“When I reflect on so many profoundly marvelous things that persons have grasped, sought, and done I recognize even more clearly that human intelligence is a work of God, and one of the most excellent.”

                                                                   - Galileo Galilei


As we think about faith as an intellectual act, it is important to know the history behind this debate. For thousands of years, religion and its various traditions dominated the way we, as human beings, define the world around us. Religion was unquestioned as truth, despite its various eccentricities. And we, as followers, reserved scrutiny for those who would not follow our creed as closely as we. The discussion was confined to the best ways of understanding and putting into practice a religious truth that had already been revealed. Nevertheless, over the last five hundred years or so, as a result of religious persecution and various oppression by the church, the debate about the ONE TRUTH became a household one. With the advent of modernity, the questions on which philosophers and religious thinkers had been reflecting for centuries underwent a dramatic and unprecedented change.

Beginning in the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution began to erode the position of authority held by religion. A new willingness to confront religious authority and a new respect for reason and its accomplishments began to counter established ways of thinking based on revealed religious truth. As a result, modern philosophy began to separate from theology, and new philosophers began constructing a universal, human rationality independent of faith. For the first time in human history, it had become possible to not simply ponder faith and its forms of expression, but to challenge it as a fundamental truth—and to even question the very existence of God.

Needless to say, opening the existence of God to debate has far reaching implication for our lives today. Should "creation theory" be placed on an equal footing with the teaching of evolution in the public schools? Should religious doctrine have a voice in determining the legality of contraception, abortion, or medical solutions to the inability to have children? With this blog, I won’t presume to tackle these complex issues. Yet with these more specific implications come even more philosophical questions to ponder: Is religion irrational and illusory or is it actually essential for human life? Is religious faith merely blind submission, or can it, in fact, be part of an intellectually vital and realistic view of the world?

In examining the challenges to religious thought and the defenses mounted in favor of it through the Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and subsequent periods up to the present day and a discussion of secularism, we shall find that this debate permeates our lives and has become more poignant than ever. Through thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, whose integration of theology and Aristotelian philosophy made him the most important Christian thinker of the Middle Ages, to more modern intellectuals like Sigmund Freud, who argued that God was an expression of infantile wishes and considered religion the "universal obsessional neurosis of mankind": we, on either side of this debate have taken heed with our predecessors.

But the truth remains, many of history’s greatest minds have been of the faithful. Albert Einstein defended God vehemently “…against the [scientific] idea of a continuous game of dice.” That the universe as we know it is not a product of chance but intelligently designed by God who is unfathomable. He once wrote:

“The scientist’s religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

Essentially Einstein is saying that, not only is scientific discovery a way to marvel at God’s power, but is inevitably futile. For we still know so little of the mysteries God has given us to solve. That to search for those solutions is to search for God. And when said solution is found, we mustn’t be impressed by the greatness of man to have discovered it, but be electrified by the perplexity of God to have provided us the necessary knowledge to do so.

This idea of no knowledge being known if not through God is one that I have found to be paramount in my spiritual and intellectual journey. I believe that when one opens his eyes to the power of God, he will be amazed by the sheer complexity of His omnipotence. I understand that this precedent carries with it the implication that we may never truly know God, and so the skeptic may say, “Why even try?” But I would argue that the failing is not in our ability to know God, but in our inability to define Him in terms of mere human language. He is unknowable because He is indescribable.



Therefore faith, by this understanding, becomes inherently intellectual and the search for truth becomes intrinsically spiritual. One cannot truly exist without the other.

The Search for Truth

My road to faith, as all worthwhile roads are, has been under construction for years.  The route was laid by my upbringing. As a boy I was very involved in the church; knowing of Him but never truly knowing God. It wasn’t until many years later and much worldly (and self) exploration, that I found the truth and the way.  I’ll be the first to admit that, before this, I was a skeptic; even a defender of science as truth. Through what I know now to be a limited understanding of the world, I felt that the more one knows about the mysteries of our universe, the more he is inclined to refute the existing of God.  And conversely, that all of the faithful are sheltered by some grand ignorance. That faith was even a sort of injustice of the masses. But just as my road to faith was laid by the ignorance of youth, it was paved by the enlightenment of knowledge. Therefore, I am writing this blog to not only encourage intellectual scrutiny of faith, but to tell you that, if the search for truth is performed properly, that truth will manifest itself in the form of faith itself—which I believe in fact, to be the one and only truth-- all other truths holding their merit through it.

I will present arguments of sorts: various articles to look at both sides of a particular debate of faith. I will dissect the opinions of highly educated individuals, both classic and modern, to offer a defense for the faithful.  Although my exploration will be rather academic, my conclusions will be in the support of faith. Opinion will reign, and as such should be open to discussion.  Please discuss the thought provoking questions I present and the subsequent version of truth I offer. If you are a believer reading this, I challenge you to welcome scrutiny of our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.  After all, faith can have little strength if never challenged.  If you are a skeptic reading this, thank you for earnestly searching for truth. For I have stood where you stand, and know that if you are here, you have already made the important decision of objectivity: to hear informed opinions and make a choice for yourself.  After all, that is the true task of the intellectual.

Take this journey with me, as a believer or skeptic, and we will grow as individuals of faith and intellect.