In making his defense, Socrates uttered a famous idea that the unexamined life is not worth living.43 Socrates knew the power of asking awkward questions. Examination is a question-asking enterprise.
I became a follower of Jesus in my late teens with no real knowledge of the Bible so I had many, many questions. In the church I started to attend I asked my questions and was told not to ask questions but believe. I soon came to the view that an unexamined faith, just like an unexamined life, is not worth having. Happily I found books and people with satisfying answers for that stage of my life. More importantly, I found the Bible full of arguments addressed to my reason.
The claim that Jesus rose bodily from the dead as portrayed in the New Testament part of the Bible illustrates what I mean. It seems that some in the early church had their doubts about the resurrection, especially at Corinth in ancient Greece. So the Apostle Paul needed to respond. In a letter he sent to the church there, he wrote:
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. [1 Corinthians 15:1-11]
What strikes me about Paul’s approach is that it appeals to reason through the presentation of evidence. It is a presentation worth closer inspection.
In form, Paul’s argument is a cumulative one. First, Paul points out that his message was not one invented by him. He is passing on the message—the gospel (news) he received from others. Second, he claims that the Old Testament Scriptures tells the same story. He does not cite any particular part of the Old Testament. That may be because these Corinthian Christians knew already what he taught as he had dealings with them in the past. Third, the risen Christ appeared to real people with real names: Cephas (aka Peter), and other apostles (the Twelve). Indeed, Christ appeared to over five hundred followers in one event, most of them still alive at the time of writing. (The implication is that this claim can be checked out.) He also appeared to James who was Jesus’ skeptical brother. To cap it off, Paul cites his own firsthand experience of the risen Christ. Significantly, during the time leading up to his conversion, he was opposed to all that Jesus and his followers stood for.
Paul’s argument does not end there. He entertains the idea that he has got it all wrong in these claims and if so, what would follow. He presents what could be described as the logic of the alternative which takes the form of a number of step syllogisms (the “if…then” arguments).