Interesting piece. A wee bit reminiscent of our discussion of the
Fibonacci Numbers.
More and more, Christians are making the case that faith in God is the logical path, arrived at by the most sound reasoning. Noting that the Apostle John named Christ the "Word", the Greek being
"logos" - logic, reason - certainly indicates that at the very least, the Apostle John believed his faith to be rooted in reason. And why wouldn't he? He witnessed the events leading to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
Here's the thing that really nailed my ass to the wall when I was deciding for myself if I believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Given that it is a fact that the New Testament is among the most supported writings of antiquity in regard to original copies made from original manuscripts historically near the time of origin, we can be as sure as we can of any other such writings that the historical aspects are true as interpreted by the author - faith aspects set aside. We don't question the authenticity of the works of Aristotle or Plato, and their works are far less supported by original copies made from original manuscripts, and those copies are far more removed from the time in which the original manuscripts are written than is the New Testament. So using the scientific standard for judging the authenticity of writings of antiquity, the New Testament is historically among the most supported.
So in regard to the faith aspect, we can look at clues in the historical record to support our reasoning. And in that, I find this amazing...
As Christ was tried, convicted, tortured, and executed, his closest allies - his Disciples - were scattered, hiding, living in fear of their lives. In the days and weeks following his execution, what little record there is finds them meeting secretly in upper rooms. They were terrified, robbed of their Messiah in the flesh, their faith in his resurrection challenged and squelched by the reality of the horror of his death.
But then the Gospel says he came into their midst, alive again, and dwelt with them. After he departed their company again, when scripture says He ascended to heaven, a radical transformation occurred in those disciples. Men who were cowering in upper rooms in fear of their lives suddenly fanned out across the land with no thought to their personal safety, and preached the deity of Jesus Christ. Men who surely knew that proclaiming association with the man Jesus of Nazarath - whom Jerusalem had just witnessed being put to the most gruesome public execution - was akin to begging for the same to be visited upon themselves. Not only did they preach the Gospel of Christ, proclaiming Him God - the exact charge for which He had been killed - but they directly challenged the Jewish hierarchy, publicly ridiculing, shaming, humiliating them. They engaged in this behavior unto their own executions, refusing to renounce Christ unto death.
I had to ask myself what would transform men so? What would transform men who had just witnessed the torture and execution of their spiritual leader from cowering in upper rooms denying association with Him, into men willing to stand by His message and ministry unto their own death? After all,
men do not walk to their own execution for something they believe or know to be a lie.And there is my reality. The disciples were not transformed because they
believed Jesus was the Son of God. They were transformed because
they knew it.Whether they were correct in what they knew is irrelevant to the fact that they knew it to be the truth. They lived it. They saw it with their own eyes. Reason dictated to them what the truth was. They arrived at the only conclusion they could, and it was not reached by faith, but by reason.
So that is the long way of saying that I think Ann Barnhardt makes a really good point. Reason is not owned by the non-religious, and faith is not void of reason. The fact that Ayn Rand was non-religious is irrelevant to the notion that she could very easily have reasoned herself to the very same conclusion as that of a religious person, and thus, Christians should not dismiss her philosophy as incompatible with Christianity.
