Do you agree or disagree wih this?Why or why not?

Question

This is the response I gave someone that emailed me;I wanted to see who agrees or disagrees with this.

This is why inorder to properly understand God and His word,faith&logic cannot be separated.Faith is needed in order to understand that God is the authority and what He says is truth.Logic IS needed along with faith in order to come to a correct interpretation and conclusion of what God says in His word and to properly understand the things that God does.Faith&logic appear to contridict becuase people make the mistake of separating one from the other&ultimately end up at flawed conclusions.They must be used together to understand correctly.Same goes for many things in the Bible.What appears to contridict are actually meant to be merged and understood together not just separate.

Agree or disagree with this?Please explain why?

Answer 1

I agree. Most alleged contradictions between logic and faith are usually failures to correctly understand.

Answer 2

I do agree with you, and Thomas Aquinas would also agree with you. Logic is to be used only as far as it's limits are, which is that it doesn't fully go far enough to explain the existence of God and the creation of the universe. These are things that logic can attempt to prove through physical proofs, but they are not believed unless you have faith. Logic also cannot explain such things as why the saviour of the world has to die in order for the world to be saved, and how someone is resurrected from the dead. It's true that logic has a place, but it is incapable of fully understanding these things, and many other similar things, so faith has to take over. The Scriptures are interesting, because they take logic to interpret and faith to believe in the truth that is found within the pages. If you just use logic, all you know is what they mean, but you do not attempt to put that meaning into practice. If you just have faith, you don't interpret the Scriptures truthfully and end up bordering on heresy (heretics really don't have faith, they only make it seem like they do). In the case of the Scriptures, faith and logic must work together in order for the people of God to follow their Lord according to what He has said to Christians for all times. Thanks be to God for the gift of faith and the ability for humans to use their fallen intellect to understand the words that you have provided for us in your most precious and holy Scriptures! Praise the Lord!

Answer 3

Wrong. By saying that faith is needed in order to understand that God is the authority and what He says is truth, you have already turned off your logic. Faith in believing something is true is that you don't search exhaustively for proof because logic provided the proof, example: 1+1 = 2 is agreed upon. It is always true according to our definition. Faith in believing something is also based on the benefit that believing caused no harm, such as believing in history books. You may wait for the disproof, but it causes no harm to believe it first. Logic tells us recorded history is not proof because history was written in someones' objective.

Answer 4

From your question, its from a christian's point of view, so i'll answer in like manner.

Jesus said by faith, one can move the mountains. With faith, Jesus performed miracles, and ultimately rose from the dead three days later.

by logic, its impossible to even move half a mountain, regardless of the confidence level(by logic faith doesnt exist).

However, that doesnt mean that logic should be disregarded by men, or that faith is against logic.

God is beyond understanding, but God is not beyond reason.

In short, walk the faith and do understand that logic applies at times, but sometimes it is contrary to what faith can do, and thus blinds one. Hence, be discerning.

For example, if you're heavily plagued by disease and didnt recover immediately after praying, does logic win and you shouldnt believe in God? Nope, it doesnt work that way.

Live by faith, in case of doubt. Logic tells the atheists there is no God, but by faith and our experience with the godly things, we know there is God.

Answer 5

I disagree. Some contradictions in the bible are blatantly so, not just 'misunderstandings.' This is why I believe biblical literalism is a bad idea.

For example:
Genesis 1:1 states that man was created after the animals.
Genesis 1:2 states that man was created before animals.

All in all, Christianity is a good idea. When you take the bible as a collection of lessons and moral guidelines, it's fine. But when you start taking things literally, sometimes in contradiction to reality (see Genesis again, regarding biology), you get a lot of confusion.

Applying logic to the bible requires one to understand that much of it is meant to be figurative, and the rest is steeped in folklore. The finer details don't matter as much as the overall message.

Answer 6

I totally agree with you. Faith is an absolutely necessity when believing the Bible, but so is logic. As someone once told me, "take the Bible literally until you can't anymore". This is where the logic comes from. For example, the Lord's supper. You cannont physically eat Christ's body or drink his blood. It is a symbol, and logic is used to determine that. (Transubstantiation, the belief that the cracker and juice become the body and blood are no where mentioned in Scripture. It has no Biblical basis; therefore, it cannont be true).

Answer 7

Agree!

As Rev. Charles Spurgeon wrote, in his autobiography: “The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once.... Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other... and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other” (Charles H. Spurgeon, Autobiography Vol. 1: The Early Years. pp. 173, 174).

And, to any other answerer on here who places the question, such as, "which God/faith are you talking about?"

The answer is, it shouldn't matter!
For God is a personal experience!

This is like in the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant...

Each blind man touched a different part of the elephant and had a different idea of what the elephant was.

The tail felt like a rope, the legs felt like a tree, the ear felt like a rug... (These descriptions are what LOGIC would tell the Blind Men that they are touching, just to give an example of Logic)

We could call each different interpretation, a different part of Life or a different "logical" reaction to reality. And we can call the elephant the intrinsic whole of Life, or that thing inside all of us that is the same (God, if you will).

This is why people argue and fight.

One might think "Hey, if i think this feels like a tree, and he thinks it feels like a rope, of course we can't both be right. But if i'm wrong, that means i don't exist (since our existence depends on our ability to synergize with the rest of the world). i know i exist. so he must be wrong."

You see?

Most of us aren't that enchanted when we see an elephant, because we've seen them so many times. but if we see only a part of the elephant, and then gradually the whole becomes revealed, we appreciate it much more.

We all must strive to accept our differences little at a time, until the whole elephant is revealed to everyone individually.

Answer 8

Interesting, you claim Faith alone is needed to "understand that God is the authority and what He says is truth", yet you claim faith and logic "must be used together to understand correctly".

Of course, any application of logic to the question of whether the christian god is the one true god would require you to doubt the existence of such a god (the flood, the ten plagues of Egypt, Sodom and Gomorrah...all acts where innocent children were murdered by a 'god of love').

You cannot claim faith can be seperated from logic in one aspect of your argument, and then argue they cannot be seperated in another.

At least not if you wish to maintain a credible argument.

Answer 9

I disagree.

You are using faith to arrive at conclusions, and then manipulating logic until it supports those conclusions.

In this case, your logic is flawed, and therefore the conclusion is not valid.

Answer 10

I disagree with you , but lovingly so for I can see you are aiming in a right direction to seek this matter out!
God's.... Spirit of TRUTH { which IS the Holy Spirit} is the one who gives you the "revelation" OF God's truth and His authority. Also TRUST is required with faith AND some type of WORKS to have an actual mansfestation of something you have hoped for to come to pass.
Logic is of the natural man that we are which can simply choose to agree or disagree even with some touchable and see-able matter concerning the realness of Christ and/or God's Kingdom. He tells us that the natural minded man or carnal minded (un-spiritually oriented man) is at ENMITY:( naturally inclined against Him.....simply that way unless having relation and trust established with Him already & then we can still have times of being against Him more than for Him!
That's why we need a Savior from our sin to change our evil nature to turn away from the reality of God or to rebell against them or simply choose not to care!....Thank God for Jesus who came to set us captives free from our own stinking thinking and nature Amen?
Logic is used by God when it benefits His intent for someone who man have little or no faith to help them....but has little to do with faith in Him and belongs to our earthy understanding. He desires that we ask Him for more faith cause thats what He's LQQKING for from us! He even asked the question in Luke 18th chapter somewhere...Will He find faith on the earth when He returns?
Logic can help us to see how to make some sense outta a matter but God doesn't operate according to logic in the miracle business even though we can track back how He may have arranged a matter but it is usually yet... .un-usual how He brings a matter about.
When you ask the Lord for the Spirit of Truth to abide in you He will guide you into all truth.....good bad or indifferent or logical or illlogical truth just for the....."simpleseeking" and personal relationship that developes between you and Him. He loves to share His revelation with those that will get serious in talking to and spending time with Him and will show you answers in His word that actually do not contradict one another when you see them being guided by His Spirit of Truth & revelation.....Hooray for the Holy Spirit...our comforter!
Last but not least.....faith is the substance of a thing hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.....coming to pass or manifestation! Hey God Bless Your Faith today!

Answer 11

If it works for you go with it but faith and logic to me are very separate.

Faith is belief in something with no proof, that's not logical