ONE MUST RIGHTLY BALANCE FAITH, REASON AND PHILOSOPHY. There is difference between pure logical reasoning and value loaded reasoning of particular philosophies. For example logic is pure reasoning, whereas rationalism is a biased philosophical reasoning. Sound mind and pure logical reasoning is essential for every human being. But value loaded philosophical reasoning is always biased toward a particular worldview. FAITH OR REASON DISPUTE IS NOT JUSTIFIABLE. TRUE FAITH AND PURE REASONING CAN AND MUST GO TOGETHER FOR THE SAKE OF SOBER MIND. FAITH AND REASON ARE COMMON TO ALL NORMAL HUMANS. There is no boundary for philosophy. Philosophy can be a product of wild, rash, and uncontrolled human speculation. After the coming of Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation and research for truth. Believers and unbelievers alike are people of faith, but differ in their respective objects of faith. Unbelievers have faith in their ability to interpret God and His world apart from God and Scripture, assuming their own ability and authority to determine knowledge and truth. Conversely, Christians accept their status as created by God and place their faith in the authority of God and His revelation (Scripture), in submission to God’s Lordship. In the same way, believers and unbelievers exercise reason. Unbelievers use reason to deny the obvious evidence of God’s existence and authority, viewing their own interpretations of God and reality as ultimately authoritative. Believers use reason to understand, order, and submit to God’s revelation.

EITHER FAITH OR REASON KIND OF ARGUMENT IS MISLEADING. The familiar “faith versus reason” argument posed by unbelievers is a false dichotomy, used to misrepresent Christian belief as lacking reason while justifying the unreasonable faith of false beliefs. Unbelief and false beliefs are unjustified faith in one’s own opinion concerning God and His universe. TRUE FAITH AND PURE REASON ARE COMPLEMENTAR AND MUST GO TOGETHER. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God; hence there can be no contradiction between them. Both complement each other. The separation of faith and reason will lead to errors – e.g. From rationalism to nihilism. As a result of the crisis of rationalism, what has appeared finally is nihilism. Its adherents claim that the search is an end in itself, without any hope or possibility of ever attaining the goal of truth.

NEED TO RECOVER UNITY OF FAITH AND REASON. The history of philosophy reveals a growing separation between faith and philosophical reason. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so run the risk of no longer being a universal proposition. It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the same token, reason, which is unrelated to perfect faith, will end up in nonsense thinking like nihilism etc. THEOLOGY IS ABOUT UNDERSTANDING REVELATION AND COMMUNICATING IT, NOT DENYING IT. As an understanding of Revelation, theology has always had to respond in different historical moments to the demands of different cultures, in order then to mediate the content of faith to those cultures in a coherent and conceptually clear way. 2 functions of theology all times = understand the content of revelation and pass it on to different peoples of different cultures in such a way they understand the message.

TRUE CHRISTIAN VIEW ON REASON. What depends on man and his reason is less than man, and what depends on God is less than God. It is reason and man that depend on God, not God that depend on man or reason. Thus, the consistent Christian position must be this: no God, no knowledge. Since the universe is a created universe, no true knowledge of it is possible except in terms of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. Man’s rationality, according to the Christian view, is part of man’s relationship to God, not a god in itself. But autonomous man, with his laws of contradiction and logic, demands that God must follow his rationality and his laws of logic. In other words, God must think man’s thoughts after him! Autonomous reason of man fails to realize that his reason is very small compared to God.

REVELATION SATISFIES REASON. Revelation and reason are not opposing. God is the source of both. Revelation is basically a self-communication of God to humanity. It is only reasonable that God, who created mankind in His image and likeness with reason and intellect, also provides ways and means to satisfy the hunger and thirst of reason. Hence Revelation and reason will complement each other in guiding humanity towards fullness.

INTER-DEPENDENCY OF REVELATION AND SCIENCE. We are now living in a time of inter-relations, inter-dependency and inter-disciplines. No discipline can function today in splendid isolation, without running the risk of missing the whole for the particular. Therefore, there is a need for mutual respect and open dialogue between science and religion. Both serve humanity from different perspectives. But the intended unity between science and religion should not be confused into identity or uniformity. Science cannot become religion, and religion cannot become science. Religion is not founded on science, nor is science an extension of religion.