Thinking that logic alone can lead someone to faith is like thinking logic can convince someone that something is beautiful. Imagine driving through Navajo country in the southwest United States with a friend who considers the exquisite landscape just a barren wasteland. Would logic convince him that the landscape is beautiful? For every reason you give to demonstrate its beauty, your friend will counter with a reason for thinking it ugly. You perceive beauty; he doesn’t. Mere logic isn’t going to change his mind.

Some of the most important things in life transcend logic. No one can devise a logical proof for faith, beauty, or love. If we attempt a “proof” for them, we will be farther from understanding them than when we started. Such things are perceived by more than just our minds. They are perceived by something more profound than mere intellect.

The Bible refers to the center of the human personality as the “heart,”¹ and specifically designates it as the place of faith (Mark 11:23;  Luke 24:25; John 14:1; Acts 8:37; Romans 10:9 ). This doesn’t mean that faith is irrational. Faith can be philosophically and logically defended. But a logical defense of faith is as far from experiencing it as a verbal description of the flavor of strawberries is from their taste in the mouth. The heart includes the function of the mind, but transcends it. The inclination of peoples’ hearts, not their intellectual powers, determines whether they will move in the direction of faith or unbelief. Jesus made this clear:

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:20-21 NIV)

Hatred of truth causes unbelievers to use their rational powers to reject it. Hatred of truth occurs in their hearts. Their rationalizations for rejecting it are the consequence—not the cause—of their hatred.

This, too, is why the writer of Hebrews declares:

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)

The existence of God—like the existence of love and beauty—can be logically described. But it cannot be logically proven to someone who doesn’t want to believe. Belief in these things requires openness of the heart. While logic can be used to provide evidence for the truth, it can also be used to rationalize evil. Ultimate choices are not only decisions of the mind but also matters of the heart, where logic is only a tool for fashioning a life of truth and goodness, or illusion and evil.

1. In the Bible, the term heart refers to the “whole man, with all his attributes, physical, intellectual, and psychological.” (New Bible Dictionary) The meaning of mind, in contrast, is usually limited more specifically to mental abilities.
   So the term heart refers to the governing center of man, that part of him that is often referred to with such terms as character, personality, will, and mind. Heart is therefore a broader and more inclusive term than mind. In the New Testament, heart is fundamentally synonymous with person. Back To Article