Faith Is Not a Leap into the Darkness

In this brief clip from our 2012 National Conference, R.C. Sproul explains that faith is not a leap into the darkness, faith is a leap out of the darkness and into the light.

Transcript

The late great Augustine made the comment that there is a symbiotic relationship between faith and reason, one that is so important that if you try to have faith without reason, the faith that you will display will not be authentic biblical faith, because a faith without reason, Augustine said, is not faith but credulity. It’s the kind of silliness that affirms that belief in the existence of little green men who live on the other side of the moon whose nonexistence as a negative can never be proven.

And you can argue saying that we’ve had people on the moon who have never encountered these little green men, and we have the Hubble telescope who have never been able to capture in their lens these little green men. And these people who are steadfast believers in the little green men will say, “Wow, that’s because these little green men that live on the other side of the moon have a built-in allergy to telescopes, to scientists, and to astronauts, so that they make themselves carefully hidden whenever a telescope is pointed in their direction.” Well, they can argue their point, but their faith is credulity. It’s foolishness.

Now, Augustine says that there is such a relationship between faith and reason and that it is no virtue to rejoice in an irrational faith. No, faith, though it is the substance of things unseen, is not a leap into the darkness. God never calls people to make a blind leap into the darkness as a exercise in faith. In fact, the New Testament always and everywhere calls us to leap out of the darkness and into the light.