THE MARRIAGE OF FAITH AND REASON IS THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION APOLOGETICS

1. THE MARRIAGE OF FAITH AND REASON IS THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION APOLOGETICS The attempt to ally reason to faith Defend the faith with reason’s weapons

2. FAITH & REASON FAITH Distinguish the OBJECT from the ACT OBJECTIVE Object of Faith = What is believed SUBJECTIVE Act of Faith = Believing

3. ‘FIDES QUAE’ Or Object of Faith • The object of faith means all the things believed • Everything God revealed in the Bible • All doctrinal creeds • Universal binding teachings of the Church

4. The ultimate object of faith is not words but God’s Word GOD HIMSELF IS THE REAL EXISTING OBJECT OF FAITH • Object is expressed in propositions • Expressions of the content believed • The maps or structure of faith • Purposed to point beyond themselves to God • To tell others what God we believe in and what we believe about God

5. ‘FIDES QUA’ or Act of Faith Aspects or dimensions of religious faith • Emotional faith (HOPE deeper than a wish) • Feeling assurance, confidence or trust in a person • Intellectual faith (BELIEF deeper than an opinion) • the act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe everything God has revealed on the grounds of the authority of the One who revealed it. NAVIGATOR • Volitional faith (WILL a love deeper than feeling) • Commitment, faithfulness, fidelity an act of will to obey God’s will. Belief deeper than an opinion CAPTAIN • Heart faith (SOUL the very self, the I, The subject) • Not feeling, sentiment or emotion rather the place within where the Holy Spirit dwells. The absolute center of the soul.

6. FAITH & WORKS CONTROVERSY THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION • Catholic Theology 1 Cor. 13 • Intellectual Faith alone is not sufficient for salvation • Intellectual faith needs hope and love • Martin Luther Theology Rom. Gal. • Heart Faith alone is sufficient for salvation • It necessarily produces good works of love Joint Statement on Justification Protestants and Catholics do not have essentially different religions as regards the way to salvation

7. OBJECT of REASON All that reason can know All truths that • can be understood by human reason alone without faith in divine revelation • can be discovered by human reason to be true • can be proved logically, without any premises assumed by faith in divine revelation

8. ACT of REASON • All personal subjective acts of the mind by which we understand, discover or prove any truth. • Simple apprehension (understanding) • Judgement (coming to an informed decision) • Reasoning (drawing conclusions from facts)

9. Faith and Reason are roads to Truth • Reason is relative to truth • a way to know the truth: • Understanding it, discovering it, proving it • Faith is relative to truth • a way to discovering truth WE ALL KNOW MOST OF WHAT WE KNOW BY FAITH

10. WHAT IS THE LOGICAL RELATION between THE OBJECT OF FAITH those truths knowable by faith in divine revelation and THE OBJECT OF REASON those truths knowable by unaided human reason

11. The five possible answers to the question of the relation between any two classes or sets of things 1.) All A’s are B’s but not al B’s are A’s 2.) All B’s are A’s but not all A’s are B’s B A A B A = B A B 3.) All A’s are B’s and all B’s are A’s 4.) No A’s are B’s and no B’s are A’s A B 5.) Some but not all A’s are B’s and some but not all B’s are A’s

12. B A Applied to Faith and Reason 1.) Rationalism holds that everything we know by faith can also be understood or discovered or proved by reason, but not vice versa. Faith is a subclass or subdepartment of reason. (Anselm vs. Hegel) 2.) Fideism contends that the only knowledge, or at least the only certain knowledge, we can have is faith. It denies the existence of any certain truths attainable by reason without faith. 3.) Identity of Faith and Reason - No existing proponents A B A = B

13. Applied to Faith and Reason 4.) Dualism simply divorces faith and reason placing them in two different compartments. It accomplishes this by reducing reason to scientific, mathematical and empirical reasoning and reducing faith to personal, subjective attitude as if reason and faith corresponded to the public and private sectors. 5.) Partial Overlapping distinguishes three different kinds of truths those of faith and not reason, those of both faith and reason and those of reason and not faith. A B A B

14. PARTIAL OVERLAPPING • Truths of faith alone are things revealed by God but not understandable, discoverable or provable by reason • Trinity or Christ’s death atoned for our sins • Truths of both faith and reason are things revealed by God but understandable, discoverable or provable by reason • The existence of God or Objective moral law or life after death • Truths of reason and not of faith are things not revealed by God but known by human reason • The natural sciences

15. OBJECTIVE FAITH & REASON CAN NEVER CONTRADICT Only falsehood can contradict truth • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I, 7 God is teacher in both • That which we hold by faith as divinely revealed cannot be contrary to our natural knowledge. • Every possible argument against every Christian doctrine has a rational mistake in it somewhere, and therefore can be answered by reason alone. SUBJECTIVE OPINIONS CAN CERTAINLY CONTRADICT FAITH

16. JUSTIN MARTYR First Apology • A man seeks the truth by the unaided effort of reason, and is disappointed • It is offered him by faith, and he accepts • And, having accepted, he finds that it satisfies his reason.

17. 1 Corinthians 1:20-25 God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength THREE WAYS TO BE FOOLISH • to misapprehend or misunderstand or fail to grasp • to be ignorant, to fail to know or discover • to be illogical,and fail to prove, to commit a fallacy RIGHT REASON CAN REFUTE THEM ALL