Does faith cancel the gift of reason?

In Christianity, the term “ mystery ” does not mean that the believer blindly accepts doctrines without understanding, or that these doctrines make no sense. When we speak of divine mysteries concerning the essence of God and His nature and work, we mean that God reveals these matters to us as rational beings, granting us divine enlightenment that reveals to us this divine knowledge which is truly surpassingly sublime. Yet by their nature, our minds remain incapable of grasping these mysteries, without the intervention of God’s grace and revelation. A mystery does not oppose human reason — although without God’s help, it remains beyond human comprehension.

God created us as rational beings, not beastly ones. When He reveals Himself and His work to us, it is not cancel our reason, but to exalt it; so that our human nature might receive Him and confess His mysteries: “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11); “having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself” (Eph. 1:9–10).

God, who loves humans as rational beings, spoke with Moses “as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex. 33:11) and He longs to enter into dialogue with every believer. I quote below some of the words of St. Clement of Alexandria that demonstrate that Christianity elevates the human mind; and that when the mind engages in faith and receives revelation from God, its reason is by no means cancelled, but rather its wisdom is increased.

340 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Festal Letters 1:6 (NPNF II/4:508) amended.

“… the soul is raised to God: trained in the true philosophy, it speeds to its kindred above, turning away from the lusts of the body, and besides these, from toil and fear.”³⁴¹

“A noble hymn of God is an immortal man, established in righteousness, in whom the oracles of truth are engraved. For where but in a soul that is wise can you write truth?”³⁴²

St. Clement also explains that human knowledge is necessary to understand the holy Scriptures, yet not without the help of God.³⁴³