Marakesh 𓅦 on Nostr: I appreciate your thoughtful response and respectful tone as well. My thoughts won't ...

I appreciate your thoughtful response and respectful tone as well. My thoughts won't be as organized and as articulate as yours, but I hope they make some sense. The Bible certainly does promote God's knowledge and wisdom as infinitely superior to man's reason:

> “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

and

> “The foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

The Bible also encourages people to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, *mind*, and strength. Of course, you can't love the Lord God with all your mind if you turn off your critical reasoning faculties.

One of my favorite quotes by Thomas Jefferson, a man of the Enlightenment who yet believed in God (though he was by no means an orthodox Christian), states:

> “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than of blindfolded fear” (letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787).

You state that "reason is the very tool used to enter the door" of a person's understanding of any faith tradition in the first place. However, the Bible is very clear that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I would say that this "fear" means reverence for and even faith in the Lord. Reason can lead you to knowledge, which is facts and information, but it doesn't lead you to wisdom, which is knowledge correctly applied. Faith, of course, is not entirely based on reason, or what people apprehend with their five senses (such as sight): “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). As Anselm of Canterbury said: credo ut intelligam (“I believe so that I may understand”). When you humble yourself by bowing, so to speak, your intellect to that of God, through faith, you then become capable of understanding so much more. To me, God is a logical necessity, but I like to say that if you can accept by faith the very first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," everything that follows should be easy to believe.

I agree with you that we should welcome an ongoing thinking process when engaging in conversations about faith. Are you familiar with Dr. William Lane Craig and his ministry [Reasonable Faith](https://www.reasonablefaith.org/)? He is a Christian philosopher and one of my favorite apologists, an intellectual I am happy to have in the Christian camp. If you're not familiar with his work, it might be of interest to you.