“…logic suffers from the fact that it is human, not divine, and suffers all the limitations of humanity, including being irrevocably contained in time and space.”
Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why
PhyllisTickle makes a good point. Here in the Western World, we have trusted logic—rationalism—seemingly above all else for about five hundred years now. Reason has been our philosophical guide since the Renaissance and beginning with the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries, it has been our common philosophical and scientific language. Reason is not always comfortable with paradox. It seeks certainty (or at least proof beyond a reasonable doubt) in all things.
And all that used to be just fine with me. Philosophical Rationalism is what I lived and breathed. I was an agnostic for twenty years or more. When I was a kid, I watched Star Trek re-runs religiously (interesting word choice, huh?) and still do whenever I can. I loved Spock. I wanted to be like Spock. Devoted to logic. Alien. Dispassionate. Above the emotional turmoil. Knowledge was an end in itself, and logic seemed like a good, safe place to hide.
The thing is, I’m nothing like Spock. I never have been. It took a spiritual awakening, therapy, and a Facebook quiz to help me realize that I am much more like Dr. Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy. Trusting his feelings. Human. Irascible. Prone to occasional emotional outbursts. Knowledge was a tool rather than an end in itself.
I still trust Rationalism, but like Phyllis Tickle, I recognize its limitations. She argues “that logic is not worth nearly as much as the last five hundred years would have had us believe,” and she’s right. Logic is limited. It’s not absolute. Given the paradoxical nature of our lives, it is good for us to balance the rational with the non-rational. It’s good for us to seek as much wisdom from poetry as we do from science. It’s good for us to realize that our perspective is finite and that we will never be able to articulate the infinite love and grace that we find in Christ.
God is a mystery that defies explanation. The Incarnation of Christ is a paradox that we will never resolve, and we shouldn’t even try. Phyllis Tickle would advise us to “recognize the ubiquity of paradox.” She would also advise us not to fear that paradox, but to “see in its operative presence the tension where vitality lives.” That’s good advice. We don’t have to choose between the rational and the non-rational. We can pick both/and rather than either/or. In the end, both Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are necessary. We can learn a lot from them (just ask
Jim Kirk).
The Reverend Jeffrey K. Evans 
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