We have good reason to trust God. But this trust moves us beyond mere reason. Faith is well-reasoned trust. While we may not fully, rationally, comprehend mysteries like the doctrine of the Trinity, we can trust the triune God. The Christian need not use reason as an ultimate guide to all belief, but they certainly must not neglect it. 

What is the role of reason in the life of faith? Should a believer simply walk by faith and defy all rational concerns? Should Christians ever offer a coherent and compelling explanation for what they believe? How might we balance all the ways reason can both go right and wrong in the domain of spirituality?
One of the definitions Webster’s dictionary gives for faith is, “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Is there no evidence for God? Do Christians have a firm belief is something for which there is no proof? Is Christian faith irrational?
Alvin Plantinga from Notre Dame University strongly disagrees. Plantinga has long been a champion of a view known as “Reformed Epistemology.” He argues belief in God is neither irrational nor does it require an argument. Plantinga says belief in God is a properly basic belief, something we can believe in without arguments or evidences.
We believe in God in a similar way we believe in the reliability of our sense experience. Our senses can fail us. We still trust them. There are times our senses are entirely off, like when we are dreaming and everything we experience is false. We can’t prove we’re not in some dream state now, or even living in the matrix, or stuck in some sort of virtual reality.
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The body can be weighted, measured, nipped, tucked, prodded, poked, whatever. The soul on the other hand, since it is immaterial, cannot. Does this make the Christian position somehow weaker, or beyond any real scrutiny? No.

Do you have a soul? Can science say anything about it? Can science disprove it?
Brian Cox, the musician turned professor, says science makes it plain the soul does not exist. If there was some other material source present in the body, it should be detectable in some way. Since the soul is not detectable in some measurable way, it must not exist.
This reminds me of a conversation with a skeptic friend some years back. He told me if I could prove what organ in the body is the soul, he would gladly believe. But that demonstrates the problem, doesn’t it? He believes only those things that can in some way be reduced to a material explanation are real. Furthermore, I never claimed the soul is an organ in the body. It is easy to begin talking past each other on points like this.
The Christian belief is that the soul is an immaterial part of the human condition. To be a human is to have a material body and an immaterial soul. Humans are a unit of soul and body. The body can be weighted, measured, nipped, tucked, prodded, poked, whatever. The soul on the other hand, since it is immaterial, cannot. Does this make the Christian position somehow weaker, or beyond any real scrutiny? No.
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While it is an interesting question to ask what Bible Jesus read, it is a beautiful thing to see how we are able to read Jesus on every page. From the Old Covenant to the New, Jesus looms large. God’s comfort in the light of the curse was the promise of a child who would one day defeat the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Flash forward to Jesus’s baptism, where He immediately goes out into the wilderness to be tempted by the serpent. Jesus is the critical piece of the story tying it all together.

Have you ever wondered what Bible Jesus used? Was Jesus’s Bible, the Jewish Scriptures, different from the Old Testament we use today? If so, how?
These are all questions I ask my students to think about in my theology class at Cedarville University. The short answer is, “Yes.” It was different. The longer answer is, “No, not really.” Jesus’s Bible would have had the same content as our Old Testament, it was just organized differently.
Here’s a difference: Jesus’s Bible only contained 24 books compared to the 39 found in the Old Testament in our English translations. Where did the other books go, you ask. Fair question. They’re still there, I promise. It’s just the Bible Jesus would have used combined certain books. For example, all twelve of the minor prophets are packed into one book, not so creatively called “The Book of the Twelve.” And all the sequels are compacted into one (think 1st and 2nd Kings).
The Jewish Scriptures are often referred to as the Tanakh, a Hebrew abbreviation for the three organizational categories of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Torah includes the five books written by Moses, also called the Pentateuch, which, not so creatively, means five books. You can find a helpful comparison of the Tanakh and the Old Testament ordering of these books here.
Early in the history of Christianity, the current ordering of the Old Testament — as it appears in our English translations — was affirmed at a council at the end of the fourth century.
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By nature, everyone knows there is a God. But because of sin, no one naturally knows God. But through the gospel, anyone can know God. We just have to see the signs.

I remember a friend in high school who nearly drove into one of those giant-yellow-flashing-arrow signs that tell you your lane is about to end and you had better merge. She was a bit distracted. And this was in an age long ago when nobody, except for Hollywood millionaires, had a cellphone, and even those who did couldn’t do anything remotely close to texting. My friend was just paying attention to other things than the blinding giant arrow glowing in front of her.
The truth is, we can all miss signs from time to time. I’m reminded of the comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “Here’s your sign” bit, and the early nineties remake of the song “Signs.” Consider these examples my pre-cell-phone-age bona fides.
Of course, some signs aren’t that important and who really cares if you miss them. How many of us break our necks to read historical markers on the side of the highway? Not me. Well, once I did stop out of curiosity to read one on a backroad in Kentucky only to discover my time would be better spent doing about anything else like cleaning out the stale french fries unreachably stuck in the abyss between the base of the driver’s seat and the armrest. But make no mistake, some signs are worth noting.
How about the most important things? Are there signs for how we might navigate life? What about God? Do we get a sign? Is there any way in the world can we ever know God? Many people simply conclude there aren’t good answers to this question. Some assume the challenge implies there is no God. I can empathize. Sometimes I’d like a more clear sign too, like anytime I have a massive decision to make.
As a Christian I believe God has given some pretty big signs. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that all of creation is pointing to God (Romans 1). King David says the heavens themselves are declaring how great God is (Psalm 19). But why is it so easy to miss? Is creation really sending us a sign? Is the world itself a sign? And if it really is as plain as the Bible makes it sound, why don’t more people believe?
It’s a matter of interpretation.
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