Can We Still Believe in God in an Age of Reason? — The Logic of Faith
Logically, faith in God is merely an absurd and primitive means of making sense of a chaotic world. We now live in a generation whose faith rests more securely in science and machines. DNA and AI. We need to see logic in every aspect of life. Cause and effect. The physical evidence. Why would anyone give credence to an idea that they can’t prove or directly perceive? It’s illogical.
Particularly in a culture that worships intellect and technology, faith in something unseen is considered more and more as foolishness. While we sometimes turn away from faith because of our upbringing, or the suffering we see around us or in ourselves, the hypocrisy we see in the organized church, or even fear of ridicule; most often it seems to be that simple barrier of human logic. But it might be worth considering the idea that it may be even more foolish to put your faith in only what you can perceive.
If you can humor me with an analogy…
Imagine an earthworm. The worm moves slowly through the dirt, feeling the soil against his skin and occasionally feeling the warmth of the sunlit air or the wetness of the rain. If he had the intellect, he would probably spend a lot of time contemplating the soil, the air, and the rain. He would try to understand everything there is to know about the soil, the air, and the rain, and he would feel very proud of his great understanding of the universe.
Meanwhile, I could be standing directly over the worm. I could breathe on him, speak to him, guide his path through the soil… The worm will never even know that I was there. He can’t even begin to conceive the concepts of vision or language. He may notice that something has changed, but he can’t understand how or why. My breath is indistinguishable from the wind. My voice is just a meaningless vibration. Perhaps he senses my presence, but I exist outside of the worm’s ability to logically perceive.
It’s safe to say that a worm’s awareness of reality is extremely narrow at best, and in many ways completely false. A worm’s logic is only logical to a worm.
It’s no different with human logic.
It’s true that humans have a few more senses than worms do, but that’s still not very many ways to perceive a universe that is vastly larger and more complex than our comprehension even allows. We have a higher capacity to learn than a worm has, but our intellect can only take us so far when we’re so incredibly limited in our ability to perceive.
With that said, it’s not my purpose here to propagate the point of view that science is invalid or shouldn’t be trusted.
On the contrary, as a seeker of truth, I encourage the pursuit of science. (Though I would be careful to make a distinction between science which functions to seek truth in nature and serve humanity, and technology which tends to interfere with truth, is destructive to nature, and serves itself.) But the popular belief that there must be rivalry between science and faith is bigoted, regardless of which side is chosen. Many religious people feel threatened by science, but it shouldn’t be this way.
Geological discoveries which indicate the age of the earth are merely proof that God does not measure his days the same way we do. And why would he? Why would an eternal God measure his days according to the spin of our tiny planet? A day to God might be a million years to us. The same can be said about the evidence we’ve found in regard to human evolution. How long did it actually take to create man? Can we really claim to know God’s process? Couldn’t he have started with a single living cell and molded it into many forms of life over a period of time? There’s no sense in arguing for or against it. It makes no difference to our faith either way.
In any case, I believe we should seek truth fearlessly and trust that it will lead us to a greater understanding of God. But at the same time, to believe that we can even come close to a clear comprehension of reality with our five feeble senses and our tiny little brains is really quite humorous. We’re like worms who only believe in our own perception, refusing to consider that anything exists outside of the soil, the air, and the rain. Which, for us, might be described as the earth, the universe, and time.
Our once open minds have become enslaved to technical reasoning. While it’s not possible to scientifically prove or disprove something that exists completely outside of our awareness, it stands to reason that there is most certainly life that exists beyond our five senses that we are just not physically capable of perceiving. It’s a guarantee that there are things going on around us all the time that humanity will never know or understand.
So, we continue believing in God in the face of ridicule, not because we choose to be ignorant or don’t understand human logic, but because we accept human logic for what it is: a recognition of certain consistencies which foster an understanding of the illusions of human perception. And there is nothing wrong with that. But with human perception being so severely flawed by its limitations, we also have to concede that all logic is equally flawed.
In light of that knowledge, knowing the extreme limitations of human intellect, it seems even sillier to put our trust in merely what we can see and comprehend. For those of us who sense the presence of God in our lives, it will always remain true, even in this greatest age of reason, that the most logical thing we can do is to lay down our pride, recognize our humble position in the universe, and have faith.
