According To The Treatise Of Zera Yacob: Reason And Faith

According to the Treatise of Zera Yacob, reason and faith do not conflict. As a matter of fact, reason and faith are supportive of one another in that his faith in God has allowed him to delve deeper into the idea of God and the arguments for and against the type of God he is and if there even is a God. He believed that God allowed him to reason and to learn more about his own beliefs and the thoughts of people around the world. His perspective is a rare one in that it is commonly believed that reason leads to a lack of faith and eventually a form of atheism. The pursuit of scientific knowledge normally leads to a lack of faith due to a newfound belief in the tangible and a loss of belief in the intangible. However, for Zera Yacob, his pursuit …show more content…
According to the Treatise, Zera Yacob could live according to his own beliefs in God while still being able to pursue reason due to the gifts that God gave him and the belief that his own gift of reason would lead him to a stronger faith and better understanding of the ability of man. Zera Yacob was a bright student in his youth which led his father to sending him to receive a higher education. It was here that he realized that God was with him on his journey to understand reason. He had multiple experiences in which he believed that God allowed him to continue to do his research and to expand his understanding of the unknown. God first saved him from a depression that he went into after being made fun of for his voice. He was saved again when he fell into a deep ravine that would have killed someone without the intervention of God. He viewed these experiences as God’s intervention so that he may continue to learn about reason and why it can be complementary to faith rather than contradictory. He continued to …show more content…
This can be inferred from the vast difference in beliefs between religions and the differences in morality between them. Each religion has different standards for evil yet they all are meant to worship the same God. Therefore, the line between good and evil is man-made which means that evil is not from God but a source of man’s own free will that is based in the decisions that have been made throughout history by powerful figures. Since God cannot make evil things, he made man who had the ability to obey and disobey God’s law. The example used is the example of an alternate creation story in which God never tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. By doing so, they are never able to utilize their free will because they have no order to disobey, therefore never being able to truly become free beings. By giving the command not to eat from the Tree, they are suddenly presented with a choice and therefore they are presented with free will. This decision was presented to man and it allows man to reason and come to their own conclusions about God. It also allows scripture to be a method for God to propose questions allowing man to reason for