What I am also struggling with are these 'scholars' who come along and claim Jesus never existed.
There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than pretty much any other historical figure, so the same standard that those 'scholars' use to call into question his existence could be used to call into question pretty much all of history. I quoted a link earlier to an article called the Impossible Faith, which argued that it would have been impossible for Christianity to have survived long after Christ's death unless he had be resurrected, which I think would have been even more impossible if Christ hadn't even existed, so I find it much harder to believe that he didn't exist than that he resurrected. It's one thing to doubt that Jesus existed and quite another to be able to construct a narrative where he did not exist that explains the known facts better than his existence does. I have a friend who regularly reads books written by scholars that he disagrees with in order to challenge his views, which I greatly admire, so I can respect scholars who think Christianity is false, but I think that it can also get to the point of absurdity where should not take someone seriously. My problem is that I am a slow reader, the the list of books that I want to read is growing faster than I can read them.
There is another sort of faith he says, in a higher sense, and that comes into play further on, and we should not keep checking to see if we have got that.
Ok here's my difficulty, are Lewis and Kierrkegarrd talking about Reason in the same sense?
For Kierkegarrd Faith is both above Reason, and against reason.
But Lewis if I understand him sees Reason as helping him to know the doctrines of christianity are true.
Kierrkegarrd thought that faith was not about obedience, but rather that it was about believing in something that we know to be impossible when there is no reason to believe it. I think a reason to believe something is the cause of that belief, so to suggest that it is possible for someone believe what know to be impossible when they have no reason to believe is to suggest that it is possible for a belief to spontaneously form uncaused, which I think is impossible, so I disagree with Kierrkegarrd on this matter. When God said that what He commanded is for our own good and when we believe what God said is true, then we express our faith in Him about how we should live by living in obedience to His commands, and Hebrews 11 is full of examples of people doing this.
When he said that there is an abandonment of reason when one chooses to have authentic faith, I can see where he is coming from, but I still disagree. For example, if someone who you've know to be extremely trustworthy promised that they will do something and you begin to see reasons to think they won't be able to keep their promise, then there is a sense in which you are abandoning what your reason is telling you and believing what your reason is telling you is impossible. However, this is done through focusing on the good reasons that you had for believing that they will keep their promise, so it is not that you have abandoned your reasons for thinking that they won't be able to keep their promise, but that you still have stronger reasons for thinking that they will keep their promise. Even if you do not see how it will be possible for them to keep their promise, that is not the same as knowing it to be impossible when there is no reason to believe it because your mind is still focused on the reasons for thinking that it is possible.
People believe, on different grounds. One is Authority another seems to be Reason, another seems to be Scholarship and another Experience. Perhaps these need to come together to some extent.
But there seems be a conflict be between Authority, and going and attempting to figure out if its true by oneself. That is like rebeling against the authority of the church.
I think a good motto is to test everything. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were not praised because they accepted everything Paul said at face value based on his authority, but rather they were praised because they diligently checked everything against Scripture to see if what he said was true before they accepted his message. The Bible discusses some serious issues, so I think it is very important to investigate whether it is true and I think someone who does this can have a much stronger faith than someone who believes just because that is what they were taught.
