I don't look at that way. I see it as a balance. For example, if we can accept the premise of God's omnipotence on faith, then many things in the Bible instantly become rational. I think that faith and reason work together. God gives His children eyes to see and ears to hear, and then the scriptures actually DO make perfect sense.
So, for me it is nothing to believe that Jonah literally DID spend three days in the belly of a whale. God is omnipotent, so He could have done anything required to make that possible. I don't question it because I have no reason to, given the premise of faith He has given me. I mean, Jesus can rise from the dead, but He can't protect a guy from digestive juices for a few days? THAT'S what doesn't make sense.
Part of the Jewish argument against Christianity is precisely false rationalism: man cannot become God. But, we reply, can God become man? We believe that with God everything is possible even if we don't understand it. So, opinion and faith is not the same thing.
But shouldn't all opinion be firmly grounded in faith? IOW, they should be very close together, not separated and apart.
No they don't become rational, FK. They are accepted in spite of our inability to understand them. Thus, we accept resurrection of dead people. Is that rational? Our reason rejects it, but we accept it spiritually. Is walking on water rational? Of course it isn't. But we accept that +Peter walked on water; we believe it did happen although our brain is screaming "no!"
Usually behind all these fancy miracles that are hard to believe and impossible to understand, lies a divine message the story is meant to convey. Ignoring the fancy details (the devil is in the details!), you can capture the meaning of that message without resorting to superstition.
Amen.
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." -- Romans 12:2
Paul tells us that when we are quickened to the truth our minds are transformed and we can, by the preaching of the Gospel and by the indwelling Holy Spirit, PROVE the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
At the heart of our understanding is the mystery of God; a seeming paradox; the one and the many. But there is SO MUCH that is rational and knowable, that we could spend a lifetime still declaring in confidence "we truly know whom we have believed."
It's like the concept of evil which we discussed earlier. The Westminister Confession of Faith precisely and accurately gives us as much understanding as possible without contradiction or error...
IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin..."
Of Providence