Assuranceagent,
I don't mean to be contrary, but I have to disagree with your statements above. I think you may have (perhaps unwittingly) bought into the Enlightenment's notion of "rationality," which is really code for a God-less worldview. Justified, true, biblical rationality does not allow for contradictions, and there are no contradictions in the examples you've cited. Or you've possibly confused "not rational" with "not fully understood." One can think of lots of examples of things that at one time were not fully understood that may have been regarded as "not rational."
Rationality is defined as that pertaining to and in keeping with reason.
I agree with this definition, but only if by reason we are referring to reason that is biblically based.
It is not reasonable to believe the infinite became a man.
Although the so-called "wise" and "learned" men of the world would view this as "irrational," it is not irrational from a Biblical standpoint. Christ did not cease to be infinite by taking on corporeality. We may not understand
how the Infinite took upon the finite, but that doesn't mean it is contrary to reason. We are merely ignorant of exactly how it was done. By comparison, one might have argued that the notion of voices traveling thousands of miles invisibly through the air is not reasonable, but that assessment would be based upon ignorance, not upon some contradiction with reason. Today we understand radio waves and cellular telephone technology, and we would no longer consider it to be contrary to reason.
It is not reasonable to believe in infinity at all.
On the contrary, one must believe in the Infinite in order to justifiably reason at all. Just because we cannot comprehend infinity doesn't make it unreasonable. In fact, the existence of reason itself affirms the Infinite, and all reasonable men (not by Enlightenment definitions)
should take the very existence of reason to its logical conclusion, namely, the existence of the Infinite God. This is Romans 1 in a nutshell.
It is not reasonable to believe that Three can be One and One can be Three.
On the contrary, there are all sorts of analogies that bring the concept of the Trinity "down to earth," so to speak. Of course, as with all analogies, they are not perfect, nor is there ever perfect correspondence, but the analogies show that the concept is not contrary to reason. Again, we may not fully understand it, but that does not make it irrational or contrary to reason.
It is not reasonable to believe that a man may come back from death.
Again, just because we do not know how God does it, does not make it contrary to reason. It may be contrary to past experience, or contrary to the hitherto advances in science and medicine, but that does not make it unreasonable or irrational. It is important to note that miracles, signs and wonders are defined biblically from the standpoint of the human observer, not from the standpoint of God. That is to say, if something appeared to be out of the normal course of nature, it was considered to be miraculous or a "sign and wonder." For God, that is, from His standpoint, since He holds all things together (down to the very atoms), there are only the normal course of things and the out-of-the-normal events. The latter were regarded as miracles, signs and wonders. But the latter are no more the work of God than the former.
This is why all these things must be revealed by the working of the Spirit. To the "rational" man, they are foolishness.
To be clear, all men can see the rationality of God and His Word -- as God has clearly revealed Himself to all men, and within them -- but they will refuse to acknowledge God and His Word as such. It's not that God's Word or God Himself are deficient in their revelation, but rather that the heart of fallen man is hardened against them. The work of the Spirit is not that of convincing fallen men to accept the irrational or non-rational, but rather to embrace the singular source of true, justified rationality, namely, God and His Word.
To put it another way: Man, without the revelation of God in His word, would never have reasoned his way through from creation to the doctrines of grace and glory. Yet those doctrines are no less true for that fact.
But it's not because God and His Word are "not rational" or defy the faculties of reason; that is, it's not a question of comprehensibility or content. Rather, it is strictly moral. Fallen man is unwilling, rebellious and resistant to the clear, rational and comprehensible truth of God and of His Word.
Hilston
