What is the relationship between reason and faith? Is the Christian faith acceptable to the logical mind? Is it possible foe one earnestly dedicated to rational and scientific thinking, to experience the joy of salvation an fellowship with God?

I was brought up in a Christian family. My mother instructed me as a young boy in the Christian faith, teaching me how to pray and depend on God, whose guidance, protection and care I did experience. I accepted my beliefs without question.

Then I attended a university. There, in my enthusiasm to explain every phenomenon by physical laws, in an atmosphere where freedom and critical examination of thinking were encouraged, and in exposure to atheistic and agnostic philosophies, my Christian faith was seriously challenged and replaced by tormenting, depressing doubt. It was tormenting to think that the beliefs that I had cherished for so long were wrong and could not be sustained by reason. It was depressing to have to look at life and the universe as purposeless combination of atoms and molecules governed solely by physical laws.

It took several years, but my doubts were gradually erased, and I slowly came to the realization that the Christian faith should be perfectly acceptable to the local mind. The hindrance to this realization was that I did not humble myself, and therefore failed to see the limitation of our human capacities – our perception and intellect – while focusing mainly on man’s power and achievements.

Our senses of perception are limited. Our eyes can see colors which are electromagnetic waves from 400 to 700 mμ, a very small range in the entire spectrum of 10-15 to 1016 microns, from gamma rays to radio waves. Our ears can recognize sound vibrations from 20 to 20,000 cycles per second but not beyond, even though ultrasonic vibrations exist.

Our intellect has its limitations. We cannot understand the concept of the infinity of time and space—when and where the universe originated and when and where it will end. We cannot understand, a priori, the reasons of our own existence: Why am I here? What should I become? What is the meaning of my life? There may be answers to these questions, but we cannot, because of our limited intelligence, arrive at these answers by reasoning alone. One human being is more intelligent than the other; thus a person with an IQ of 190 may comprehend something utterly inconceivable to another with an IQ of 90. One species of animal is more intelligent than another. This gradation of intelligence shows that there is no reason to believe that human intellect is the highest attainable and that he has the power to comprehend everything there is to be known. Just as a butterfly may not understand what a man is, man may not comprehend a being much more powerful, much more intelligent than he himself.

Physical science, a most fruitful field of human perception, intellect, and innovative endeavors, also has its limitations, as it operates under the constraints of our ability to measure and perceive—to acquire and interpret data. Its growth has been catalyzed by recognition of our deficiencies and needs to improve, and as the history of science has shown, whenever we think we have nature all figured out, we are often greatly surprised by what nature has to offer. Thus, when classical physics seemed to work perfectly in every situation, scientists were surprised that it was impossible to determine simultaneously the exact location and momentum of a small particle like an electron, as enunciated in the now well-accepted Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. While this recognition ushered in the era of quantum mechanics, it also serves as a cogent reminder that science may not be able to find out everything there is to be found. Presently, while confident of our extensive knowledge of matter, we are confronted with the notion, from leading scientists at the advancing frontiers, that the “ordinary matter” that our fi ve senses are familiar with consists of less than 5% of the universe, the remainder being “dark energy” and “dark matter,” whose natures are still largely unknown and controversial.

There is a Chinese parable about a turtle born and raised at the bottom of a well. Because of the limited perception, it is natural and entirely reasonable for him to think that the outside world consists of what he can see through the top of the well. We can easily see the pathetic folly of his ignorance. But are we not, with our limited intellect and perception, just like this turtle at the bot-tom of a well?

Recognizing the limitations of our intellect and perception, but making the best use of them, let us now proceed to find out how we may know God.

In order to explain the existence of this universe, it is reasonable to assume that something is responsible for its existence. The assumption of such a premise should be acceptable to the logical mind. As an analogy, in order to explain a natural phenomenon, it is a common practice in science to start with a hypothesis in a similar way.

Thus, to account for certain observations in chemical reactions, the atomic theory was pro-posed by Dalton in 1805, and now, after years of thorough verification, we all acknowledge that atoms exist. In fact, through countless repetitions of the scientific cycle—new hypotheses prompted by new observations or insights, and subsequent verification—our knowledge of atoms has expanded explosively through the years, leading to further understanding about their constituents like electrons, protons, and quarks, and to entirely new endeavors like genomics and nanotechnology that promise substantial benefits to mankind. As a more recent example of a hypothesis, based on accumulated evidence and insights, theoretical physicists have postulated “strings” as the ultimate constituent of matter, and eminent cosmologists have postulated “dark energy” as a pervading fundamental constituent, presently making up 70% of the universe and accelerating its expansion.

his premise, that a Creator exists, leads to only two corollaries or possibilities concerning its nature toward human beings. First, the Creator is an impersonal, cosmic being, which is not interested in the human beings thus produced. The Creator may be, for example, an intangible agent responsible for the uniformity of the physical laws of nature. In any event, since it is not interested in human beings, it is likely that we human beings may never be able to find out about the exact nature of this Creator, because of our limitations mentioned previously.

The second and the only remaining corollary is that the Creator is interested in the human beings he created. In this event, he will communicate with the human beings, even though the methods or channels of communication he uses may be inconceivable to our limited mind. In other words, even though we cannot, alone, find out about this Creator, he may nevertheless, in his own way, reveal himself to us and let us know about his nature.

With this second corollary in mind, let us examine the message of the Bible. The Bible asserts that God is responsible for the creation of the universe and all the living things therein. The Bible asserts that, far from being an impersonal, cosmic being, God is deeply interested in the human beings he created. He loves them, communicates with them and makes himself known to them. The Scripture claims that it is given by the inspiration of God, to let us know what God expects of us (2 Tim. 3:16-17); it tells us that Christ came to earth to carry out a mission for God (John 6:38, 40), and in doing so, thoroughly revealed the nature of God to man. Christ said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). “If ye had known me, you should have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him” (John 14:7; John 10:30).

If we compare these assertions of Christ and of the Bible with the corollary based on purely logical reasoning above, that if the Creator is interested in human beings he will communicate with them, the parallelism is obvious. In other words, these assertions in the Scripture are identical to what we have deduced as the necessary consequence of a creator interested in his human creatures. The logical mind is therefore faced with two possibilities. First, it can accept these scriptural assertions as logically necessary and consider Christ and the Scripture as the revelation of God. Secondly, it can accept these assertions as logically acceptable but nevertheless consider them as simply the creation of man. How do we deter-mine which of the two possibilities is true? In science, hypotheses and alternative possibilities are often proved or disproved empirically, by experimentation which provides evidence not obtainable by reasoning alone. Thus the hypothesis of atom was confirmed after substantial experimental edence had been accumulated, and the alternative possibilities whether the mass of an atom is heavily concentrated in a tiny nucleus or evenly distributed in space were resolved by Rutherford’s gold foil experiment in 1911. Now, starting from a reasonable premise and employing purely logical deductions, we have arrived at two possible conclusions, namely, first, the scriptural assertions are logically necessary and are the revelation of God, and secondly, the scriptural assertions are logically acceptable but are the creation of man. If we can verify, empirically, that the first conclusion is true, then we will have completed the proof that we can know about the nature of God, derived in a framework entirely analogous to the rational-empirical approach—the process of hypothesis, deduction, and empirical verification—that is fundamental to physical sciences.

The Scripture tells us how to proceed with this proof; it is a proof requiring faith and personal experience.

Christ told us about the righteousness and the love of God (e.g. Matt. 6:30-33). Like a light into the darkness he has come to the world to call sinners to repentance (John 12:46; Matt. 9:13). Whosoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life—to have everlasting fellowship with God as father and be loved by him always (John 3:6; 16:27; 14:23; Rom. 3:23-25; 6:23).

The goodness of God draws and leads man to repentance (Rom. 2:4; John 6:44). If men do their part and respond, humble themselves as little children and earnestly seek God with a contrite heart, they shall find God and enter into his kingdom (Matt. 18:3-4, Ps. 51:17; Isa. 57:15). Christ said, “Seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you” (Luke 11:9; Rev. 3:20). Similarly in the Old Testament God said, “Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer. 29:13). Christ told us what would happen when one comes to him. Christ is the bread of life. He that comes to Christ shall never hunger, and he that believes on Christ shall never thirst (John 6:35). Christ will give him joy and peace of heart, saying, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you” (John 15:11). “My peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Christ will give him power to become a son of God, power to experience in his heart and show forth in his life “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance” (John 1:12, 15:5; Gal. 5:22,23).

Thus the proof as to whether the Bible is the word of God—the final step in our rational search for God—consists of a test of the promises of the Bible through personal experience. If one humbles himself and trusts Christ as his Savior and follow him obediently, then as promised in the Bible, he will experience peace and joy through God, receive forgiveness of sin, and the God-given power to lead his life away from sin toward a life of love and righteous-ness. Once experiencing this new life, he then has every reason to believe, on firm rational ground, that God, his revelation, and his love are real and not figments of the imagination. He may say, as Billy Graham did, “I know that God exists because of my personal experience. I know that I know him. I have talked with him and walked with him. He cares about me and acts in my everyday life.”

In conclusion then, based on firm logical ground, it has been shown that the nature and the existence of God are beyond the scope of science and human intellect, but may be known through God’s own revelation. The love of God, the peace and joy through him now and ever-lasting, are to be experienced by those who walk in faith with humble, seeking hearts.

(Dr. Peter W.K. Woo received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Stanford University and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois. He was engaged in research and development of new medicinal agents for 42 years until his retirement in 2001 from Pfizer as a Senior Research Associate.)