But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. (1 Corinthians 15:12-15)

Logic, or reason, is intrinsic to the nature of God. It characterizes the way he thinks, and it is built-in to everything that he does. Man is made in the image of God, and an essential aspect of this image is the ability to reason, or to think according to the laws of logic.

Since the Bible is the Holy Spirit’s own writing, it naturally exhibits perfect logic, perfect rationality. Wicked men think that they should attack the Bible or stand in judgment over it with logic, but this reverses the proper order. They ought to learn logic from it. Then, some Christians think that they honor the Scripture when they claim that it transcends logic. However, logic is intrinsic to God, and it cannot be transcended anymore than God himself can be transcended. Or, some say that the doctrines of the faith are beyond “human reason.” But there is no such thing as human reason. All reason is God’s reason, and we inherited reason from God. One either follows God’s way of thinking, and thus follows reason, or he is not thinking according to reason at all.

There is confusion in the use of the word because people often burden it with meanings additional to the idea of bare logic, and these meanings often vary when the word is used by different people. For example, if you reject the reliability of sensations, many people would complain that you reject reason itself. However, it is impossible to produce a rational proof to support the principle of the reliability of sensations, or to support the reliability of any instance of sensation. This reliability is assumed by force contrary to reason. Then, if you reject the scientific method as a way to discover truth, people are even more certain that you reject reason. But the scientific method assumes the reliability of sensations without any proof and without any evidence. It depends on induction, which is by definition illogical, since the conclusion never necessarily follows from the premises. Moreover, the process of experimentation that is so integral to the scientific enterprise is merely a repeated use of the fallacy of asserting the consequent. Science is said to be rational only by agreement among men, who wish to think that it is rational. But under logical analysis, it seems that there is hardly a worse way to discover anything about reality.

In other words, people are confused about the idea of reason because they have loaded it with different assumptions that are in fact supposed to be either axioms for the right use of reason or the conclusions derived from the right use of reason. These assumptions are not supposed to be built-in to the idea of reason itself. God’s revelation is indeed beyond the many silly inventions that men have associated with reason. This does not mean that revelation is beyond reason or “human reason”; rather, it is better to separate from the idea of reason what does not belong with it in the first place. Thus revelation is wholly in harmony with reason, but it is beyond and hostile to human speculation.

Men make things up in their science and philosophy. Let us not blame reason for it. Rather, when we refer to reason in a way that loads it with principles and assumptions, let us load it with God’s principles and assumptions. When we engage unbelievers, then, reason means bare logic. But in the more restricted settings of theology and preaching, where the source of truth has been settled so that we may load the word with meaning, there is no difference between reason and revelation. There is no conflict between faith and reason, because faith is reason – faith is only a religious word for rationality. And Jesus Christ himself is reason personified. He is Reason himself.

Paul reasons with the Corinthians about the resurrection. He applies logic to the supernatural, to Christ, to his ministry, and to faith and salvation. The things of God are not beyond logic; rather, the use of logic is the only way to process, understand, and defend the things of God. He says that if there is no resurrection as a matter of principle, and if resurrection itself is an impossibility, then Christ himself was not raised. And since so much depends on the resurrection of Christ, if it did not happen, then the Christian faith itself is useless and vain. On the other hand, if Christ was raised from the dead, then resurrection is possible, and then there is hope and salvation.

Elsewhere Paul says, “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8). Resurrection and the supernatural in general are not beyond logic or reason. In fact, if we were to think logically, it would make no sense to say that resurrection is impossible or that God would not raise the dead. The assumption that something like this is impossible is unjustified. It is an invented principle. Nothing about resurrection is unreasonable or impossible. And Christ has indeed been raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and in harmony with the eyewitnesses that Paul enumerates, whose witness the apostle authenticates by the inspiration of the Spirit.