And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect). – Matthew 22:37, Amplified Bible

I grew up in the public school system of middle Georgia. I had some wonderful teachers, but a lot of the subject matter was less than perfect. In particular, my high school science teachers taught me that we are all a product of the evolutionary process. Now, I was saved at age eleven, and I had a heart for Christ. But when my teachers presented evolution as scientific fact and faiths of all kinds, including mine, as myth, I struggled. My heart and soul told me one thing. My mind told me another.

I suffered from this dichotomy for many years until, in my late 20s, I was introduced to the world of Christian apologetics. Christian apologetics – which I like to call the science, reason, and mathematics that prove Christianity to be true – helped me to understand that Christianity is not based on blind faith. Rather, it is a faith rooted in logic, reason, and observable reality. In my late 20s I came to understand that Christianity satisfies the intellect more than any other faith or so-called science, and since my introduction to apologetics, I’ve never doubted my God.

The theory of evolution, for example, has never once been shown to match up with observable reality. The whole theory rests on a premise that no one has ever seen, and this false premise is that random events can produce order rather than chaos. Would anyone in their right mind really believe that you could throw the proper components into a shipyard, let random forces work their magic for enough time, and, poof, out pops an aircraft carrier? An aircraft carrier is one of the most complex machines man has ever built. Every aircraft carrier is the product of intense planning and of meticulous craftsmanship, but no aircraft carrier begins to compare with the complexity of the human body. Though no evolutionist would ever argue that randomness could produce an aircraft carrier, an evolutionist will argue that randomness created the human body. How foolish.

The Christian believes in something he can observe – order comes from intelligence. The evolutionist believes in something he can’t observe – order comes from randomness. Who, pray tell, has the blind faith?

We must never abandon reason when we explain why we believe what we believe. God’s greatest commandment in the Bible, spelled out in Matthew 22:37 by Jesus Himself, requires that we love The Lord not only with our hearts and our souls but also with our minds. If we allow our minds to wander away from the reality of God, we have failed to worship God fully, and we have failed in our faith. The Christian faith is a logical faith. It is a faith based in observable reality. And it is a faith that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

As resources to help you worship God with your intellect, I highly recommend these books:

The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
How Now Shall We Live? by Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey

Happy thinking!