WHY WE BELIEVE ANYTHING: THE NATURE OF FAITH AND REASON
Every human being, whether believer or skeptic, lives by faith. We may call it confidence, trust, or probability, but the essence is the same. We act every day on what we cannot prove exhaustively. We trust the pilot who flies our plane, the surgeon who wields the scalpel, the historian who records the past. We live by belief before we ever speak of religion. The mind itself cannot function without faith, for even reason must begin with certain assumptions—assumptions about truth, logic, and reality that cannot be proven by reason itself. Faith, therefore, is not a denial of reason but its foundation.
Yet the word “faith” has been so misused that many imagine it means believing something without evidence. In truth, real faith is the most rational thing in the world. It is the mind’s acknowledgment of what reason discovers but cannot fully comprehend. The universe around us proclaims order. The conscience within us proclaims moral law. The longing of the heart proclaims purpose. All these voices sing together in harmony, pointing to a single Composer. Reason hears the melody and recognizes its beauty. Faith rises to its feet and joins the song.
True faith is not blind; it is enlightened trust. It is the soul’s response to the evidence that surrounds it on every side. Reason examines the structure of the cosmos and sees the trace of design. Faith bows before the Designer. Reason studies the human heart and finds a hunger that nothing temporal can fill. Faith turns toward eternity and says, “You are what I have been seeking.” The two are not enemies but companions—reason is the lamp that shows the path, and faith is the step that takes it.
But faith, to be real, must have an object worthy of it. The strength of faith lies not in how tightly we hold it, but in the reliability of what we hold. A frail hand grasping a strong rope is safer than a strong hand grasping air. To believe in mere chance or chaos is to trust in nothing. To believe in God—the eternal Mind behind all minds—is to anchor our reason in the very ground of reality. The God who made the brain does not despise its logic. The God who gave us the power to think calls us to use it in seeking Him.
When faith and reason walk together, they lead the soul home. Reason builds the bridge from the earth upward; faith walks across it to the heart of God. To believe, then, is not to close one’s eyes to truth but to open them to its fullness. It is to see that behind every cause stands the First Cause, behind every thought the Thinker, behind every law the Lawgiver. Faith is the light that dawns when reason runs out of words—and in that light, the universe makes sense.
Bryan Dewayne Dunaway
