Your Mind Matters by John Stott

Author:John Stott
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: InterVarsity Press

FAITH: ILLOGICAL BELIEF IN THE IMPROBABLE?

One wonders if there is any Christian quality more misunderstood than faith. Let me begin with two negatives.

First, faith is not credulity. H. L. Mencken, the American anti-supernaturalist critic of Christianity, once said that “faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.” But Mencken was wrong. Faith is not credulity. To be credulous is to be gullible, to be entirely uncritical, undiscerning and even unreasonable in one’s beliefs. But it is a great mistake to suppose that faith and reason are incompatible. Faith and sight are set in opposition to each other in Scripture,8 but not faith and reason. On the contrary, true faith is essentially reasonable because it trusts in the character and the promises of God. A believing Christian is one whose mind reflects and rests on these certitudes.

Second, faith is not optimism. This seems to be the confusion made by Norman Vincent Peale.

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