• We must build up our faith!
  • Irrational: not endowed with reason or understanding.
  • The charge that faith is irrational:
    • It is not based on observable evidence.
    • It is not based on reason.
    • It is not verifiable by experimentation.
    • It is a blind leap of faith accepted on the basis of revelation.
    • It amounts to superstition.
    • People believe because they want to.
  • The response of the Bible:
    • The charge that faith is irrational is a dishonest effort to stigmatize believers and cut off debate.
      • This is an ad hominem attack and is not reasonable at all.
      • Acts 26:24-26
      • Name calling does not prove anything.
      • One man’s reasonable is another’s crazy.
    • Religious faith is in fact based on observable evidence.
      • Romans 1:19-20 – The invisible attributes of God can be seen through what He has made.
      • Acts 14:16-17
      • Believers cite lots of evidence.
      • We see the same things as unbelievers.
      • We reason to a different conclusion.
        • Two interpretations of the same evidence.
    • Religious faith is based in part on reasoning from the available evidence to a logical conclusion.
      • Acts 17:2-4
      • I Peter 3:15
      • We reason from the evidence.
      • We conclude faith is more reasonable.
    • Does unverified mean irrational?
      • Faith may not be verifiable at the present but many things in science are accepted as possible or even likely without current verification:
        • Dark matter
        • Gravity waves
        • Black holes
        • Certain sub-atomic particles
        • Life on other planets
    • Basic assumptions of science:
      • There exists a single unchanging set of laws which govern all events in the universe.
      • Human beings are able to understand the workings of the physical universe.
      • The laws which describe the universe are describable by mathematics.
    • The response of the Bible
      • Much religious faith is based on revelation, but revelation itself is a type of evidence.
      • John 20:30-31
      • Acts 1:3
      • II Peter 1:16
      • It’s called testimony
        • It’s the basis on which we “know” just about everything we know.
      • Equating our faith with superstition is disingenuous.
        • John 7:45-46
        • Luke 24:32
      • Faith does not involve choice that goes beyond observable facts
        • Hebrews 11:1
        • John 20:29
        • The evidence only takes us so far.
        • There is a moral or spiritual choice that takes us the rest of the way.
        • Faith is reasonable but not provable.
        • God has intentionally made it this way. I Peter 1:8-9; Hebrews 11:6