Our faith and its response in life are not based on what reason can grasp in its little hand, but on the sure and certain Word of God.

Our son Mark needed a stand for his new TV. By e-mail he sent me a small drawing of what he and his wife wanted. But before I could go out into the shop and build it, I had to do some thinking. First, I enlarged the drawing on the computer printer. Next, I used the algebra I once learned to figure out the dimensions. Finally, I worked with woodworking tools like the table saw, jointer, and router to turn the oak lumber into a table. Lots of planning and thinking—all made possible because of a wonderful gift from our Creator God, the gift called reason.

A GREAT GIFT

What a computer the Creator has quartered in my cranium, a marvel we will never be able to duplicate! Made of tissue and fed by the bloodstream just like the rest of my body, yet my brain controls it all. Not only does it react, but unlike the animals, it also reasons and responds, enabling me to discover and control parts of the world God has made for me. In his explanation to the First Article, Luther put it this way, "I believe that God made me and all that exists, and that he gave me . . . my mind and all my abilities.”

Man has put this gift of reason to good use. He has used it to invent the printing press and the electronic book. Microchips for handheld computers, robotic tools for less invasive surgeries, musical scores to stir the spirit—all these masterpieces that endure through the ages have come from man's skillful use of this great gift. So have laws to govern the nation, etiquette to guide our relationships, education to raise our sights, and inventions without number to better our lives.

Though humanity may not recognize its thinking ability as a divine gift, we do. We use it with thanksgiving throughout our lives. Pastors use it to learn the Hebrew and Greek languages to understand the Bible better. Parents use it to understand, guide, and discipline their children. Workers run machines, accountants crunch numbers, professors teach classes, students acquire knowledge, baseball pitchers throw curves, batters hit them, all using the gift of reason. Day after day we as believers put reason to good use in our lives.

Yet this great gift can be abused. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands," David reminds us (Psalm 19:1). But sinful mankind, instead of seeing the Creator's finger, prefers to poke with a millimeter mind at God's creation, explaining its existence as sheer chance. In willful nearsightedness the creature thinks it knows more than the Creator. The mind, intended as a great gift, instead becomes the master. Truth becomes only what can be verified by human investigation and research. For humanity, the measure of all things is the sin-shrunken yardstick of the mind.