Relationship of Faith and Reason

          Recently, I was discussing the evidences for God's existence and the Resurrection of Jesus with a Christian college student. In response to my apologetic approach, he asked if I provided this many evidences, where was room for faith? A recent visiting speaker to our church mentioned that she had taken theology and apologetics classes, but she "wasn't good at all this stuff." She then appealed to I Corinthians 1-2 as a reason why we do not need to come with wisdom, but instead our testimonies. To top off my experiences, in a Christian essentials course book, the word "faith" was defined as "blind trust or belief; choosing to believe something without having tangible proof." I do not mean to pick on these individuals or the book, but this anti-intellectual view pervades the Church. Faith and evidence (reason) are placed in opposition to one another. This is closely related to what counts as knowledge (e.g. spiritual knowledge) and ultimately our view of truth.
          To be fair, this development is not the result of something new, but rather has been brewing for a few centuries and we are now reaping the consequences. Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and David Hume (1711-1776) altered our confidence in spiritual knowledge. Hume claimed that since we cannot experience God with the five senses (empiricism), the proposition that God exists cannot be taken as an item of knowledge. Kant also limited human knowledge to the fives senses, which placed God outside of reason. Both of these philosophers have had lasting effects on both Europe and America. By the time we reached the 20th century, prominent theologian Rudolph Bultmann considered rational evidence not only irrelevant, but actually contrary to faith.
          Faith is now understood as a blind act of the will, while ignoring the evidence, i.e. you have to "check your brain at the door to the church.".....

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Another Resource

Many of my ideas came from lectures from J.P. Moreland in various contexts.  He recently released a book that incorporates many of these ideas called In Search of a Confident Faith: Overcoming Barriers to Trusting in God (by J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler).  This book is highly recommened.