Faith without reason is not Faith (capital “F”). It is merely the baptism of an opinion.

The ruined abbeys you find seemingly everywhere around Ireland are testimony to the excesses of Protestantism, which unfortunately tried to fix a church in desperate need of fixing by divorcing  Reason and Faith.

Luther and Calvin believed that Faith and Reason were not always compatible. That in fact they were often at war with one another, as if Old Testament Wisdom could be hijacked somehow by Satan and used against the world. Truth became for many not something to be discovered and proven through  Reason, but something to be “believed” in the face of Reason.

In the United States, we suffer today from the inevitable consequences of this most egregious theological error: Christians who do not “believe” in Evolution, seemingly intelligent people ignoring  the science behind global warming, legislation making unbiased scientific studies of the true effects of marijuana or gun violence impossible (de facto illegal).

This divorce between Faith and Reason is ultimately what makes Donald Trump possible. It is what makes gun control and health care so unfixable. It is what makes it possible for politicians to lie with no consequences. It is what makes it possible for people to claim the there is no Racism or Sexism anymore in United States..

This divorce between Faith and Reason is ultimately the cause of all the world’s ills. For Faith and Reason flow out of Love (capital “L”).

 

A POETIC DRAFT: Boyle Abbey, Ireland
by M.A.H. Hinton

these roofless ruins
stripped by ignorant men
long centuries ago

still bear witness
to what only
the knowing
have always known

Truth
cannot be overthrown