The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. Blaise Pascal REASONS OF THE HEART JOY AND THE RATIONALITY OF FAITH RICK HOWE iii BOOKS BY RICK HOWE Path of Life: Finding the Joy You’ve Always Longed For, 2012, University Ministries Press Revised Edition, 2017. 279 pages. River of Delights: Quenching Your Thirst For Joy, Volume 1, 2015, University Ministries Press Revised Edition, 2017. 230 pages. River of Delights: Quenching Your Thirst For Joy, Volume 2, 2015, University Ministries Press Revised Edition, 2017. 250 pages. Reasons of the Heart: Joy and the Rationality of Faith, 2017, University Ministries Press. 250 pages. Living Waters: Daily Refreshment for Joyful Living, 2017, University Ministries Press. 393 pages. FOR SMALL GROUP STUDIES Enjoying God: Discovering the Greatest of All Pleasures, University Ministries Press, 2017. 122 pages. Love’s Delights: The Joys of Marriage and Family, University Ministries Press, 2017. 104 pages. Sacred Patterns: Work, Rest, and Play in a Joyful Vision of Life, University Ministries Press, 2017. 122 pages. Kingdom Manifesto: A Call to Joyful Activism, University Ministries Press, 2017. 104 pages. Joy and the Problem of Evil, University Ministries Press, Boulder, 2017. 122 pages. For more information, visit www.rickhowe.org. v UNIVERSITY MINISTRIES PRESS BOULDER, COLORADO University Ministries Press, 2017 Some of the material in Reasons of the Heart also appears in Rick Howe, Path of Life: Finding the Joy You’ve Always Longed For, and Rivers of Delight: Quenching Your Thirst For Joy, Volumes 1 & 2 (Boulder, CO: University Ministries Press, 2017). Used by Permission. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc. Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by iStockPhoto are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © iStockPhoto. ISBN: 978-0-9987859-7-4 vi ABBREVIATIONS ESV English Standard Version KJV King James Version JB Jerusalem Bible NASB New American Standard Bible NIV New International Version NRSV New Revised Standard Version RSV Revised Standard Version viii ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO LISTEN & READ! ear Listener, D Thank you for listening to Reasons of the Heart! I hope that you will be inspired to pursue a joyful vision of life and greater delight in God and his ways. If you would be so kind, please take a moment to write a brief review. Even a line or two would help. Your affirmation will encourage others to read. Go to www.amazon.com/author/rickhowe, click on the Reasons of the Heart book cover, and then click on the link for customer reviews. Thank you! Joyfully, Rick Howe 189 ENDNOTES 190 CHAPTER 1: GETTING OUR BEARINGS 1 For evangelical Christian perspectives on Postmodernism, see the following: David S. Dockery, ed., The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001). Millard Erickson, Truth or Consequences: The Promise & Perils of Postmodernism (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001). Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996). Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000). Timothy R. Phillips, Dennis L. Okholm, eds., Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995). James K.A. Smith Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2006). R. Scott Smith, Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in the Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005). 2 I am using the term “Rationalism” not to refer to a theory of knowledge that contrastswith empiricism, another theory of knowledge, but more broadly to the view known as “classic foundationalism,” the idea that knowledge can and must be built upon a strong, sure foundation of beliefs that are self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to our senses. In one form or another, this was the dominant view in the Enlightenment period. 3 For the case that classic foundationalism is self-defeating, see, e.g., Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 94-97, and Alvin Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God" in Faith and Rationality, eds., Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 59-61. 4 C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (New York, NY: Mariner Books, 2002) p. 94. 5 This position is known as “realism,” the belief that an objective reality exists independently of us. Postmodernist thought is “anti-realist,” that is, it holds either that the world does not exist apart from our engagement with it, or that we have no verifiable connection with it. 6 There are factors other than reason that shape our beliefs, such as our historic, geographical, cultural, social, economic, and emotional situations, and the language we use to conceptualize our beliefs. 191 7 Broadly speaking, I agree with theologians who advocate critical realism, described here by New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright: I propose a form of critical realism. This is a way of describing the process of ‘knowing’ that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence ‘realism’), while fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence ‘critical’). This path leads to critical reflection on the products of our enquiry into ‘reality’, so that our assertions about ‘reality’ acknowledge their own provisionality. Knowledge, in other words, although in principle concerning realities independent of the knower, is never itself independent of the knower. N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 35. Alister McGrath describes his approach to epistemology this way: Epistemologically, it is held that this reality or realities can be known, however approximately, and that statements which are made concerning it cannot be regarded totally or simply as subjective assertions concerning personal attitudes or feelings. It is possible to gain at least some degree of epistemic access to a reality which exists ‘objectively’, while at the same time conceding that the manner in which this is apprehended or conceptualized may, to some extent, be conditioned by cultural, social and personal factors. Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology, Volume 1 (London: T&T Clark, Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), p. 75. See also Millard Erickson, Truth or Consequences: The Promise & Perils of Postmodernism (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), Chapter 13: “Assessing the Truth.” For a seminal work, see Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Science, first published December 31st 1969 by Oxford University Press. See also the paperback version published November 14, 2000 by Bloomsbury T&T Clark. For a recent survey and analysis, see Andrew Wright, Christianity and Critical Realism: Ambiguity, truth and theological literacy (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013). 8 We have all learned to live with epistemic limitations without despairing that our limitations bar the gates of knowledge to us. We acknowledge that we don’t know the future, that we don’t remember all of our past, and that there are many things in our world that we don’t know at all. If we refuse to limit knowledge to what is based upon sense experience or self-evident truths, we will learn, as Shakespeare put it in Hamlet: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 9 This fits well with my beliefs as a Christian. I see myself living in God’s world. (“The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof.” Psalm 24:1) It is his world, known fully to him apart from my brief existence in it and beliefs about it. (However you read Genesis, the world existed before we appeared in it and had our first thoughts about it.) Though potentially significant, my knowledge of his world is limited and fallible. (As the apostle Paul put it, “For we know in part.” 1 Corinthians 13:9) Because of this, I should not accept anything 192 naively or uncritically. (“Test all things; hold fast what is good.” 1Thessalonians 5:21, RSV). And I should seek truth in a truth-seeking community (the biblical tradition of “two or three witnesses” to establish a truth-claim. See, for example, Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19). 10 Found at http://bertrandrussell.org/archives/BRSpapers/2012/agnostic.php.