Faith or Reason




     There’s a fight going on in America.  I’m talking about between the Atheists and the Theists.  The gang of four, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are the best selling Atheist authors.  They argue against any religion and call them all evil, superstitious, and just plain dumb.  Their arguments are gaining ground with many intellectuals and their followers.  This argument centers on the question; can faith and reason co-exist?

     I find it rather interesting that faith and reason belong to different realms of inquiry.  But that doesn’t deter either side.  In fact, even the Atheist’s positions take on a kind of religious fervor.  They have so much faith in their own reasoning that their positions are absolute.

     I guess this shouldn’t be surprising.  This is a classic process for social change.  First we have an absolute and unshakable position, which we will call “thesis”.  Then we have the new and opposite unshakable position, which we will call “antithesis”.  Finally after all the dust has settled we have a merging of positions into a new position, which we will call “synthesis”.  I wish I could take credit for this insight but I believe it belongs to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, long deceased German philosopher.  In his terms, it is the dialectic of social progress.

     It doesn’t just happen in our religious arguments.  It happens all around us.  For instance, if you look at our political process through this lens you will see it clearly.  The left says yes.  The right says no.  They settle somewhere in between their opposite positions.  We achieve synthesis. (At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work)

     But as clearly as I see our political process as a social dialectic, I don’t yet see that clarity in religion.  I think it might have something to do what I said earlier, “Faith and reason belong to different domains of inquiry”.  Reason depends on evidence.  Faith requires no evidence.

It would be like the right saying, “demographics tell us we need to increase the troop size in Afghanistan” and the left saying, “no, we have faith in the Afghan people to change”.  These are two different domains of discussion.

     Here’s where I fault the Theist’s arguments; they should quit trying to provide evidence for faith as counter-arguments to Atheist positions.  Let me explain by giving an example:  let’s say that an Atheist says, I can provide evidence for my belief that God doesn’t exist.  Then the Believer says, I can provide evidence that he does.  Wrong.  Neither argument can hold water.  The existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being can’t be proved with evidence.  And a Believer’s faith in it doesn’t need evidence.

     We live in a time when the scientific method is being glorified.  It started with the period in Europe called the Enlightenment and has continued to the present.  It has evolved into what is being called “scientism”, or the belief that science can explain the entirety of human experience.       And to be sure, science has advanced the quality of human understanding beyond what could have been imagined even a hundred years ago.  But the question still remains; can it explain everything?  Some of the most brilliant scientists in history said no.          When asked about whether he was religious, Einstein said, “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernable laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.  Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.  To that extent, in fact, I am religious.”  I say amen to that.

     The culture war we read so much about is grounded in these differences: Those who have faith in their religious positions even if they cause human suffering and those who use reason to see the evil they produce.  Hopefully, we’ll reach synthesis soon.
Robert DeFilippis




Comments

  1. The Theist believes in something they made up consisting of no evidence. How is that reasonable? The Theist will defend to the death his beliefs. That is insanity.
    How can one dedicate their life to trying to convince others that a "fairy tale" is true when they have nothing to base it on?
    There maybe a "force" which we can not yet explain but it sure is not one of the gods humankind has created.

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  2. My point is that faith and reason are different domains. Faith requires no evidence. It is belief without evidence. Reason, on the other hand, requires evidence. Consequently, one should not attempt to offer evidence for their faith.

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  3. Respectfully, I do not think you have an adequate understanding of theistic belief, or at least Christian theism. You are describing a viewpoint known as "fideism." This, however, is a minority position. "Faith," as used in ancient Christian documents, is very different from "faith" as it has come to be used today. You are correct that today "faith" is seen as "belief without evidence," but it was not always so. Perhaps the best parallel to the ancient "faith" is "trust."

    Look at a few examples and ask yourself if the Christian scriptures are really asking followers to believe without evidence:

    Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

    Luke 1:3-4 "With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

    There are many other examples I could provide. Jesus himself told his followers to love him with all their heart, soul, and MIND (Matthew 22:37).

    Last year, I was standing near the bottom of my staircase when I heard my then 4 year-old son call out "Daddy!" I turned around to find him in mid-air, having jumped off the steps expecting me to catch him. He had done this countless times before (never with my back turned!) and I had caught him every time. Did he know beyond all doubt that I would catch him? Of course not. But he trusted, based upon the evidence of his past experience, that I would catch him. He had faith IN me to catch him. That is what Christian theism means by faith. It is not belief without evidence. It is trust as a result of evidence. It is faith IN someone. That is one of the main points of the resurrection; to provide evidence on which we can base out trust.

    So faith and reason are not of different domains. Those who argue this do so by way of a classic straw man. They have "stacked the deck." They have predetermined the conclusion by defining "faith" in such a way that it excludes reason by definition, a definition the theist never used. It ends up being a useless argument because in the end the position you have defeated is not the position that was being raised by the theist in the first place.

    In the end, we all need to focus on truth. Is it true that God is real? Is it true that dark matter exists? Is it true that biological complexity came about through a gradual process of macroevolution?

    Reason is the tool that helps us answer these questions. We do ourselves a disservice by trying to create different categories of faith and reason. There is only one category: objective truth. If reason tells us Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is nothing to have faith in, and Christianity is false. "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." 1 Corinthians 15:17-19.

    There are serious issues raised by both the atheists and the theists, and they cannot be avoided by simply claiming that faith and reason "belong to different realms of inquiry." That may be true under your definition of "faith," but it is not true as most theists use that term. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to give these issues the serious consideration they deserve, not influenced by ad hominems, but analyzing each perspective logically based upon its own terms and its own definitions.

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  4. This is an issue of differing epidemiologies. What you and I consider a valid source of knowledge differs. You're using Biblical quotes to defend the Bible. Your argument seems tautological to me.

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  5. Respectfully, that is not the issue at all. What you and I consider to be valid sources of knowledge is irrelevant because we are discussing an error in the form of your argument, not content.

    When you are evaluating someone else's worldview, you are not free to arbitrarily alter their meaning to suit the conclusion you seek to achieve. By doing so, you haven't really addressed their position at all.

    I could just as easily say that I define "tautological" as "irrefutable." Therefore, you have just said, "Your argument seems irrefutable to me." If I take this tactic to analyzing your response to me, have I fairly evaluated your position? I would guess that you do not think my position is irrefutable. In fact, you do not agree with me. You may be inclined to point out to me that you meant tautological to mean that I have simply utilized a repetition in meaning. How would you feel if I replied, "That may be what you meant, but I stand by my definition?" My definition is irrelevant because the subject for discussion is YOUR definition. Similarly, when evaluating the "faith" of theists, YOUR definition of "faith" is irrelevant because you are evaluating THEIR definition. This is an elementary logical concept.

    In my example, I have used the exact same tactic you have used in you initial post. I have shown a disregard for what you actually intended when you used the term "tautological," defining it as I saw fit, then used my definition instead of yours in my evaluation. This is a very basic logical fallacy, and it causes your entire point to collapse.

    This has nothing to do with whether you consider the Bible to be a valid source of knowledge. It is simply a matter of obedience to the laws of logic. Creating a straw man is always a logical error, whether you are discussing the Bible, the texts of Richard Dawkins, or the Declaration of Independence. Regardless of what you believe to be a valid source of knowledge, you and I must agree on the validity of the laws of logic or else meaningful dialogue cannot even begin. If you accept the laws of logic, then you must also accept the error in your post. The content of the discussion is irrelevant when an error in form is made, and that is what you have done.

    Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to engage in this discussion with you.

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  6. Let me simplify my response. There is an unambiguous objective reality which provides the substrate of our experience. Everything else is subjective interpretation. We choose which sources we consider valid to mediate our interpretations. You use the Bible to validate the Bible. To me that seems tautological; at the very least, self-referential.
    Regarding my failed logic, logic it is a systematic method of thinking which allows us to reach conclusions with confidence but they are not necessarily correct. Kurt Gödel proved as much with his incompleteness theorems.
    Even though I find your comments well thought out and insightful, I still believe faith and reason are different domains of inquiry.

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