Is it logical to have faith?

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Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
Faith in something is logical only if it is faith in God through something.

That is, the ultimate faith must be in God. Only this is logical, because we are placing faith in God, who is the fullness of all that is perfect, and above all else, an immovable rock. It is written:
his faithfulness is buckler and shield
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
However, to have faith in anything worldly in itself - including, ideas, objects, and especially, other humans - is nothing but foolishness.

God commanded us to love one another, but to trust in Him.
 
Everyone has faith because they need to. When your climb in your car in the morning were you physically present for when every single part was made? Chances are you weren’t. Therefore you must have faith that the factory that made your car did it correctly. If that is too physical an example try this. When you call 911 you are placing your faith that the paramedics that show up were paying attention in their medic class so they are able to help you in an emergency. You are placing even more faith in the emt in the front that is in charge of successfully navigating his/her way from your house to the hospital while keeping track of traffic, 2-3 radios, upwards of three medics and two emts and a patient in the back. All this while driving flat out with lights and sirens going and watching for that huge pothole on main because if you hit that going 50mph everyone in the back of your ambo is going to be thrown everywhere.
If you can have faith that one person is capable of doing all that then I don’t think having faith in God is all that much of a stretch.
P.S. Don’t even get me started on what the medics are doing in the back. If you had any idea you would be sure they were working miracles.
 
Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
It is very logical or reasonable to have faith in Jesus and his teaching as he backed up his teaching with miracles such as giving sight to the blind, hearing to the death, making criples walk, raising the dead, etc. And then Jesus himself rose from the dead after he was crucified. Consequently, it would be very illogical or unreasonable not to believe in Christ.
 
Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
It is most certainly logical.

Reason prepares the way to faith. St. Justin and the apologists used philosophy as a “preamble” to the faith. The Catechism makes it clear that “the existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason.” Reason can show that that there is a God and can demonstrate his primary attributes. Reason lays the foundation for faith. Reason is thus the common ground between believers and unbelievers. Faith without reason withers into myth or superstition.

The Catechism states that, "by natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
 
We have to have faith in something–our teachers, the results (and effectiveness) of science, God: we cannot live without trusting someone or something. In theory, we could, say, reconstruct all the scientific experiments ever done–but it would take many lifetimes.

It is logical to put our faith in the most accurate and best sources we can. I believe this leads to putting faith in God.

The Catholic Church teaches that reason can reach the truth that there is a God, simply by examining creation and natural moral law and such–but only revelation and faith can go further to say what God is like.
 
So, it really depends on what your faith is laid in, am I correct?
 
Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
I guess it depends on whether or not a particular belief is contrary to the rules of logic. For example, if a belief is based upon a logical fallacy then, by definition, faith in that belief would be illogical. But there are many philosophical and religious beliefs which are in keeping with the rules of logic and therefore faith & belief in them is logical. For example, belief that the universe was created by a divine Creator does not violate any of the rules of logic. Accepting such a belief is a matter of faith because such a thing cannot be objectively demonstrated by the scientific method. A non-Christian may disagree with the Christian conception of the creation of the universe (citing other plausible explanations), but he cannot correctly demonstrate that faith in the Christian conception is illogical or irrational.
 
Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
Well it depends on your definition of faith. If faith is believing something that has no evidence, than no its not. If your definition of faith is believing in something that you believe there is evidence for, but not enough for you to be 100%, then possibly.
 
While the existence of the Creator can be known with certainty through the light of human reason, reason can only take us so far.

The Catechism goes on to teach that:

1236 The proclamation of the Word of God enlightens the candidates and the assembly with the revealed truth and elicits the response of faith, which is** inseparable **from Baptism. Indeed Baptism is “the sacrament of faith” in a particular way, since it is the sacramental entry into the life of faith.
 
Simply, is having faith in anything logical?
Everybody has faith every day. Drive across a bridge? You have faith that it will not collapse.

Keep in mind also that the Church teaches that the existence of God can be known by natural reason alone. Too many people, even Christians, think that believing in God requires faith, but this is not true.
 
Look at St. Thomas, he didn’t have faith in the risen Christ, but he did reach out with reason and devised a way to get to the truth.

Christ is not adverse to bringing the truth by appealing to man’s limited ability to reason.

Some things have to be taken on faith, accepting history for example. There is oral tradition, do you trust it? Also be aware that the Lord can and has at times infused people with faith. Faith is a divine gift from God. “Who do you say that I am?,” “You are the Christ…,” “You would not know this unless my Father in heaven had revealed it to you.” There is reason behind faith which makes it logical. Thomas’ method to find the truth is imperfect, but acceptable to God. “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet they believe.” And then there is what Christ said about children and the faith of a child.

Christ is and was very wise, he reasoned at the level of the people he was teaching, but with the authority of someone vastly more knowledgable.
 
Do you mean logical, rational or provable using the scientific method.
  1. Logic is proving truth and the corollaries can sometimes be argued.
    Killing a person is murder.
    Abortion kills a person.
    Therefore abortion is murder.
    One can argue the second claim as many do. But the proof is logical. I suspect this form of truth is not what you meant to ask so I will continue.
  2. Rational…unlike truth or fact, rational is by far the most ambiguous and perhaps meaningless. It’s tied to reason, which is nothing more than a plausible explanation. Perhaps this is the problem in the USA…everyone can rationalize nearly anything we do. It’s reasonable to kill a fetus, as I’m not ready to care for a child…I’m poor…I like to party…it’s disabled…and many more reasons. But one could claim its rational to justify ones actions. Ambiguous and useless for the most part.
And no I’m not trying to impose abortion opinions, but it came readily to mind…and I’m Catholic…so it’s not a viable option…no pun intended.
  1. Scientific methods. Can you use an approach designed for physically testing hypotheses to answer questions about things that are not physical? Well…no. I argue with my fellow Catholics about creation, for example. Sorry no absorption example…although I could conjure one. I know science is the study of the physical world God created for us…which he did. Evolution. Probably. I can use concepts of evolution in my lab (yes, I’m a scientist. Nerd for life). I use a sloppy form of genetic recombination to mutate a gene in E. coli. Then I expose the bug to environmental conditions. I repeat this as I progressively make the conditions more extreme for a given section criteria. It works. I’ve evolved a bacteria to do something. Does that mean its how we got here. I don’t know. If it did would I think aged didn’t exist. Of course not. Tis is simply how God made the physical world we live in. The bible says nothing about gravity either, but I don’t recommend jumping off a bridge. It’s His world. He made for us,
    Conclusion. You can examine miracles, but on average you can’t examine the physical world to make conclusions about something that doesn’t exist in time or is physical.
My annoying father in law says it best. He says, when I was in grad school my professor said, prove God exists. He gave an explanation that is basically, I know it, I feel it, I spend time with agod and know He exists, etc. the professor was limiting his thinking to a scientific method or logic based approach. Bt quickly realized…as the story that I’ve heard 200 times now, goes.

I think most pele use a metal detector to find the wind. Bottom line. Get to know God. Yes it’s logical, rational and scientists…more than you would think, are good Catholics. Don’t get into the slander that a deep faith isn’t smart…not saying you are, but it seems to be an atheists marketing tool, as facts don’t seem to impress them much.

Wordy. Yes. I said I was a professor/scientists…my poor grad students. Bottom line. Goto adoration. There’s your answer
 
Logic and reason would be impossible without faith: faith in the human ability to reason and the reality of the world around us for starters. Not only is having faith logical, but not having faith would destroy the very idea of logic.
 
… And then Jesus himself rose from the dead after he was crucified. Consequently, it would be very illogical or unreasonable not to believe in Christ.
I don’t think this is a very impressive argument because precisely atheists and heretics (including docetists, muslims, etc.) cast doubts over this. Some say that Jesus was not human (docetists), others that He did not resurrect from the dead because He did not die in the cross (muslims), others that the resurrected Jesus was either a lookalike or a twin brother (some atheists), others that Jesus himself was an invention (atheists decades ago, now almost none), etc. This means that the historical event of the life of Jesus is not, for many, enough to have faith in Christ as we have.
A different matter is God, the creator of the universe. In Him we have, as someone said, the best rock in which to lay the foundations of our faith. It is actually highly reasonable to have faith in a creator. For instance, if it is true that space-time had a beginning, as most experimentally backed modern cosmologies posit, then the existence of a timeless creator is almost inescapable. You can check many youtube videos with clear expositions of those rational and reasonable arguments by Peter Kreeft or William Lane Craig. From God we descend to our own experience as humans. And it is here that we see that, conditional on the existence of a creator, the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth emerges as a credible and reasonable manifestation of a loving God.
Now that I think of this, Jesus in fact predisposes us to a loving, compassionate God, and God shows us that Jesus is in fact one of His persons through the Lord’s works and resurrection. I think that the picture of God without Jesus is incomplete, because it lacks love. The concept of love is the reason why Jesus is fundamental to our understanding of God.
 
It’s certainly not in God’s intention, to be substantiated by our human logic.
Aside from the fact that we of course will never fully comprehend God - neither in this nor in our next life with God, (neither Angels ever are able to), it takes belief to one day find the obviously existing logic of God’s being.
We can’t expect that God sends us an Angel who in personal persuasion proves and makes us believe in God and God’s obvious existence.
On the other hand God tested the state of belief in countless people (take Abraham for a start) and Jesus so often pointed out that it’s faith has makes us well, that it becomes clear, that God requires belief and faith in Him, before He steps any nearer to us.
If it would be as it is in any science which God gave us to understand our surrounding nature He created, he had the key to understand and even experimentally reconstruct the logic of whatever exists.
Not so with God! For if God had given us the key to clearly recognize God as of course and obviously subsistent, then we’d need no belief, as it doesn’t take belief to know there are thunderstorms or other natural phenomena. We see them and can reproduce them in small scale experimentally.
Now back to the opening question:
Generally there are two types of humans. The first sees, feels, hears, experiences all around him with childlike or even animalic thing of course. “that’s how it is” not thinking twice.
A deeper thinking person, reflects by; “how is this beauty and harmony at all possible?”
Even in very early tribes this way of thinking was common and so they had their “Gods” for the evidence that all this was no coincidence but created, to them was obvious.
God later again revealed Himself to Moses and others. It’s our move ow to step towards God after so incredibly much God He revealed and accomplished for us - with the extraordinary salvation through Jesus Christ.
Now, after God absolutely by His own choice and without necessity to Himself, did all this in spite of our stubborn and shut minds, we really ought to pause and look up and see the obvious existence of God, for nothing - not even a single seed of Grass we are able to create. So, its more than ever so logic that God is, and as this is so, it’s more than logical to have faith. But human logic and divine logic are two different things. God’s logic passes all understanding Phil 4,7.

Yours
Bruno
 
The average person with faith in God is happier than the average person without such faith. Even as a pragmatist, that alone is logical - assuming that you value happiness. Here is but a single article written on the subject. In it, you can see the cynicism that seems inherent in the secular world.
 
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