'She stopped, aghast, struck by the question: What is it, then--faith versus truth? And realizing that part of her zeal to believe was her fear to know, she set out to learn the truth, with a cleaner, calmer sense of rightness than the effort as dutiful self-fraud had ever given her"

-from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

This has been part of my struggle for truth--where does faith fit in to the search? Often, (blind?) faith can seem like truth's antithesis, and this is what Rand proposes here. But the more I've pondered this difficult relationship and its implications, I've come to a somewhat different (still developing) stance. Namely, an obsession with finding the truth, at any cost, accepting nothing but cold, hard fact--leaves little room, if any, for the existence of those things which our mortal, temporal minds can't fully comprehend. Myron Bradley Penner makes this point in The End of Apologetics. In response to Christans attempting to rationalize every part of their belief in God with empirical proof and logical steps, Penner says that the argument for faith and (scientific, quantifiable) fact being synonymous simply cannot be made.

After all, we as a human race still do not fully understand some "basic", earthly things, such as the origin of cancer cells in the body. So how can we expect to completely decipher much higher things--God, creation, human purpose, and the impossibly expansive universe around us? We won't be able to scratch the surface of that last one in our lifetimes, and science itself is constantly being disproven for more accurate, up-to-date theories of how phenomena are to be understood. This may seem like a slippery slope eventually leading us to throw our arms up, exclaim "Ignorance is bliss!" and bury our heads in the proverbial sand. This is exactly what I feared when I began reading Penner's book. But like Penner's argument, my thinking developed somewhat.

Yes, saying we won't be able to understand some things - many things - is dangerous because at its extreme this idea would have us take any- and everything by faith, and we will be very easily deceived by the latest stylistically-pleasing theory that comes around. And this idea that some aspects of our existence are ultimately inexplicable could very well be used as an excuse for laziness and ignorance. Those not wanting to explore faith, truth, and the paradoxical relationship between them, may say something like "I will believe because that's all I can do; none of it can be explained anyway."

Christians should take seriously all mandates put forth in their holy book, the Bible, for which they claim ultimate authority on Truth. Peter wrote that we should "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pet 3:15). In our modern times, it seems those asking for such a reason do not lack for knowledge about what Christians believe - Jesus died for sins, those accepting him will be saved - but instead want to know why Chistians will believe this. With modern science giving ample evidence for single-cell origin macroevolution, modern scholars pinning the Bible as just another ancient mythological text, and the popular sentiment that "acceptance" means that everyone is correct in their thinking about ultimate reality--why would people still apply validity to an ancient text as if it had modern relevance and practical application today, even giving it the title "Scripture"? To such a difficult question, the reply of "I believe because the Bible says so," or "I believe on faith (alone)" simply doesn't seem adequate, and would rarely appease a doubtful person looking at the whole thing outside-in, especially not one well-educated in the fields of science, literature, religion, mathematics, etc.

So it seems there are two ends to the spectrum when it comes to truth-seeking. By truth seeking, I officially mean Truth: reality, God as he is, our meaning...the BIG stuff, not just what we may label "religious," philosophical," or "abstract." One end is described by Penner in Apologetics, as those who attempt to rationalize every bit of reality with reason and concrete evidence. This approach of course falls short in regards to things greater than our cognitive abilities.

The other end is made up of those who reject knowledge-gain, reject an honest attempt at knowing Truth. This is self-explanatory in its shortcomings. And if further motivation is needed for the well-meaning Christian to break from this "self-fraud," as Rand would call this general form of ignorance, there is much Biblical backing for the continual search of wisdom. Proverbs is probably the most consistently applicable to this idea, but there are countless examples of men who would not forsake the acquisition of "higher learning" in their journeys of faith. To such men as these, the two were not antithetical. One of these men was Paul, who yes, required faith first to turn from being a hypocritical Pharisee to a Truth carrier, but it must be remembered that this same man studied and trained for six years following his miraculous conversion before embarking on his missionary journeys.

And I think Paul said it best when describing a middle ground between the two extremes of faith and Truth: "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose" (Phil 2:12).

To the Christian who trusts God in being all-powerful in being the highest Truth, in transcending human understanding (amidst our doubts and "spiritual setbacks"), Paul's words will encourage a fervent, lengthy, sometimes painful search for Truth. After all, if God is really all these things, and I strongly believe that he is and much more, the "fear and trembling" defining our search will later yield fruits of salvation. It seems to be part of God's purpose that these fruits will multiply in others who see our transparent, honest journey and are encouraged in their own struggles to overcome.

So, what do we have to lose?