mikokiko
posted on Jul 01, 2008 - 09:36 AM
Iqbal, why is this a waste of time? At least address my points, and who knows maybe you'll win a soul over to the Truth, surely that won't be a waste of your time.
either we base our faith on reason or our faith is anti-intellectual/irrational. How absurd, really. The intrinsic nature of our faith, its secondary characteristics are another, and its foundational basis yet another.
Iqbal, you've misconstrued what I was saying. First off, I never said that we are Omniscient. We are not to reason out every single minute detail of Christianity before believing. That act in and of itself is unreasonable. Because to reason the faith entirely would take an infinite amount of time, and we would never know it, because we are not infinite. You forgot to read the word 'faith' in my post. I put my trust in the religion of the Trinity, because I have first seen Them to be reasonable. It would do you no harm to first picture yourself as an unbeliever. The Lord Himself gave reason for the Jews to believe in Him. He Himself said "Believe in Me based on these proofs that validate My very words. Put your trust in Me."
We weren't born out of our mother's wombs believing in Him. We were first lead by Reason (that is our free will) to believe and put our trust in Christ, because it is reasonable to do so. And it is through reason, that we call people back in accepting the Holy Spirit by reason. The implications of what you are saying makes null the writings of the Church Fathers to the Arians, the pagans, and the heretics. By reason I first see that putting my faith and obedience in Christ and all the teachings of His Church is reasonable.
Even St Augustine, whose position in regard to the subject was largely neoplatonic and as such outside the general Orthodox tradition on the matter, declared credo ut intelligam.
Don't you even see that you are using reason to justify this doctrine? Of course I believe in credo ut intelligam, because it is reasonable. As I have said before, we are not Omniscient. But God has given us limited free will and reason (by which to differentiate between the good and the evil), to accept Him of our own accord. After this, we begin to enter into a relationship from which we understand Him more and more.
When the Pharisees refused to acknowledge that Christ’s works attested to His Divinity, and instead suggested that the nature of his power was demonic, He accused them of what? Being unable to submit to reason? Being unable to take heed to the clear proof of His works? No, He accused them of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
The gravest of sins, the blaspheming the Holy Spirit (rejecting Him), is itself unreasonable and illogical, that is it is the rejecting of submission to reason, the Infinite Reason of God-the Logos of Life. If it be a sin, then it is an unreasonable act, and in defiance with logic.
St Paul confirms the very clear implication of the Lord Christ’s rebuke when he unequivocally declares that no one is able to truly confess Christ as Lord except by the Holy Spirit—not reason, not proof.
You are missing a crucial part here. So crucial, that had you done it purposefully then you would be guilty of falling in the folly of the Protestants who claim that all that is necessary for salvation is God's grace. And what are we forgetting? The will of man. Free will, and with free will, we are given reason by which to judge goodness from evil, and right from wrong. Before God shoves His Spirit down our throats, we have to come to our senses to accept Him in our being. And indeed, believing in Him is reasonable and the work of rationality itself. It must first come from us, and when our wills work with the will of God, the work of grace becomes of effect in us.
“I believe in Jesus because I behold Him at Liturgy, in the Eucharist, in the ascetic and sacramental Life of the Church.”
It seems that here you've forgotten the meaning of the word 'because'. To say that something is "so and so" because, is to say that for this reason, or by reason of. Because is the word of Reason, it is the slogan of Logic, and the motto of Rationality. You've touched so much on reason that you've forgotten that the REASON you believe Christ, is because you've witnessed Him alive in Glory on His Altar. And this is exactly what shook the pagan world to its core in the first century, when the Apostles declared that they saw Him alive after His Divine death on that peaceful Sunday morning.
So, is reason a tool of persuasion or the basis of faith? Surely you can understand the great leap that is being made between regarding reason the basis of faith to regarding a tool of persuasion.
Your inquiry can be answered thus: If reason is the basis of faith, then it HAS TO BE the tool of persuasion. By claiming that the Apostles used reason to convert pagans to Christianity, is not to say that reason is "merely" a tool for persuasion. If Reason is the basis of faith, then we must be lead to faith by reason. Your logic here fails.
Not even logicians and mathematicians would agree that logic is ‘absolute and objective reality’; where do you come up with these silly claims?
Are you being serious here? I pray to God that you were being sarcastic, because you've just contradicted yourself. Like I said, when you take us to the axioms of logic, you will fall to the ground flat on your face, with no air to breathe from, when you oppose them. If logic is not objective then it is subjective. If it is subjective then true logic cannot be either right or wrong. If it is neither right or wrong, then what you say happens to be just what YOU think, and what I say happens to be what I think. You've just used logic to say that logic is subjective. That can only be right if it is objective. If it is not then an opposite claim can be just as valid.
But if your logic is right, then any opposing claims must immediately be declared false. I am sure you've seen how you reasoning here has miserable failed. Reason is a BIG word. a VERY BIG word. Anything that we OUGHT to do or believe is reasonable. If Reason be not objective, then your last statement is self-refuting. Now we might not have the Infinite Logic of God, the Logos of Life, but He has given us a limited capacity of being like Him (since we were created in His Image, the Lord Jesus Christ).
The only absolute and objective reality is God, precisely why direct experience of this reality constitutes the only substantial basis of faith.
Finally we can agree on something. Yes Morality is Objective because its true existence is in God Himself. He is the Perfect Moral Being of the Universe. And Reason is Objective, because it is found in the Wisdom of God Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. Had reason not be found in God first, then all my words would have been mere babel.
Thank God my post didn't get accidentally deleted this time round!
God Bless
Joined: Feb 11, 2003 | Posts: 1001
