Faith and reason

WHY does the Quran never refer to the human brain?

- BY SADIQ KARIM SOOFI

Even when it speaks of understanding and comprehension, it points towards the human heart (the galb) as the seat of those activities.For those who doubt that religion can ever be intellectually convincing, this feature is good evidence for their position that faith ultimately involves a ‘blind’ leap into the realm of feelings and emotions. In other words, for them, faith involves an abandonment of logical rationality.

But that is not quite what the Christian philosopher Kierkegaard meant when he famously remarked, Where reason is exhausted, faith beWilmst Kierkegaard was trying to say was that in the search for truth and wisdom, reasoning and logic can only take us so far. When the seeker of knowledge is returned dissatisfied from every avenue of reason he has pursued, his search for certain knowledge ultimately thrusts his soul into the depths of faith.

However, this leap of faith isn’t actually “blind” or “irrational” as some make it out to be. While it is true that faith involves an overcoming of reason, this overcoming is actually guided by another faculty of the intellect: intuition.