Religious faith Rational.
To hear some men speak (I mean men who scoff at religion), it might be thought we never acted on faith and trust except in religious matters, whereas we are acting on trust every hour of our lives. When faith is said to be a religious principle it is the things believed, not the act of believing them, which is peculiar to religion.
I. It is obvious that we trust to our memory.We do not now witness what we saw yesterday, yet we have no doubt it took place in the way we remember.Again, when we use reasoning, and are convinced of anything by reasoning, what is it but that we trust the general soundness of our reasoning powers? And observe that we continually trust our memories and our reasoning powers in this way, though they often deceive us.This is worth observing, because it is sometimes said that we cannot be certain that our faith in religion is not a mistake. In all practical matters we are obliged to dwell upon not what may be possibly,but what is likelyto be. When we come to examine the subject, it will be found that, strictly speaking, we know little more than that we exist, and that there is an unseen power whom we are bound to obey. Beyond this we must trust; and first our senses, memory, and reasoning powers; then other authorities; so that, in fact, almost all we do every day of our lives is on trust, i.e., faith.
II. It is easy to show that, even considering faith in the sense of reliance on the words of another,it is no irrational or strange principle of conduct in the concerns of this life. For when we consider the subject attentively, how few things there are which we can ascertain for ourselves by our own senses and reason! After all, what dowe know without trusting others? The world could not go on without trust. Distrust, want of faith,breaks the very bonds of human society. Now then, shall we account it only rational for a man, when he is ignorant, to believe his fellow-man, nay, to yield to another's judgment as better than his own, and yet think it againstreason when one, like Abraham, gives ear to the word of God, and sets the promise of God above his own short-sighted expectation? If we but obey God strictly, in time faith will become like sight: we shall have no more difficulty in finding what will please God than in moving our limbs, or in understanding the conversation of our familiar friends. This is the blessedness of confirmed obedience.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. i., p. 190.
References: Romans 4:21. Silver, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 397. Romans 4:22. J. Irons, Ibid.,vol. xi., p. 161.Romans 4:23-25. W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 42.