Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Think Apologetics. Tabernacle of David considers this resource trustworthy and Biblically sound.
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Jewish philosopher and well know author Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) resisted belief in God even though he was fully convinced of the intellectual soundness of the Christian faith, until his late-life conversion on a hospital bed. He confessed that philosophical reasoning in itself cannot bring us into relationship with God.
He said:
“I simply did not wish to exercise a will to believe.” He wrote: The soundest rational argument for God’s existence could only carry us to the edge of the chasm that separated the philosophical affirmation of God’s existence from the religious belief in God. What is usually called “a leap of faith” is needed to carry anyone across the chasm. But the leap of faith is usually misunderstood as having insufficient reasons for affirming God’s existence to a state of greater certitude in that affirmation. That is not the case. The leap of faith consists in going from the conclusion of a merely philosophical theology to a religious belief in a God that has revealed himself as a loving, just and merciful Creator of the cosmos, a God to be loved, worshiped and prayed to”-Adler, “A Philosopher’s Religious Faith,” in Philosophers Who Believe, ed. Kelly James Clark (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 209.
