Posted on 07/25/2014 10:45:39 AM PDT by don-o
Today in America, many Protestant theologians and missionaries continue to believe that Christian apologetics should rely upon the use of sound reason or logic. A Protestant Christian radio program about apologetics even took the name, “Sound Reason.” But Orthodox apologetics is not based upon reason, because Christian faith is actually unreasonable.
Christianity is faith in Jesus Christ—or, to be more accurate, being faithful to Christ. Jesus of Nazareth, called the “Christ” or Messiah, manifested Himself as the eternal God in the flesh, the salvation of all humanity through His incarnation, death and resurrection. None of this is “reasonable.” None of it can be proven through logic. In the end, faith is (in the words of St. Paul to the Hebrews) the assurance of things which are hidden from us. They do not make sense to a reasoning world.
We can say that all the historic Christian heresies (teachings which are not the true Apostolic faith) have been attempts to make Christianity “reasonable.” For example, the heresy of Arius was to say that, reasonably, Christ could not be both God and man at the same time. The heresy of Apollinarius was to say that reasonably, Christ could not be divine if He had a human mind and will. The heresy of Sabellius was to say that reasonably, the Holy Trinity could not be three divine Persons who are nevertheless perfectly One. Today, modern heresies which persist into the 21st century are their own attempts to make Christian faith “reasonable.”
(Excerpt) Read more at myocn.net ...
Bump for later. I’m particularly drawn to the works of Chesterton and Lewis, and both men seem to pretty astute in reconciling matters of faith, logic and reason. Will be interested in exploring this later when I have more time.
Thanks!
You’re welcome Joe. Exploring is good. I am interested in thoughtful comments from those who will take the time to read the piece.
There, fixed it for ya.
PFL. I assume Mrs. Don-O is Orthodox, too?
Does every single thread HAVE to involve Roman Catholicism? Why not come at this from your own beliefs?
You know how to read profile pages, now don’t you? And that is as far as the personal will go.
same here,,,
Does every single Catholic / Orthodox thread have to disparage Protestantism?
Lot of assumption in those last three words....
I need to write this on my forhead.
Point out the disparagement in the article.
O come now Don. The very first line of your post flatly states that it’s the Protestants who use logic or reason. Now I went to the source and the first paragraph you posted is not the first paragraph of the article. You had to go to the 13th paragraph in that article to get the first sentence to read as if it’s only the Protestants. Then you have the temerity to ask that question?
>>Why not come at this from your own beliefs?<<
You would not have liked that at all. I found it astonishing that a Catholic of all people would accuse others of including things in their beliefs that can’t be found in scripture. As for my personal beliefs. If it wasn’t taught by the apostles don’t expect me to add my “logic” or “reason” to add something to it.
If we did this, stoic and quiet testimony such as was advocated in the article (i.e., witness by quiet example) would indeed be more powerful as it would be supported by our actions.
Btw, the article may have a good point, but it DOES go against my very nature of reasoning that Christianity is logical and natural.
I was raised Protestant, but became Orthodox through our apologetics discussion group. We only meant to "kick the tires," but it just kinda worked out that way.
Btw, I would caution both Protestants and Orthodox to be very careful in dialogue with each other. You will unwittingly talk past each other with your different vocabularies. You may not realize it, but you ARE NOT light years apart, you are *very* close, philosophically.
Much closer than you would think. ;)
And he had to go to the 13th paragraph of the article to get the first sentence of what he posted to read “Protestant”.
I chose the excerpt that I did because I thought it summarized the author's thesis better than the initial paragraphs.
The sentences says "rely on" not "use" logic. There is a difference.
I found it astonishing that a Catholic of all people
You lost me there. What Catholic are you talking about?
For clarity’s sake, Orthodox would say that Roman Catholics were the first Protestants.
I can understand that POV.
And I always heard it said that nobody ever believed in anything they did not first think was rational. I think it was John Cardinal Newman who said that.
Maybe you cannot noodle out every detail, but nobody just submits to irrationality. Assurance of things not known is not the same as embracing the irrational. It just means you don’t have everything you need for a syllogistic proof. Even the simplest person who is not trained in ordering his thoughts still thinks, and he may not know all the why, but if he is to act upon his beliefs and spread it to others, it must be intelligible.
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