Jan 262013
 

Some therefore think religion is unreasonable, but is this true?

Religious knowledge cannot be imparted like other information, simply by scanning the sacred page. And so it is said that religious experience transcends reason, not in the sense of being unreasonable, but that such experience is not a product of reason.

Just as reason does not produce love, reason does not produce religious experience. Rather, reason merely seeks to understand something it did not generate.  Grace does moves through scripture, but this is despite reason, not because of reason. Scanning the sacred page may or may not be followed by the religious experience, but it is not mere apprehension of the text that separates one from the other.

To say this does no damage to reason, nor does it dismiss reason, for surely it is necessary to seek an understanding of experiences. Love without reason would not be enough for the covenant of marriage. I must base my commitment fully upon my reason or else my promise becomes too fragile to hold and survive. Just as I must use reason to enter into a covenant with my lover, I must use my reason to respond to religious experience, though it was not my reason that produced it.

 Posted by at 12:37 pm

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