What is faith? Some take faith and knowledge as opposites, and this is called fideism. Fideism claims that knowledge concerns only provable truths—those in math, science, history, and philosophy—while faith is about truths that can’t be proved, like God, the Bible, and salvation. According to fideism, Christians have no intellectual reasons for faith. All faith is blind, and faith has nothing to do with knowledge. With fideism, the mind is an enemy, and only the heart guides us.
Others take faith and knowledge as synonyms, a view called rationalism. Rationalism suggests that we are saved based on what we know. The idea here is that the smarter you are, the godlier you are. Salvation turns into a pursuit of acquiring data. With rationalism, the mind is the savior, whereas the heart is a distraction. Both fideism and rationalism fail. Fideism neglects knowledge, while rationalism idolizes knowledge.
Instead, Scripture teaches we cannot be saved without the knowledge of Christ (Rom 10:17), yet our salvation depends solely upon Christ and not our intellect (Eph 2:8–9). Faith is a form of knowledge, but it isn’t mere knowledge. Faith and knowledge differ, but they aren’t enemies. They’re friends. We have reasons for why we believe Christianity, but our salvation does not rest on our ability to comprehend or explain everything we know by faith.
Pastor Chance
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