Is Faith Logical?

‘Knowledge’ is sometimes defined in philosophy as a ‘true, justified belief’. If a belief is justified but not true (e.g. I see a man lying motionless on the floor with red fluid in a puddle around him, I believe he is hurt- in fact he is only an actor), this is not really ‘knowledge’. On the other hand, if a belief is true but not justified (e.g. I believe I will be struck by lightning at 3:00, and in fact I really will be), this is also not real ‘knowledge’ because the means of arriving at it were not valid. I would like to ask whether faith is ‘knowledge’. My question assumes that faith in God is true, which makes it at least half ‘knowledge’, but is it justified? Using popular phrases, is it logical? Is it a ‘leap in the dark’? Is it a gamble when the odds are against us? Does the absence of physical evidence make faith all the more commendable? Does true faith play by the rules of logic or does it exist in a totally different game?

Fideism
The position contending the latter is sometimes called fideism. Fideism argues that faith is true and necessary but not ‘logical’, that it ‘transcends’ rationality. Fideism says that faith answers the questions that the physical, intellectual world poses but cannot answer. Most beliefs, it is said, require justification from evidence, for example, we need reasons to believe that a new medicine will work, that a politician will benefit the people, or that unicorns exist. But God’s existence, states fideism, is the exception. God is not material or ‘worldly’, so material or ‘worldly’ evidence cannot be given for Him, including intellectual. You either let logic take you to atheism or you let faith take you to God. In this view, faith is the resignation from your own intellect and rationalisation and the simple, personal commitment to God.
Hebrews 11:1 is often used in support of this view: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen.” John 20:29 is also thought of as supporting fideism: “Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” In addition, Soren Kierkegaard, who is regarded as ‘the father of Existentialism’ and an important proponent of fideism, exemplifies the use of Genesis 22 to support fideism. Kierkegaard speaks of Abraham’s choice to slaughter his cherished son as a ‘suspension of the ethical’ and rational in order to attain to the transcendent.

Firstly, there a number of concerns I have with the theory in itself:
1. There are many people who have taken the ‘leap of faith’ into belief in Islam, Hinduism and atheism. What can be used to distinguish between them and evaluate their truth claims?
2. Moreover, evangelism, apologetics, and merely talking to non-Christian about faith would have no effect because the ‘leap of faith’ cannot be produced by anything physical or worldly, including the words of other people. Faith becomes wholly individualistic, which just does not make sense with what we know of psychology, sociology, religion or the bible (e.g. Rom 10:17).
3. What does it really mean to lay down logic for a moment? If logic is not reliable on one particular issue, then logic is not reliable. If 2 apples + 2 apples are not 4 apples, then 2 oranges + 2 oranges are not necessarily 4 oranges. If the trinity or the incarnation or faith itself really is both true and logically incoherent, then it could also be that Jesus is not Satan and also Satan. We can either say that human rationality is simply unsound as a means to truth (deconstructionism, http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/21/21-4/21-4-pp369-380_JETS.pdf), implying for example that we just cannot say that 2+2=4, or we can affirm our understanding of logic and the senses to be basically reliable as a guide to reality. I see no space for middle ground.

More importantly, I have a number of biblical objections to the theory of fideism:
The three passages mentioned above are used to prooftext the idea of ‘blind faith’. But if we dig deeper, would we find this to be true to the text?
Hebrews is not a dictionary, it is an epistle. 11:1 is not an isolated clause, or a technical definition; it emerges from a long flow of argument and is expounded in the rest of the chapter. It would be naive and lazy to try and understand it on its own. When we have a basic understanding of Hebrews 1-10 in mind, then we can attempt an interpretation of Hebrews 11.
The first chapter establishes Christ’s pre-eminence as himself being God’s own spoken message, “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” (1:3). In the second chapter, notice trends of vocabulary. It urges us to “pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable... How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit...” (2:1-4). We have ‘HEARD’ God’s message that brings salvation, it was “ATTESTED” to by human witnesses and also by God Himself through certain, clear ‘signs’ of its validity. This sounds less like an argument for simple, blind faith, and more like a courtroom, giving evidence for the authenticity of God’s revelation in Christ. Chapter three reminds us that the people in the days of Moses “saw [God’s] works for forty years” and still hardened their hearts against His voice, provoking His wrath. How much more evil is it (the author argues), to harden our hearts against God’s voice in the times of Christ, who is far greater than Moses? It is more evil because it takes more to deny such an obvious confirmation of God and His gospel. Evidently, this is unbelief: the denial God’s works in real, perceivable space and time. Chapter 4 reiterates the necessity of ‘faith’ in those “works” of God in order to ‘enter His rest’ (4:3); “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (4:12). How is the word of God to do with faith? The word is the means by which we see the “works” of God that we have faith in. In what sense is it active and able to pierce? Its purity, excellence and universal clarity demand a response. No one can say they didn’t see or understand the works of God in the word of God; “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account” (4:13). In this way, chapter five continues, Christ, having been appointed as a high priest, “deals gently with the ignorant and wayward” (5:2). That is, He makes His works plain even to those whose reasoning capacities have been ravaged by the fall. This is our reason for having certainty in His promises. This is the ground for chapter six contending that “We have this (God’s promise) as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf”. This is not ‘hope’ like I hope I will win the lottery, that is, it is not the kind of hope that exists in the absence of, or contrary to evidence, which cannot be an “anchor of the soul”. ‘Elpizó’ denotes a hope which certain and clear. Chapter seven, eight and nine argues Christ’s harmony with and fulfilment of Old Testament priesthood (ch7) and covenants (ch8), connecting Him with the purity, excellence and universal clarity or the OT. Primarily, the shedding of His blood secures our redemption from transgression and our eternal inheritance (9:15) just as the OT system had foreshadowed. All of which increases His credibility as the true Messiah. Chapter 10 stresses again and again the “full assurance” of our faith. 10:34 gives an example of the assurance of the Hebrews’ faith: “you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had was better possession and an abiding one.” What does this teach about the nature of faith? Their immediate circumstances told them to despair, but they didn’t despair because they knew they had a lasting reward. It felt like God was against them but the gospel proved the contrary. ‘Faith’ here means giving up immediate security for a more certain, eternal security.
As we’ve seen, chapters 1-10 employ words such as ‘express’, ‘attest’, ‘confirm’, ‘witness’, ‘sign’, ‘saw’, ‘appeared’, ‘established’ or ‘assurance’. We have no reason to think these words in their original Greek or in their English translations actually describe an isolated realm of physically unperceivable and intellectually incomprehensible entities, reached through mysterious, existential commitment. The reality they describe is fundamentally simple. Christ was seen and heard and touched, was raised bodily from the dead and has won our allegiance.
This brings us to the fideist passage of Heb 11:1. What is meant by ‘hoped for’ (Gk. elpizó) or by “things not seen”? Why do we ‘elpizó’ (or ‘expect’) what our immediate circumstances seem to contradict? Hebrews makes the answer clear: Christ appeared ‘once for all’ (10:9-14), and if we have faith (Gk. pistis: simply meaning ‘trust’) in that totally trustworthy event, we don’t need to ‘see’ it in our immediate circumstance. Faith does not deny physical evidence, it just doesn’t expect physical evidence where there was never meant to be any. Just like I wouldn’t travel to Germany if I wanted evidence for the existence of Fiji, nor would I just accept it as a necessity without reason, I would go to Fiji.

We can understand John 20:29 in the same vein. The two verses following that passage (20:30-31) make it obvious that John is advocating a faith that is founded on evidence, so why are we blessed “who have not seen and yet have believed”? Why did Peter deny that he knew Jesus? Why were the disciples afraid of the storm when Jesus was sleeping? Because it is easier to deny what you know to be the truth when it is not immediate before your eyes. “The mind set on the flesh” (Rom 8:6) only sees flesh- it gazes at the shell rather than seeing all of reality.

Was Abraham forsaking reason and morality in Genesis 22 by choosing to slaughter his son? Just one chapter before, the supernatural birth of Isaac provide Abraham with reason to trust the power and goodness of God’s ways. Abraham’s immediate circumstances tell him keep Isaac alive, but God has shown Himself to be far greater in wisdom, so Abraham obeys Him. This is not irrationality, this is not putting reason and ethics on hold; it is acknowledging the fact that God is more convincing than the appearance of his immediate circumstances.

This leads me to affirm what I see as the truth in fideism; there is a biblical balance. Dr Don Carson in ‘Exegetical Fallacies’ helpfully points out a distinction between various meanings of the word ‘logic’. One of those meanings is the ‘basic set of axiomatic principles’. The first of these principles is the law of non-contradiction, which claims that two true statements cannot contradict each other. I believe that if we extend these laws into their implications, we find that a true belief must be justified by evidence. I have already made clear that in this first sense of the word ‘logic’, we cannot say that the Christian faith is both illogical and justified because this would be the same as saying it is both false and true (see above: third ‘concern’). However, there is another sense in which the word ‘logic’ is used which Carson points out. This sense is the patterns of thought or worldviews that determine the way we interpret information. “For example, we sometimes speak of “Western logic” or “Japanese logic” or “the logic of the marketplace” or “the logic of ecology”. In this [second] sense one logic may compete with another logic”. These ways of reasoning should be, but not always are, held accountable to the first sense of ‘logic’.
Without faith, a person’s patterns of thought necessarily exclude God’s revelation; in this sense, trust in God is totally opposed to an unbeliever’s ‘logic’. In this sense faith is not logical (1 Cor1:18). Unbelief is ‘logical’ according to an unbeliever’s own system of reasoning, but their system of reasoning is not ‘logical’ (in the first sense of the word) because it does not account for the revelation of God in Christ which is, in itself, overwhelmingly clear and intellectually persuasive. The only way they will become ‘logical’ in the first sense is if the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to acknowledge the revelation of God in their personal ‘logic’. “For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2Cor4:6).

In conclusion, I think Fideism is a distortion of biblical Christianity, although it has elements of truth. I think God granted us a true understanding of the most basic forms of logic (mathematics, non-contradiction etc) and with senses which generally provide us with a true understanding of the world, even in our fallen state. Matters of faith are not exempt from the scrutiny of these two faculties. In fact, both bear witness to the existence of the biblical God. Our sin has caused us to suppress it, but God in His mercy has caused us to acknowledge what is, in itself, clear.