Faith and Reason

Christianity doesn't necessarily warrant the dissolution of religion and science. Faith and reason can move hand in hand, choosing to focus on specific areas and merging together in unison. Ultimately, it is God, the Creator of all things, that has endowed us with the ability to think, laugh and create. Purpose and human rights have evolved through the fact that there are absolutes in the world. Without a Divine Being, morality is merely cultural. Morality is something that is socially constructed and can conversely be deconstructed.

Christianity does not necessarily hamper logic or reason. Instead, it built the fundamental basis for Western thought and liberty. Christian theology and allowance of reason and free thought helped cultivate the Greco-Roman philosophies. As Kevin Schmiesing, PH.D. would state in an article:

Christianity’s impact on civilization has occupied some of history’s greatest minds, who have both reflected and influenced their respective zeitgeists. Augustine defended the followers of Christ against the accusation that they were to blame for the decline of the Roman Empire; fourteen centuries later British historian Edward Gibbon revived the charge, giving voice to his age’s skepticism toward revealed religion.

Another and better informed English historian, Lord Acton, addressed the problem in the late nineteenth century. The result, The History of Freedom in Christianity, was a masterpiece of historical summary, distilling almost two thousand years into a single story of the gradual unfolding of human liberty. Acton reversed the Enlightenment narrative that he had inherited. The rise of Christianity did not smother the flame of liberty burning brightly in Greece and Rome only to be rekindled as medieval superstition gave way to the benevolent reason of Voltaire, Hume, and Kant. Instead, Christianity took the embers of freedom, flickering dimly in an ancient world characterized by the domination of the weak by the strong, and—slowly and haltingly—fanned it into a blaze that emancipated humanity from its bonds, internal and external.

Christianity did not stifle ideas, it gave them context and allowed them to flourish. Traditional Liberalism ought to give all points of views the freedom to be debated. Although there have been awful points in the history of the faith that bigotry rears its ugly head- freedom of thought and growth have been a hallmark of Christian lands. Inquisitions and Crusades have not been the overwhelming norm. Let us not forget that Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe came about through Catholic and Protestant lands.

Faith and reason can coexist. It is reason that cannot exist apart from faith. Without an absolute anything that someone says can be disputed and nullified. Men and women are not created equal, because we are all descendants of luck and chance. Moral relativism is inherently contradictory.

(Rodney Stark's Victory of Reason furthers this point.)