What I know and what I believe

Some matters I believe and some matters I have to take on faith. Yet the categories of belief and faith are not as clearly defined as one might think. Sometimes we speak as if science deals with facts, while religion deals with blind trust. It’s not that simple.

I might say, “I know there is a Key West, Florida” and “I know there is a Kathmandu, Nepal.” But these statements are not equal. I know there is a Kathmandu as my wife and I spent two months there on our honeymoon. It’s not too much of a statement of faith to say that the city continues to exist even though we haven’t been there for 22 years. The same sources of information that told me the place existed before I visited, tell me of its continued existence.

On the other hand, I have never been to Key West. But I do know people who have and I believe the things I have both heard and read about the place and feel like I know something of that place as well.

These matters were considered more thoroughly by an intellect I can’t pretend to match in the fourth century by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was a promising student in the Roman Empire. Though he was from North Africa, he was sent to Rome and trained in rhetoric at a time when the best and the brightest studied rhetoric. He knew logic and philosophy. And when talented rhetoritician came to faith in Jesus Christ, he brought his God-given gifts of reason with him into the church.

This post, which is my religion column for today's issue of the Tribune & Georgian continues here: What I know and what I believe