Faith Expanded

A few years ago, noted author James Sire visited Macalester College in St. Paul where I was working (and have, this past year, returned) and made this statement to a group of students gathered in a dorm lounge:

"Faith is much more than logical. But it is not less."

He went on to say that Christian faith also entails (in addition to logic) emotion, commitment and volition. As a Christian you are embracing a person -- that is, God, not merely a religious proposition or the idea of God.

So while I share with atheists a kind of generic philosophical faith in the probabilities of certain things, (see my last two posts), this further step of committing myself to the Lord Jesus is more similar to a marriage than to a syllogism.

Faith is thus relational.

I say all this to atheists. A few of them get what I mean, others not so much.