Hebrew 11: 8
Abraham left his people and travelled with his wife and Lot to a place where he did not know.
Paradox
How can an intelligent person abandon all for a strange place because he said that the Lord so instructed him? Some might argue with him to show them the God who gave him the instructions.
Hebrew 11: 11
Sarah at 90 years of age and Abraham at 100 conceived and gave birth to Isaac.
Paradox
Does this comply with acceptable medical theory? Was Sarah not in the age in which she could no longer have babies?
Hebrew 11: 17 & 18:
Abraham obeyed the Lord and lifted his knife to kill Isaac who was bound to the altar where he was to be burnt as an offering because God told him to offer him as a sacrifice.
Yet, it was the same Isaac that the Lord promised that through him, Abraham was to become a great nation.
Paradox
It appears that there was a contradiction in this command. Abraham should sacrifice his only son through whom the Lord had promised that he would become a great nation.
Yes, by human reasoning, there was. The intelligent pragmatic person would not accept this. How could a dead child become the father of a great nation?
Hebrew 11:19
Abraham obeyed because he reasoned and believed that God was able to raise the dead Isaac back to life and make him a great nation.
Concluding comments
Faith is a complete reliance and obedience to the Lord. In the walk of faith, empirical and quantitative demonstration of the Lord and His ways fall down.
Complete obedience and reliance on God may appear foolish to the thinking person who may choose to disobey God.
We thank the Lord for the faith of Abraham. He demonstrated that faith in the Lord, in complete obedience to Him, sometimes transcends the extremities of human reasoning and calculations. This is because the reasoning man fails to include in his calculations an acknowledgement that the world belongs to the Sovereign Lord who cannot be found by human experimentation. Otherwise, He ceases to be God but a human contraption and invention.
But He can be found, experienced and known by those who faithfully obey His revealed word. Such that to refuse to believe Him is foolishness.