26 Jan 2025 AD
Feast Day of Sts Timothy and Titus
Dear Godson,
Today we celebrate Saints Timothy and Titus, first bishops of Ephesus and Crete, who followed Saint Paul on his apostolic journeys. One was a Jew, the other Greek, one was circumcised according to the Law of Moses, and the other not, which was a matter of stark controversy in the Church in first years after the Ascension. Despite any differences, both followed Christ faithfully to sainthood, and are among the very earliest number of saints assuming the thrones vacated by the fallen angels in heaven.
The verse from scripture, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom” distinguishes traditional Jewish and Greek approaches. Jews rely on the revelation of sacred books, whereas Greeks follow philosophy and science — the love of wisdom and knowledge — to discover what human reason can reveal.
And yet both paths, properly followed, lead to Christ hence to God. One might use Timothy and Titus as symbols of this twofold brotherhood of faith and reason. There is no war between them.
Today, we follow the Greek way. Reason brings forth proofs for God, especially these seven: the argument from design; from the nature of being; from the nature of reason; from free will; from first causes; from beauty; from conscience. My two previous letters addressed these first two. Here we turn to the argument from the nature of reason.
The “Argument from Reason” is not an argument merely saying it is reasonable to believe in God. Belief in God is reasonable, to be sure, for it is backed by historical and physical evidence, intuition and common sense.
But here we are offering a more abstract argument, namely, that without God, reason is unreasonable.
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