It is common to pit faith against reason assuming that faith drifts into a la la world where normalcy does not apply. And since faith is about God, it is supposedly a higher standard. This position relegates rationality to something close to a worldly corruption.

There is a strong driving force in the world to reduce rationality to a corruption, since truth and accountability are the products of rationality. Christ said corrupters hate truth because it exposes their deeds as evil (John 3:19).

If the purpose of material life is to end sin by creating a proper relationship to objective reality, as I claim, then rationality is the mechanism by which it is accomplished. What other purpose material life should have is hard to imagine, but if it is some purposeless blunder which satan took control of, as other theologies imply, then rationality would be a corruption.

So the task of properly describing faith is the task of properly understanding rationality. Faith is one of the more advanced manifestations of morality. This means that whatever makes up morality leads to faith. Sin, of course, destroys faith by destroying proper relationships between people.

Faith is not just a relationship to God; it is a relationship between people. There can’t be a different relationship to God than to other persons. The first error of false faith is the assumption that people can relate to God differently than to other persons. It’s like assuming that an automobile that drives on highways in the USA drives on water in Timbuktu. Moral character is the most complex and demanding arrangement in existence. It can’t change its characteristics for God. What it is for humans, it is for God.

This reduces the task to determining what is proper for humans. How could anything but rationality be the machine that drives everything constructive humans do? But haven’t our gods been teaching us that rationality is how the hippies, communists and crazies destroy the economy and overthrow our government? Yes they have; and it’s the proof that they are frauds, not the proof that rationality is a corruption.

To understand faith, it’s necessary to understand how rationality creates constructivity. Faith is one of the products of constructively functioning minds.

Rationality is the application of reason. Reason is making relationships between realities. Logic is the strictest application of reason. Logic is a term applied to computer chips, because they must follow a predetermined process. Computers fail without logic for the same reason ordered existence fails without logic. Order requires proper relationships between realities. Life is ordered existence. Christ’s purpose was to create eternal life (Mat 25:46)(John 5:24, 6:47, 12:50).

Would it be constructive for humans to abandon reason and resort to a type of faith without reason? Is that what scam artists thrive on? People don’t know that they are abandoning reason when being scammed. That’s why a fake logic is used by scammers.

One of the most basic purposes of corrupters is to be always at cause and never effect. They are control freaks due to a destroyed relationship to other persons.

A proper relationship between persons requires interactions. The interactions are as complex as the tasks. Interactions require some equality. One person dominating cannot do complex things. This means that people must be effect as often as they are cause.

In complex interactions there are tasks, and there are expectations. Relying upon others is what faith is considered to be. Can the expectations be separated from the tasks? Not hardly. All elements are interdependent. Similarly, faith cannot be separated from all elements of life.

Relying-upon-others is dependent upon all other requirements for constructivity. If there is one bad link in the chain, the end result will not be right. For this reason, faith is dependent upon all elements of constructivity.

There is a tendency to assume faith applies to the extra-ordinary and therefore to be opposed to rationality. Then extending from that assumption is that rationality is a lowly and corrupt thing. Since satan and all corrupters fight a war against rationality, it is easy for unwitting persons to slide into the disdain for rationality. The Bible emphasizes the importance of all elements of rationality (Mat 7:8, 13:16, 15:10)(Mark 4:13, 8:18)(Luke 8:18, 10:23,24, 12:54-57, 24:45)(John 7:24, 8:43).

Faith
Faith and Reason
Faith, Corruption