Why don’t we expect religion to be rational?

If faith is supposed to present a satisfying framework to understand and deal with the essential fabric of being, one would think it would need to make sense, resembling what we otherwise know of reality. If we are to enter the realm of faith, we shouldn’t have to park our brains at the door. Yet it seems that today religion in the public sphere is dominated by claims of truth rather than reasoned argument; today it seems that faith and reason aren’t expected to engage. This not  only justifies religious irrationality but worse, keeping us from even arguing about it. As Rabbi Jacob Neusner pointed out in his May 29, 2007 article in the Jerusalem Post, in which he commented on Pope Benedict’s book Jesus of Nazareth (which in turn held commentary on a previous book of Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s), “Disputation went out of style when religions lost their confidence in the power of reason to establish theological truth.” 

Tags: faith and reason