Faith Reason and Worship Essay

Total Length: 1072 words ( 4 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 3

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One of the arguments made by atheists against the existence of God is that there is just no hard, empirical evidence for His existence. Everything ultimately comes down to faith. One believes because one wants to believe—one has faith in God. While it is true that faith is necessary to believe in God, it is false and foolish to say that there is no evidence for God’s existence (Psalm 14:1). Why is it foolish? The reason is simple: the evidence is all around us and all we have to do is admit our own smallness in order to better see the evidence. This is the point that Fulton Sheen makes in his commentaries: whenever we are full of ourselves, of pride, of our own sense of our greatness, we miss the evidence of God’s greatness.[footnoteRef:2] We diminish Him in order to build ourselves up. By seeing the true proportion of things and the real perspective, we can instantly accept the preponderance of evidence that is all around us—from creation to the love we feel to the idea that everything had to have come from something, some infinite source, for nothing has come existence of its accord: everything has a First Cause, which is God.[footnoteRef:3] Thus, man can use his reason to come to the point of faith—but ultimately the act of faith has to be made. Faith is not something one simply possesses like a token in a pocket: it has to be lived and demonstrated. Faith is an action. I make an act of faith whenever I pray to God. Faith is a communication of belief and trust—of belief and trust that are based on the evidence that has been placed before us, which we look at and examine with our reason.
To say that people who believe in God do not use reason is to make a highly subjective and grossly generalized statement that is truly wide of the mark. [2: Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ (NY: Image Books, 2008), 12.] [3: “First Cause,” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/first-cause]



St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, used extraordinary reason during the scholastic period of the Church’s history. Aquinas showed how much of theology could be explained by using reason. Reason is the foundation of the spiritual life—not feeling or emotions or vague intuitions. Reason is the fuel of the mind. A mind that is operating without reason will end up driving the person into all sorts of problems in life. Reason is the bedrock of worship. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to always be mindful of the reasons that we have such hope—such faith. We are not to forget them, because people will want to know. People will see the joy and peace and hope that is in the heart of a Christian and they will not ask, “What feeling gave you this hope?” No, they will ask, “What reason do you have for this hope?” Reason is what drives people to act deliberately and with consideration. Reason is what faith is based upon. Religion is practiced because we have reasons to believe that through divine worship we can draw nearer to God, to reflecting His love,….....

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Bibliography

English Standard Version Bible.

“First Cause,” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/first-cause

Sheen, Fulton. Life of Christ. NY: Image Books, 2008.

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