a) do not esteem reason or
b) do not find that what faith reveals is uniquely backed by reason.
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CHAPTER THREE
REASON AND FAITH ARE FRIENDS, NOT EXCLUSIVES,
WHEN TRUTH IS KNOWN
News 392
The Advertiser, January 10, 2008
Reason on its own will never convert you. This is not because this gift of God is not efficient, but because man has grown deficient. It may and should convince, but not in itself convert.
Man has gone to far (Ephesians 4:17-19). God may however, use it as many other features and foci, to prod, stir or alert you, and its result, keenly used, leads to only one place, God, the Trinity, Christ the Lord and Saviour, and His sole authorised, written word to mankind, the Bible. Past every bluster and filibuster, it demonstrates the Maker and Saviour and the Gospel of salvation (cf. References, below).
It sings in the Christian heart
and shatters the defiant dreams of man, the rebel. Such things are found in
practice and written in effect, in the Bible
(I Peter 3:15, II Corinthians 10:5ff., Romans 1:17ff., John 14:6).
The Gospel is the word of
salvation and it is God Himself who converts (cf. John 6:65, John 1:12, Acts
4:11-12). This is the salve to the sadness of retrospect over man's deadly and
dissident past, which afflicts his present, just as it is the basis of the only
prospect of truth and peace, inseparable companions as they are. It provides in
Jesus Christ, Redeemer, the bold relief from God's insurgency into history to
show, definitively, His power, His trace, His truth and His love
(cf. TMR Chs. 2,
3,
Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs and the Courage of Christ
Ch. 9,
Anguish, Ecstasy and the Mastery of the Messiah Chs.
9 and 8).
WORDS, WORKS and WITNESS
Letter
In a letter to the Editor of the Adelaide Advertiser, January 10, 2008, a correspondent makes so many errors in the tissue of one short space that it is awesome. Science is unbiased, we hear, and so in terms of scientific method, it is. It is an excellent method (cf. Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation), and one interesting avenue in seeking truth. It is seen in a broader perspective in The Defining Drama Ch. 2.
However, people called men and women use this scientific method. Sometimes it is abused. As seen in the above volume, Scientific Method..., this has become a perpetual aberration on the part of the mainstream of scientific culture when it comes to God, time of His actions and scope of His power, nature of His work and His Person.
However, the writer of the letter to the newspaper, proceeds to opine what appears to be simply this: that people with a faith basis, such as he deems creationists to be (some in fact are) have no time for evidence, do not concur with facts or are even indifferent to them, are examples of prejudice which the clean contributions of science nicely correct.
According to the prejudice, so is not the 'scientific' but in fact scientistic 'finding'.
Response
Let us consider it.
Science and the Scientistic
Confusing what is beyond all human faculties with contrariety to some, he proceeds in an illusory world, making black white and white black. It is an interesting concoction, a new world, but one which bears no relationship to the realities of biblical Christian faith, which so far from being subjective, has as its object God the trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour and Lord, and the Bible, these in their direct and correlative character. It is objectively verifiable (cf. TMR Ch. 5, and references at the end of this text). Eminently testable, it delights to be tested; tested, objectively as shown beneath and in the references cited, it has not only unique position in meeting all facts, beyond various scientific or scientistic hypotheses, but is the only valid approach to reality. Is it so surprising that only God 'works', that is meets the case, in the world He made. On the biblical model this is simply one more confirmation.
So far from being contrary to what is justly called scientific method (op.cit.), it delights to correlate with the human (and certainly fallible, but useful) results found in the way of careful scientific method. Its strong objection is to the misuse of this method for mere preference, a common fault so ruthless now, in the field of God and religion in general, that it has become an anti-rational plague. It is a good time to pursue this issue.
In his work, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, John Woodmorappe exposes many of these prejudicial and painfully obdurate insistences founded not on empirical data, but ideational preference and sometimes ideological insistence. The same is done in the work of the learned British Professor E.H. Andrews, who even notes advice from some practical geologists that the radioactive dating is so unsure as to be practically useless (God, Science and Evolution), so that they use rock information, itself of course based on ideas, not empirical data, to find the age, so that one set of subjective ideas tends to replace a meretricious and factitious theory criticised for example, at length and with multi-scientist years of specialised research at great depth (the RATE group of scientists). From these scientific volumes of evidence and research have come, such as Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth Vols. 1 and 2.
Indeed, as to the age of the earth in terms of radioactivity (cf. That Magnificent Rock Ch. 7), there are current such a wide diversity of theories at the ultimate level and more general levels of astronomy, involving many orders of magnitude of difference in the result on the one hand, in the rate of radioactive decay on the other, there are such blatant as well as latent vast differences of dating RESULTS from different radioactive methods, that bold indeed is he who, relying on such things, tells us, in oblivion of all other evidence, the age of the earth. On that basis, science in humility, and according to a due care in its method, can have little to say without such hypothetical and theoretical provisions as to make it a romance in ideologies, masked in figures, based on presuppositions and ridiculed by diversity of results.
This diversity in the minds of some distinguished scientists, affects also the velocity of light, and there are so many answers in five dimensional perspective, or Riemannian geometry, as in the latest work of John Hartnett, something of which has appeared in Journal of Creation*1; and there is so much dissension on many basic issues about light and configuration, on speed of going here or there in the universe, and its generality, as shown in the work of astronomer Arp (cf. Divine Agenda ... Ch. 1), that it is only the sheerest presumption that ON THOSE GROUNDS can determine the age of the earth at all. They are, you see, not all right.
Of course, there are many RATES that are observable as shown in such sites as
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1030meert.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/acceleration.asp#f1....
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2006/0414.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dating.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/creation-research
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating
and in TMR Ch. 7, and when the unprejudiced approach comes to these, one finds no possibility of solving them all, except in a young earth, the more distant theoretical bases of radioactive research being a background to be determined. Certainly when rates can vary by nine orders of magnitude depending on the plasma or other state of matter, for radioactive decomposition for example, then brave is he who seeks to find assurance on THAT side.
Thus the overwhelming desire for an old earth, in view of all the evidence*2, is, has been and continues to be one of the most magnificent pieces of scientistic bluster ever known - and much has been known from the day of phlogiston to the present, in the way of quasi-scientific obstinacy and preference for a known status quo over evidence. By many, now the universal flood is denied. It is even ridiculed very frequently by scientists who should know better (cf. News 1), and its evidences are strenuously sought to be dispersed. But they do not and will not go; and this distortion through aversion to truth was foretold, as you see in II Peter 3.
THAT IS one piece of scientific evidence, namely that in the name of God it was foretold that in a period of numerous cited, simultaneous or developing features, such an attitude would be notoriously dominant. This forecast could have been otherwise, could have been therefore wrong; but it was not. It could have been set in the midst of accompanying signals of the nearness of the end of this Age, that were wrong; but it was not. They are conspicuously right (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). This is an empirical fact. So is the amazing character of the denial when compared with fact. Some of this clash of fact and theory is to be seen in the noted works of Dr Steve Austin in such detailed, empirical works as his on the Grand Canyon - "Grand Canyon, Monument to Catastrophe."
The desire to ignore the facts concerning the mythical evolutionary change (cf. SMR pp. 140-150 cf. Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 3) is so intense that the empirical evidence is ignored, hope replacing fact while in every case fact confirms only creation. All this has been shown often on this site, and much of it is collected in the four volume work, The gods of naturalism have no go! and expanded in some respects in the two volume and broader-ranging compilation, Deity and Design ... These issues come with concentration on the whole area of ramification, verification and confirmation in many domains, in the two volume work, Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, Who Answers Riddles, and Where He is, Darkness Departs. Evidence is not lacking for biblical truth, and indeed it is demonstrable (The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy).
The concept that it is not demonstrable is based on fallacious reasoning. IF you assume God is dumb, or a little ... challenged, and IF you assume that He would not speak if He could, and IF you take it that whatever reason or the evidence tells you, on careful investigation, that the Bible is not even to be considered, then, begging these three questions, you get the automatic result. If however, you examine man, reason and evidence, verification, validity and truth, it is not difficult to prove the truth of the Bible, and this has long been done in the works, such as SMR, TMR , and more recently in The Meaning ... op. cit., nor of course here alone.
So far is 'science', that fantasy figment when it comes to the performance of many of its artisans in this area, from being impartial here, that it is in fact notoriously misused to the point of that mixture of comedy and tragedy, abuse and enormity, that makes its name in this to be betrayed. Human passions do not end in a method, but may manipulate and ignore it to the point that it becomes, like so many other principles of procedure, political and social, a mockery. Examples of this type of thing abound in TMR, especially Chs. 1 and 8, in Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3 and SMR Ch. 2.
With a rancour like that of religion misused in many other spheres, a debased assurance with NO proof whatever offered, the people of South Australia have had their schools subject to a virtual political papacy, in which liberty is denied, logical argumentation is distanced and the dynamic of academic dictatorship is imposed in this realm of knowledge.
Application of Intolerance to Truth by Authoritarianism
It is a lamentable fact that reason is denied a place in the government schools, when it comes to the hypothesis of evolution in the soul-darkening State of South Australia, and creation is not even allowed as a rational topic in subjects other than science. So does prejudice rule by force, and is debate shrunk from, and this on the basis of mere philosophic dicta. Is this to be objective, empirical, unprejudiced ? In the whole history of Western thought, there is little more abhorrent than this sidling away from scientific evidence and misuse of political thrust, academic threat explicit or implicit, and irrational collusion of power and authoritarianism, than this. Debate is never permitted by those outside who seek it, and this over decades, ground is never provided, the partiality, prejudice and unacademic procedure rolls on, and is 'enforced' as the latest news from the relevant government department indicates.
Has Communism, or Nazism been harsh ? Yes, and in the same direction on this topic. The God of design, power and performance is to be dismissed in favour of nothing, altogether or in stages, or of some scheming deity of man's imagination, who has no trouble with torturing the creation in order to make it happen. For the experimentation and desecrations involved in such an imaginary thesis, we see no evidence. For what has in fact happened, we see evidence most abundant, including that of the Bible which has its own independent empirical data testing procedure, which the Lord expressly encourages, indeed demands! (cf. Isaiah 41,43,48) in the most dramatic fashion.
To pretend after that, that there is no empirical dimension for biblical testing, in making any generalisation about religion, is merely to be factually wrong. Such nevertheless is the Government approach, and has been for decades. Not to know its complete efficacy in a unique manner, over millenia, so that there is nothing with which to compare it, let alone scientistic fashions which distort scientific method in these fields, as is the current case, is merely to be unaware (as shown in the 2 references 3 paras above).
To speak without knowledge does not adorn, or in the end, accomplish anything to the point of argument. It does however distort the minds and invade the education of the young in this State. Let there be no doubt, that however gross this example may be, it is not entirely different from that in many places which, if less blatant, are yet geared to the same abuse of scientific method in the pit of fashion and the work of a virtual religious witness. To be so chained to unverified ideas, and invalid hypotheses that this sort of force is used is so far from unprejudiced as to make total mockery of the contrary claim in the newspaper letter noted. This approach starts with a religious preference, proceeds with an evidential vacuum, and ignores data on a grand scale. But let us return to the letter further.
However, on this occasion, these things having often been shown in some detail, our concern is with only one of the errors in this culturally correct letter to the Editor of the Advertiser.
Faith and anti-Reason: Coruscating Confusion in Terms
Using the Macquarie Dictionary, the writer declares that faith is "belief which is not based on proof." He sums this up in his own way, as meaning that creationists "believe it because their faith tells them to." This fiction is then contrasted with another fiction, that 'science' - actually sporting many of highly qualified scientists on both sides in this issue, but this is only one more error in the letter - 'specifically strives to remove any bias in its outcomes.' This is true of scientific method to the extent it is followed, but it could not in this area be LESS true of any generalisation on what scientists are doing. Its common exposition in this field works on hope, ignores fact, and refuses the constant confirmation in verification of each creationist dictum, frequently by trying to exclude the supernatural as a source for test, which is merely a form of begging the question.
That, it is not science, but as has been shown on this site, the CULT OF THE FORBIDDEN*3. It is a quasi-religious sect which moves thus, and has no more to do with science than do pajamas with the actuality of the body. The letter writer then makes another stab in the dark. He decides that human beings are quite emotional and that this hard thing, to remove emotional bias, is just the thing for science. He proceeds yet one step more, indicating that creationists "do not actually care which way the evidence points because their belief is backed by faith."
His final statement that evolution has been shown to be true in every case observed so far is so far from true as to be hilarious. :There NEVER HAS BEEN OBSERVED ANY CASE in the field of goo to you evolution, which is the subject in question. It is all based on hope, contrary to empirical fact as shown in great detail in the above references on this site and beyond it. But let us return to the more interesting field of reason and faith.
In this, notice the logical errors which creep in one by one, until a whole Exhibition Building of folly is revealed, sitting on the clouds of thought, with no touch to the ground.
Thus, even if faith were to be followed as in the Macquarie Dictionary, making it the criterion of thousands of years of debate, as to definition, a point to which we must return in a little, even so, if faith were to be a belief which "is not based on proof", this does not mean that people believe a thing because their faith in isolation tells them to do so, or that they do not care which way the evidence points. This is a false dilemma. Biblical faith has the insistence that God being Creator, and truth being the divine perspective, fact known in totality to Him, it is not only possible and permissible to look at the world of simple facts, evidence, verifications, in esteeming Him the Creator and Redeemer, who speaks in the Bible, but mandatory! How far can an assumption based on ignorance of the Bible and thus the biblical faith go, when it comes to flat contradiction!
In fact, if, to take an illustration, you keep the office rules, but one day meet the boss, you learn more about him and incidentally, the basis of his rules; but this neither invalidates the rules nor means that a) they do not matter b) you ignore them. In fact, it would give you all the more reason to like, address yourself to them and with more understanding perform them, if you found the boss (as in the analogy, you do) a fine man of great wisdom and principle.
If faith takes you beyond what reason WITHOUT personal revelation does, this in no way means either that you
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a) do not esteem reason or |
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b) do not find that what faith reveals is uniquely backed by reason. |
The contrary hypotheses blatantly produced in this deplorable letter, but enlightening in this, that it summarises prejudice so aptly, by exhibiting it, is of course mere myth-making, just as its topic, evolutionism is. Neither is based on anything seen or known or shown, on any engines of construction watched doing their stuff, on anything so much as showing where new information comes from in the realms of non-intelligence, since the current state of the case is that this is NEVER found (cf. Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Dancers Ch. 5, Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ...Ch. 4, TMR Ch. 1, SMR Ch. 2), yes in its own intense field, or in that which would exhibit it. Is observation the source of a belief when what is necessary for the theory is NEVER found! Are we heading for meaningless verbiage authoritarianism ? Alas, it is precisely so.
However, the concept that faith is belief which is not based on proof has to be carefully watched lest it mislead, itself, in addition to these considerations. Thus evolution, on that basis, is faith-based, since it is never seen, always surmised, and this is done contrary to every actual test of empirical evidence. Indeed, Popper indicates that there is no law of evolution. It is not a matter of seeing things and finding explanations and then formulating a law. It is not of that order in the least.
It is a matter of assuming things, and then seeing how they might have happened, assuming this is the case, and ignoring the fact that the billions of in between cases are not found, botched cases of chance error in this sophisticated equipment are not found, means of producing the new information are not found, are never seen at work, information additive devices do not appear (Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ...Ch. 4 as marked, History, Review and Overview Chs. 4 and 5, and as marked), means of constructing the brilliance are not even in view.
Thus, when the quasi-religious side of it is done*4 , and we come to fact, evolutionists vary between immediate creation as a miracle of 'science' here of course falsely so-called, and gradual creation, which some of them lambast as impossible and ludicrous, and are so free from constraint by empirical fact that it is normally in relevant phases, invented. What happened is surmised, contradicted within the ranks of evolutionists, becomes a tatty thing, despised by such as Gould in its adventitious exuberance.
It is found that this or that is what was the actual background to some development, and then it is found that it probably is not, and it is all such a patch-work of story that Harvard's Professor Jay Gould is found asking in heaven's name (though it seems he does not believe in heaven, or did not) we are talking of design-creation when at the macro-level, there is over time design loss to the extent of 90%, ridiculing adaptive superiorities constituting a ground of advance and mocking the increasing design thesis (Wonderful Life! pp. 223, 230-239, 260, 194ff.; cf. SMR pp. 199ff.). He writhes amidst the enormities. He cannot even accept the idea in principle.
It is only by a verbal miracle, that any such illimitable fudging could even be related to the empirical.
In the case of evolution, certainly, it is faith not based on proof, and indeed, it is faith which is deleted by reason (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go! in general, and Secular Myths and Sacred Truth). However, with creationism, care is needed in the formulation of the relationship of reason to revelation, since they are far from antithetical, but rather complementary, yet with due respect to the precedence of God to both man and to reason. In the resultant, reason as from God and when pure in its intention and method, as for example in that just and normal form of scientific method which does not dictate, but learns, is validated, verified and found unable to function without antinomy otherwise (cf. Deity and Design ... Ch. 8). Its place in man as created is not exalted as if it controlled all; nor is it diminished, as though God had lapsed in making it! It has its place without compromise and with all rigour.
To be sure, the faith is not BASED on proof, in that trust has many grounds. You do not trust a crook with a machine gun who alleges his allegiance is to force. That is an exercise of reason. Your lack of faith is in part based on reason. Of course, you have preceding thoughts. Thus you do not trust force as a mode of living. That is based on reason, since mere force can be as well used by madmen as by the sane. That is most reasonable. Secondly, machine guns in the hands of those of this view, can readily remove one's body from this earth, and to trust them in such a case would be a commission for vicarious suicide. If this is not one's intention, then reason requires one not to trust this party.
If on the other hand, you find as in the example of Jesus the Christ,
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that His words and His works, unlike the case
of evolutionism, |
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that His claims and contribution of
evidence support these consistently and categorically, |
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that His power, both in this and
more generally, |
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that His prophetic background is one of millenia,
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that the book in which these inhere has been checked thousands |
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that it indeed challenges you (Isaiah 41,43,48) to check the facts
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If you do this, and then add the multitudes of additional empirical facts (cf. SMR esp. Ch. 2, TMR, and Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ), then REASONABLENESS, and EVIDENCE feature and are focussed strongly. Trust is not devoid of these. We do not become anti-intellectual in order to believe. We do not cease to be fully human in order to be convinced. On the contrary, we refuse to negate the obvious, to ignore the evidential, trusting that the God of truth will make all things clear, as is His custom.
It would be quite a strong and prejudice-oriented approach which would so distort the facts as to make it appear that reason does not enter into this faith in the God of the Bible, and Father of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, it is quite true that the faith goes beyond the reason in this, that having become convinced with many grounds of reason in view, but not alone determinative, for the inter-personal becomes one of the grounds which does not deny but transcends reason, you find MORE information and this has a radical effect on you.
Thus the fact that the Bible can be and has been proved to be true, is one; that it is not because of this that one believes, but that it is relevant, for some believe in the midst of conflicts; that this is nevertheless affirmed whether one believes or not, and is comfort to faith; that even if some for a time, as is not uncommon, quickly inject attack, and a time may proceed before the answer is formalised - as in missiles for atomic bombs -yet faith, knowing the plethora of evidence and the procedures in history and the rock-solid case in general, does not move. Its trust in God is neither irrational nor flimsy: yet it is not rationalistic.
It IS faith which as a genre has its own dimensions: you DO trust Him. Yet to imagine that this is in the absence of reason is as erroneous to think that it is solely because of it. Emotion plays a part. Love plays a part. But trust is an entity which when it comes, whatever its basis, has to be recognised. We have no liberty to generate our own ideas of its basis, integrity or evidence. When it comes, for good or ill, it is there.
In the case of Biblical Christianity there is indefeasible ground for it, but some acknowledging even this, do not believe, for they fear. Such cases have been met EMPIRICALLY! Thus the analytical division between faith and reason does not imply to the least degree a dichotomy; but in this case, incorporates a unity in the end, the main point being that when one comes to trust God, it is He and not human emotion or reason or intuition, who is in view. This then being so, ONCE that occurs, the emotions and reasons are multiple, diversified, unanswerable, sure. The movement is from man to God, not to faith against reason. Miracles are not against reason, once one has proceeded by reason to find that the Bible is true; they exhibit the power of the Creator to intrude, as a child might in a the workings of a new toy train, at will. It would be against all reason, once one sees the position, to exclude them (cf. Lead us Not into Educational Temptation Appendix).
Torturing Truth
To say, in the light of these biblical facts, that the faith person does not CARE about the evidence, or to imply that it is irrelevant is simple distortion based on what is apparently ignorance of what the Bible says (and this bible-oriented, Christ-focussed faith in ONE of the category of faith, so that any generalisation MUST logically cover it, as this one does NOT), and prejudice. Prejudice ? it is simply deciding before knowing the facts, or ignoring them, or both. This is objectively such a case.
The emotion of rebellion against God is a major thrust in lives, and it is often explicit in evolutionists such as that of Gould, who however got himself into such contortions by an unusual degree of application to empirical fact, that he made the expostulation noted above. When it enters into SCIENTISTS, then just like others, neither more nor less, for they are all but men or women, it distorts as do other emotions out of relationship to the whole realm of fact and thought.
There is no special case in the current occupation of much of 'science' by the scientistic, quasi-religious crusade which does not even face the empirical facts, but consistently RULES OUT the supernatural by begging the question, and so does not even debate the case, or if this can at last be brought to pass, fails as did many in the multitude of university campaigns in the last few decades by such as Gish and Johnson, for example (as detailed in such books as From Fish to Gish, an ironic title by Martin L. Lubenow).
We have already noted an analogy, to help people grasp the principle. When you meet the Boss, to imagine that this means that thereafter you undervalue, if indeed you value at all, the office rules is mere gratuitous illusion. It is merely one possibility: for example, if he told you that he was a crook and that the rules were only for fools, and you were dishonest too, then this might be the result. Note however the number of assumptions in this prejudiced and imaginary result.
In actuality, when the BOSS, to take on particular case of vast impact and generality in this world, is your Creator, and His word is that reason is important to the degree that you should always be prepared to give a reason for the faith (I Peter 3:15) which is in you to those who ask, and that truth is His criterion to the point that His incarnation, Jesus Christ, called Himself the TRUTH (John 14:6), and asked them why they were seeking to kill Him, a man who told them the truth, it is clear that the case here is widely removed from the one where not caring about reason would be the case.
The Cult of the Forbidden
Over-ridden by Truth and Objectivity:
the Beggary of Begging the Question
Indeed, Christ invited them to believe, if not directly because of the testimony of His Person (which is not anti-rational, or anti-empirical, but comprehensive), then to believe because His works (John 14:11, cf. Matthew 11:21-24, John 15;22-25). HOW EMPIRICAL can you get! This emphasis on the evidence, found in Isaiah 41,43,48 so emphatically, is set in its negative consequences in John 15 and in judgmental ones in Matthew 11, so that the entire scope of the relationship of faith to evidence could not be further from the distortion, however unintentional it may have been, of the assault on what is neither understood nor accurately depicted! It is precisely thus in evolution in general: what the facts unequivocally relate is rejected, sometimes even on a prior-exclusion basis as in the Cult of the Forbidden*3, widely practised in contemporary science.
Thus 'by definition' which begs the question, the source which alone provides the evidence is categorically rejected! Impartial ? This is an exercise which would serve to perfection to show the opposite; and indeed in so doing in a tertiary institution, the author inherited the wrath of the Establishment who FOR NO STATED GROUND in reason or fact, desired this exposure categorically to cease! It was, the word was, INCONVENIENT that one do this. It was pointed out that truth was supposedly the traditional thrust of a university, but no heed was taken.
This sort of prejudice, this cult, this exclusion in the face of superior reason, ground and logical attestation is not objective, nor is it impartial. It is the most gross exhibit of the antithesis of these things.
In the letter in view, then, this concept of indifference to reason and fact on the part of those whose view and faith he assaults and mischaracterises in the biblical case, is an assumption of prejudice. It is moreover incorrect. As such, it is revealing. Not only does the logic not stand, which is build on mere assumption, and proceeds from false data, but the alleged lack of prejudice now appears more broadly attested than ever in the one who alleges prejudice in the category of those whose faith he attacks.
Now let us get to the actual facts as far as biblical Christians are concerned in this interesting question of the actual relationship of reason and faith. Let us see the biblical model, so that mischaracterisation may have more mountains to climb, before it luxuriates.
The God who made man made him in His own image, fit for and capable of communication with Him, and to have understanding with Him, has spoken man into existence (DNA is form of language which commands the design - cf. Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed Ch. 4). Since God is a Spirit, the term 'image' CANNOT mean anything physical, but what is relevant to communication with this same God, including the possibility of co-operation and communication, or since God is free, rebellion.
God asks man to REASON together with Him (Isaiah 1:18, and pervasively in Isaiah and Jeremiah), tells man to give a REASON for the faith and excoriates those who in the face of the repeated empirical EVIDENCE do not believe in Him. Hence to imagine that THIS particular variety of faith has the alleged attitude to reason and evidence is null and void, inapplicable, a dream, a prejudice in the sense defined above.
Let us then pursue further the biblical MODEL. Faith is thus in LINE with REASON, but it is not ultimately based on it, because its basis is broader than this, and since man is crippled by sin, an enlightenment is needed at the spiritual level to remove the prejudice which is systematically, race-wide, present, against the actual truth. This is not to say that there is anything in this faith contrary to reason, that reason is an embarrassment to it, or that it crosses reason at any point. It transcends it, but never collides. It is an ancillary action, but not the final. When the final action of regeneration of the prejudiced spirit of man has been accomplished, then reason is once more seen in its total applicability and unique satisfaction in the case of biblical Christianity, as shown in detail in the 142 volumes of this set, In Praise of Christ Jesus.
Can the faith be proved to be correct in the case of biblical Christianity ? You will notice that this question is not the same as asking whether faith is based on reason, but rather is this: Can reason prove the faith in fact to be correct, when the genesis of faith is no more in view, but the verifiability and validity of it generically are in question.
Yes, it may be, and SMR is one place where in something a little less than one million words, this is systematically done, while TMR gives more. The other works cited above, in this milieu, most multi-volume -
The gods of naturalism have no go!
Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation
The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy,
Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ
constitute another.
NOTES
See Journal of Creation, Volume 21 (1), 2007, pp. 69ff..
See in relatively short summary form, Grand Biblical Perspectives, Ch. 3 Appendix, including (*1A and *1B), with Questions and Answers Ch. 5, Appendix, and indeed see this in the context of empirical evidence in another field, for ALL must be considered, in the rest of this same Chapter.
See also The Defining Drama Ch. 3 on some of the vast variables, Overflight ... Ch. 5 on the rationality in Christianity, minus mere prejudicial assumption, so easy to make when you have no basis for so much as the validity of the reasoning and the allied knowledge you use when you seek to argue (Deity and Design Ch. 8). See with the above, The Defining Drama Ch. 10 for a joint look at empirical facts on a broader basis, and at the atheistic muddles that prevent validity, and to this add It Bubbles Ch. 9. On belief and logic, see Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 3.
See Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 7.
See for this, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 10, Section 2 and, in its all too verified kind of application in another field, Section 3.