Rationalism (The Reasons to Believe #28) - Ministry Videos

Released: April 25, 2014 By: Daniel Whyte III

Our Reasons to Believe Scripture passage for today is 2 Corinthians 10:5. It reads, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

Our Reasons to Believe quote for today is from C.S. Lewis. He said, "To be ignorant and simple now --- not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground --- would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."

Our Reason to Believe powerpoint today is titled "Rationalism" from "The Handbook of Christian Apologetics" by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli:

Rationalism holds that everything we know by faith can also be understood or discovered, or proved by reason, but not vice versa. Faith is a subclass or sub-department of reason.

Very few Christian thinkers have claimed this. Anselm seems to have been one, for he tried to prove even the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation by strict rational philosophical arguments, what he called "necessary reasons."

Hegel was a very different kind of rationalist. He radically interpreted the content of revelation to fit his philosophy (e.g., he denied creation out of nothing and Christ's unique divinity)