Christians Try To Make The Irrational Rational..... Key Word: Try

 To assert that Eternal Being could and would take physical shape in time, and allow itself to die a terrible death, was the “absolute paradox” according to Kierkegaard. That one could be infinite and finite, eternal and temporal, God and man at the same time, could only be impossible, illogical and absurd – an “offense” to human understanding.

What Kierkegaard called the “absolute paradox” results when reason collides with itself in logical contradictions. But according to Kierkegaard, this did not necessarily result in non-sense. Human reason must accept its limitations, the objective and empirical parameters of its capability, and allow the illogic of paradox to remain. When reason collides with something foreign, something outside of its realm of understanding, it must, to remain true to the scientific objective of seeking to know and perceive, admit and accept consideration of that which transcends its comprehension.

The supernatural “other” which reason collides with is revelation – the Self-revelation of a transcendent God who created human reasoning, transcends human reasoning, and surprises human logic with the revealing of Himself within the natural context. Reasoned Christian faith must, therefore, embrace the paradox of logical contradiction and the tension of dialectic, recognizing that Christianity will always be illogical and absurd when considered only at the level of natural, human logic. Human reasoning will always be insufficient for becoming or being a Christian, for it cannot comprehend what faith perceives and receives.