For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

Colossians 2:1-4

Blind Faith - “I only believe in what can be proved through evidence.”

“[Faith is] believing what you know ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

1. Faith is not Optional

To move from religion to secularism is not so much a loss of faith as a shift into a new set of beliefs and into a new community of faith, one that draws lines between orthodoxy and heresy in different places.

Timothy Keller

Science by its very nature is not fit to investigate whether there is more to reality than the natural world.

C. Stephen Evans

Reason depends on the faith that our cognitive senses—eyes and ears, our minds and memories—are not tricking us. Yet there is no noncircular way to establish that. We cannot test their reliability without using and therefore assuming their reliability. To explain what Wittgenstien means, consider the movie The Matrix. Can you prove that you aren’t actually in a vat somewhere with plugs coming out of the back of your head feeding you an alternate reality? We cannot, then, prove these fundamental premises for the operation of reasoning. We take them on faith…

To state that there is no God or that there is a God, then, necessarily entails faith. And so the declaration that science is the only arbiter of truth is not itself a scientific finding. It is a belief.

Timothy Keller

1. Faith is not opposed to Thinking

Christianity birthed universities, preserved classical learning, and encouraged scientific inquiry

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Hebrews 11:1-3

To the writer to the Hebrews faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come. It is not the hope which looks forward with wistful longing; it is the hope which looks forward with utter certainty. It is not the hope which takes refuge in a perhaps; it is the hope which is founded on a conviction.

Barclay

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Hebrews 11:17-19

Logizomai [considered]: to reckon, count, compute, calculate, count over. (Where the word “LOGIC” comes from.)

1. Faith is not opposed to Evidence

And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them,[a] “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.

Matthew 16:1-4

The evidence is there, examinable and understandable for those who are open to it and who welcome it. The issue in the knowledge of God is not intellect but receptivity.

Hagner

Miracles will give confirmation where there is faith, but not where there is willful unbelief.

Wiersbe

1. Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus

2. Manuscript and Textual Reliability of the Bible

3. Fulfilled Prophecy

4. Philosophical and Moral Arguments for God’s Existence

5. Experiential and Transformational Evidence

1. Faith is not opposed to Mystery

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

Colossians 2:1-4

Faith does not contradict reason, though it may go beyond reason. One may objectively prove the Bible is the most unique book ever published and has impacted society more than any other book. But only faith can prove that the Bible is the Word of God. Therefore, this is a belief beyond reason but not in contradiction to reason or against reason.

David Guzik

1. Doubt your doubts

1. Consider the object of your faith

Even in times when it seems God expects a faith that contradicts reason, closer examination reveals He does not. For example, it might seem contrary to reason for God to expect Abraham to believe that Sarah’s dead womb could bring forth a child. But it is not unreasonable to believe that the God who created life and the womb could do this, and that He would do it according to His promise.

David Guzik

1. Fuel your faith with God’s Word

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?[c] And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:14-17

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and th...