FAITH
AND REASON
Nothing is more reasonable than faith in God; nothing is more unreasonable than a blind leap of faith in reason.
Author unknown
Faith is a continuation of reason.
William Adams
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.
Augustine of Hippo
Faith is the first step in understanding; understanding is the reward of faith.
Augustine of Hippo
Do not seek to understand in order that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.
Augustine of Hippo
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
Henry Christopher Bailey
If faith did not exist apart from intellect, clever people would have a better hope of salvation than stupid people.
R.H. Benson
I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.
St Bernard
Reason is our soul’s left hand,
Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity.
John Donne
Reason saw not, till faith sprung the light.
John Dryden
Faith is not contrary to reason.
Sherwood Eddy
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
Benjamin Franklin
The seat of faith is not in the brain, but in the heart, and the head is not the place to keep the promises of God, but the heart is the chest to lay them up in.
Richard Greenham
If the work of God could be comprehended by reason, it would be no longer wonderful, and faith would have no merit if reason provided proof.
Gregory the Great
Some people think that having reasons for faith is an insult to God. But verification itself depends on the unchanging authority and stability of the Word of God. We are not insulting God but bringing glory to him by taking his Word as the stable, authoritative truth it is.
Os Guinness
God does not require you to follow His leadings on blind trust. Behold the evidence of an invisible intelligence pervading everything, even your own mind and body.
Raymond Holliwell
The more you understand, the better you can believe.
Raymond Lull
Faith is the master, and reason the maid-servant.
Martin Luther
Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.
Martin Luther
Reason is the enemy of faith.
Martin Luther
While reason holds to what is present, faith apprehends the things that are not seen. Contrary to reason, faith regards the invisible things as already materialized.
Martin Luther
All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word – faith.
Napoleon Bonaparte
That’s the thing about faith. If you don’t have it you can’t understand it. And if you do, no explanation is necessary
Kira Nerys
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
It is the heart which is conscious of God, not the reason. This then is faith: God is sensible to the heart, not to the reason.
Blaise Pascal
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
Blaise Pascal
Faith affirms what the senses do not affirm, but not the contrary of what they perceive. It is above and not contrary to.
Blaise Pascal
Reason is an action of the mind; knowledge is a possession of the mind; but faith is an attitude of the person. It means you are prepared to stake yourself on something being so.
Michael Ramsey
Christian faith lives on the discovery that not only is there such a thing as objective meaning, but this meaning knows me and loves me. I can entrust myself to it like the child that knows all its questions [are] answered in the “You” of its mother.
Joseph Ratzinger