“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV).
“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26 ESV).
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV).
We tend to misunderstand the stuff of faith. What is faith? Of what substance is it made? What does it do? From where does it come?
Modern thinking often puts faith and reason in opposite corners, implying that they are mutually exclusive. According to this view, faith is something believed in absence of, or in spite of, reason. This is not true faith, at least not biblical faith. In the Bible, faith and reason are friends.
The Christian does not commit intellectual suicide by believing. In reality, Christian faith is both a reasonable and a spiritual response to the message of the gospel. The gospel presents certain historical facts about the risen Christ and His claims. The Christian decides (a very reasonable word) to believe that those facts are not only true, but that they require a response. Faith responds.
When the apostle Paul explained salvation to the Ephesian Christians, he described faith as a kind of conduit or vehicle by which salvation is received. Paul says that salvation is “by grace” and “through faith.” It’s as if he is describing an expensive gift (grace) which has been wrapped up with your name on it. Yet, it isn’t yours until you reach out your hand (faith) and open it. Paul says that God not only gives us the gift of salvation, He also gives us the hand of faith that receives it. Faith comes from God.
Faith is more like the hand that reaches than the mind that reasons. We make faith too much the ethereal inner thought life of the noun and not enough the concrete action of the verb. Faith acts.
Faith is not reason’s antonym, especially since not all reason is equal. There is God’s reason, His wisdom, His revealed Word, His explanation for our existence and being. Then, there is man’s reason.
What faith does, is that it decides whose reason to live by.