The program of the rationalist is to arrive at an understanding of spiritual truth over the pathway of reasoning that is apart from faith. That of the believer is to arrive at it over the pathway of reasoning that is founded on faith.
The program of the rationalist is to harmonize the Word of God with his conclusions. That of the believer is to harmonize his conclusions with the Word. The program of the rationalist is to become a critic of the Word and sit in judgment on it. That of the believer is to let the Word become his critic and sit in judgment on him.
These are certainly reasons enough why the believer and the rationalist can never travel together. For the believer is walking by God's estimate of him, while the rationalist is walking by his estimate of God, and these paths go in opposite directions.
If you sit in judgment on some portion of God's Word and determine that it is reasonable, and that since it commends itself to your judgment it is therefore acceptable and you will believe it, that is not faith in the Word but in your own reason. You have surrendered your intellect to your own conclusions but your heart is far from God. Faith in the Word is surrender to it without passing judgment on it.
And yet surrendering one's mind to one's own conclusions about God is precisely the thing that passes for faith in God on the part of those who have lost their old-fashioned, evangelical faith while they were in the Schools, and yet come out with what they describe as a more intelligent and rational faith in God and the Bible. In their desperate attempt to survive the wreck of their orthodox faith, they have
