Truth and Reason

The hymn Oh My Father includes a few lines about Truth and Reason, essentially arguing that if something is unreasonable, it can't be true, because the truth will always be reasonable. I have a few major problems with this line of thinking, and most of them stem from the fact that human beings aren't always great at reasoning.

In olden times, it seemed perfectly reasonable to think that the Earth was flat. I mean, just look at it. Look at the horizon, and you'll see what appears to be a perfectly flat line. Judging by that evidence, it would be reasonable to conclude that the Earth actually is flat, but we later learned, with the help of further knowledge, that the Earth is actually round, but so huge it appears flat from our limited perspective.

It's that limited perspective that bothers me. We can't base our acceptance or rejection of spiritual claims on what seems reasonable to us because our limited perspectives sometimes lead us to the wrong conclusions. Something may make sense to us but still be false, and something may not make sense to us but still be true. Thankfully, our perspective and reasoning are usually accurate enough for everyday use, but for spiritual matters, it's best not to take that kind of chance.

When it comes to spiritual truths, our flawed logic and human reasoning will only get us so far. So, rather than "proving" spiritual truths with mortal reason, I plan to rely on revelation, and on the subjects where revelation is scant, I'll try to have the courage to say "I don't know" instead of trying to guess what I think is most likely to be true just because it seems to "stand to reason."