Faith or Reason?

Hebrews 11 is an awesome chapter filled with great examples of faith lived out. Or at least I thought so up until I got to verse 19. In this passage the author is writing about how Abraham was called by God to sacrifice his son and how Abraham proved his great faith by going along with it up until the very last moment when God stopped him to reveal that it was all a test.

Hebrews 11:19 says "Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead."  I emphasize the word reason here because it is the word that sparked my curiosity. Some other translations use the word "considered" but the overall meaning behind this verse is that Abraham used his intellect to rationalize that Isaac would not really be harmed, or that Abraham would not really lose his son to God in this manner. Now, this is where the lines get fuzzy in my mind. Is it still faith when you've calculated the odds and know that you will still come out ahead? How much is reasoning a part of having faith? It's hard to say that faith has to be logical, while we know it shouldn't be blind, because we have a faith that is based on the "mysterious ways" of God.

Abraham didn't seem to think that God's methods were too mysterious as he played along knowing that he would still have his son when it all was said and done. Abraham reasoned. Focus on that phrase for a second. He is viewed as the father of our religion and he used reason to figure out what God was going to do. I don't know why but that just seems like a stern contrast to faith. I have done a lot of things in my past where I had no idea what God was going to do with me but I had faith that His will is what is best for me, not that what I wanted to happen would happen because I know how to work the system.

The Wesleyan quadrilateral (which is more like a pyramid in actuality) emphasizes that reason be utilized in every area of our faith i.e. scripture, tradition and experience. I'm just wondering at what point we affirm someone for having good faith versus having excellent reasoning. One of my favorite characters in the Bible is Thomas. I like Thomas because he had some serious balls. He was one of Jesus' 12 disciples, he saw Jesus work tons of miracles and preach radical sermons yet he put his foot down and still wouldn't believe “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." John 20:25. I can really appreciate that kind of doubt. He wanted to be sure before he gave his life to such a radical cause.

However, Jesus called Thomas out on this rational style of faith. In John 20:29 Jesus says,“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So are we more blessed when we blindly believe in something we have not seen nor experienced? I think sometimes I would much rather be spared the extra blessing for some actual first hand experience with God. That's why I don't chalk up Abraham's actions to some great act of faith when he experienced God first hand and got to know the very nature of our Creature, thus making his decisions far easier.

So the question for me is, would I rather have a reason based faith or an actual unadulterated faith? Is our religion based more on faith or reason? Or both? Let's be honest, nothing to do with the ways of the Lord is ever black and white, making this issue is very much a deep shade of gray.

It's all just a rationalized shot in the dark for me.