Faith and Reason
Faith and Reason are two different things, right? Or is it all an invention of late medieval theology?
Traditional
§There are two sources of truth, “two wings which the spirit needs in order to fly” (J.P. II, Fides et Ratio), one of them called ‘FAITH’ the other called ‘REASON’
§Philosophy and the sciences are based entirely on reason, theology is based in faith but may use reason and will generally try to make an integration of the two
Traditional: Faith
§Faith is based on or a response to ‘Revelation’, in Christian terms a long process from Abraham and Sarah through to the death of the last Apostle
§This Revelation is a supernatural production, not something purely natural or available to everyone
§This Revelation is as recorded in the Inspired Word of God in the Scriptures
Faith: Traditional
§And mediated by and ‘authoritatively interpreted’ in the community of believers
§Faith in this sense is mostly a response to testimony, accepting on the basis of someone else’s word, eventually God’s, but mediated in all kinds of ways, the latter in practice depending on one’s tradition.
§Usually thought to require a leap beyond the evidence, an act of faith beyond what normally would be required, a product of ‘supernatural grace’.
Faith: traditional
§Expressed in concrete religious life
§Expressed in Creeds
§Expressed in Theologies, which however try to make a synthesis with the deliverances of Reason
§Expressed, finally in various institutional structures, usually hierarchical, i.e. Churches, Church as distinct from State
§Optional, Private, a matter of personal decision.
Traditional: Reason
§Reason in contrast is something purely natural, available to everyone, and its deliverances potentially universalizable
§Cf.
§This is expressed in Philosophy and the Sciences
Traditional: Reason
§Probably comes in two kinds (cf. Leibniz, Hume):
§1) Relations of Ideas: as in Logic and Maths, experience not needed
§2) Matters of Fact and Existence: based on experience heightened into experiment via the method of Induction – Induction as well as Deduction – as in the Natural and Social Sciences and much common life
Reason: Traditional
§Also involved in our making of moral decisions, whether as Kantians or as Utilitarians
§This is also the work of reason alone, perfectly universalizable.
§Sometimes involvement of ‘Sentiment’ is permitted (e.g. the Moral Sense school, including Hume), but this also is assumed to be universal in humanity at least in principle.
Reason: Traditional
With respect to Philosophy:
§Until the beginning of the 19th Century ‘Philosophy’ actually included the natural and social or ‘moral’ sciences
§Cf. Hume: Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Natural Theology (if there is such a thing)
§But also Hegel: An Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
Reason: Traditional
§The present more limited extension of the word ‘Philosophy’ came about by way of reaction to Hegel, and also given the development of specific social sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics and linguistics (Foucault)
§But even so, it is assumed that philosophy is ‘purely natural’, relying only on ‘the natural light of human reason’, and that it should emphatically protect its purely natural, public and universalizable quasi-scientific status.
Reason: Traditional
§In contrast to Faith, Reason and its productions has to do with Public Life, the Secular, the State
§It is Reason (and only Reason) and its products like the natural and social sciences which should determine public discussion and democratic and bureaucratic decision making
§In contrast to Faith, Reason is Public and also in a way Compulsory, not a matter of personal or private decision
Discussion
§This all seems so obvious to us nowadays, part of our culture, and we may want to keep a lot of it
§But we didn’t always think this way
§And indeed in the general run of 40,000 years of human culture it is really quite peculiar, and shared by the rest of the world even now only in part and where shared because of our influence
§The question then arises, how it got to be constructed?
How it got to be constructed
§Not there in Anselm 1033-1109: Theology = Faith Seeking Understanding, with love as motive, but Understanding = to come up with the same conclusion by our reasoning apparatus, if necessary as healed and restored to its full integrity by faith itself
How it got to be constructed
§Bonaventure
(died 1274): similar to Anselm, but acknowledges we can’t always proceed in
the way of Anselm, that sometimes we have to take some of our premises also
from faith, not only our conclusions
How it got to be constructed
§Thomas Aquinas (also died 1274): Theology differs specifically from Philosophy in that Theology gets its premises from faith and philosophy from everyday experience and reasoning based on that experience.
§Even so, they slot into each other, and theology, within limitations, can be philosophy if occasion demands e.g. trying to convert intelligent Moslems
How it got to be constructed
§William of Ockham (dies 1348): philosophy in practice is not much use for theology: on almost everything important we have to rely on Revelation
§This explicitly includes ethics: right and wrong depends entirely on the Will of God, and Revelation is our only mode of access to what God happens to have willed.
§(for back-up reading, see Blackboard)
How it got to be constructed: four causal factors
(probably)
•The specific situation of knowledge in Western Christendom in the aftermath of the Dark Ages (600 -1000, excepting 800-880)
•Moves in Scholastic philosophy and theology themselves, from Aquinas through
Scotus and Ockham and beyond (cf.
How it got to be constructed: four causal factors
(probably
•Political Development in the Middle Ages: esp. Pope versus Emperor, with Kings and Nation States coming up the middle
•Reformation, the division of Christendom, Wars of Religion
How it got to be constructed: the consequence
§A series of Epistemological, Sociological and Ontological Dualisms: Faith and Reason, Supernatural and Purely Natural, Sacred and Secular, Theology and Philosophy/the Sciences, Private/Personal/Optional and Public/Compulsory
The key date: around 1650 (Peace of Westphalia 1648, end of English Civil War 1651): after this it becomes imbedded in Western Culture, part of what it is to be ‘civilized’.