ABSTRACT
Since there is such a thing as divine speaking, and Christian faith includes believing God when he speaks, we can ask the question, ‘What is it that leads us to believe God?’
It should be noted that on some views of faith, an explanation of what leads us to believe will not include rational grounds for belief. Such views hold that it is of the essence of Christian faith that it need not or even must not have rational grounds, or even that it be held in the face of rational grounds for not believing. The rational grounds in question here are ones that make belief theoretically reasonable, rather than ones that make belief practically reasonable, and they are not understood in the narrow sense of evidence from which a conclusion is inferred, but the broader sense of a good reason for believing. Theoretical reasonableness is an attribute of beliefs; it means that a belief is a reasonable thing to have. Practical reasonableness on the other hand is an attribute of actions; it means that an action is a good thing to do. The classic illustration of the difference between these two is that of the man being chased by wolves, who sees a crevasse in front of him barring his only route of escape. He may realize that he will have a better chance of jumping over the crevasse if he persuades himself that he is able to jump over it. In this case, his persuading himself that he is able to jump over the crevasse will be a good thing to do, and will thus be practically reasonable. The resulting belief that he can jump the crevasse may however not be theoretically reasonable, because the evidence available to him indicates that he is very unlikely to succeed. As far as I know, no Christian thinker has maintained that Christian faith is not practically reasonable. Some of them, however, have maintained that it is practically but not theoretically reasonable. Views of this kind are, however, late appearances in the history of Christian thought. They do not agree with the vastly preponderant view in Christian tradition, which is that Christian faith is eminently reasonable. They do not consort well with the apostle’s injunction to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15). I will assume that such views are false, and that faith is indeed theoretically reasonable.
