Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Faith Transcends Reason
The ball and the cross at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Picture by Colin; click for details.
There is some evidence for the truth of some religious claims.
Some religious claims cannot be perfectly proven.There is some evidence for the truth of some religious claims.
Some religious claims are beyond our complete comprehension.There is some evidence that faith is the right move to make in life.
Faith goes beyond reason.
The word “transcend” is the best I know for this sort. X transcends Y when Y fails to contain X while still being relevant to it in some way. The top floor of the skyscraper transcends the middle floors, but not so much the local zoo. Marriage transcends engagement and courtship, but not a jar of peanuts.
Faith is outside the jurisdiction of reason, but that doesn’t mean they are completely separate.
It’s a real shame I don’t have more Luther, Calvin, and Edwards in my head. What’s worse is that I never learned Hebrew. But I can tell you from my own personal study that these ideas are in Christian thinkers like Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Alvin Plantinga. (And Kierkegaard is probably closer than you think.) Philosophy giants William James and Immanuel Kant–maybe not exactly Christian, but friendly enough–are pretty similar.
Much more importantly, this is also in the New Testament.
Here’s how I put it in my essay in this recent book I edited, which is very cheap on Kindle (hint, hint):
Published in Religion & PhilosophySay a young man (call him Mark if you like) is in love with a young lady (you could call her Shonda). He is seriously thinking about putting a ring on her finger. Suppose he were to sit down with a pen and paper to analyze his situation and were to estimate the probability that this course of action will lead to years of marital bliss (stipulating that he is the kind of nerd who might actually do this). He is not going to end up with a result of 100 percent. There is always the tiny, tiny chance that she is secretly a witch, an alien, or a robot. More likely, perhaps personality differences that have already become evident hint at years of communication problems and marital fights. Optimistically, the young man would be pretty lucky to be able to estimate a probability of around 95 percent.
But what young lady wants 95 percent of a ring?
The fact of the matter is simple: His action ought to be either 100 percent or 0 percent.
Of course, the conclusion of the matter may be a 100-percent matter. Given pretty good odds that they are meant to be together, it is reasonable to say that there is only one right course of action. What right action avoids all possible risk of a bad outcome? And that is another way of making the main point: Even an action which is certainly right may be based on uncertain evidence. In any case, the action must be either done, or not: He must give his lady friend a ring, or not. Similarly, she must agree to be his wife, or not; if she is less than fully convinced about it, she cannot act accordingly by becoming less than fully a wife, for there is no such thing, and if there were he is not asking her for it.
Faith is like that. It involves a commitment, not only of belief but of life. There is no faith without repentance (Acts 17:30–31) or without works (Jas 2:14–26). There is no faith without following Jesus, who says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt 16:24). This commitment is meant to be total; we do not get to keep 10 percent of our idols and 10 percent of our sins, and follow Jesus carrying 90 percent of a cross if a good study of apologetics leads us to assess the probability that Jesus is the Messiah at just 90 percent. The evidence is not binary, but the action is: We do it, or not.
Well, of course one should always watch out for that sort of thing in one’s own thinking. But there is a way to resist it: Look at the carefully, and know the contrary arguments.
No
You are asking me to accept your assertion that the analogy I presented isn’t really a good analogy if one adopts the twisted worldview of Christian theology.
If we adopt the worldview that all human beings are guilty and so when human beings die of various diseases that this does not indicate that God doesn’t exist or is indifferent, you have unwittingly lead yourself arguing that an Evil God, the God of Christian Theology, exists.
I don’t believe that the Evil God of Christian Theology exists. I don’t believe that God commanded the Israelites to kill infants and children. But you do.
So, yes. In your twisted messed up worldview, my analogy isn’t very good. But that’s not because my analogy is bad. It’s because your worldview is F ed up.
But your the one with a moral system that you can’t define, that you admit changes according to circumstance, and that you bear no burden of even attempting to follow. I wonder which one of the two of you might be the more moral person.
Or maybe I don’t.
No. I’m asking you to evaluate the strength of the analogy by paying attention to what Christian theology says–not to whether it’s true.
You worship an Evil God. And you think that this Evil God you worship means that the Problem of Evil is no problem at all.
You said in # 283 that you wanted to talk about this analogy with respect to Christian theology specifically. But it looks like you don’t.
Or maybe you don’t understand that that’s what I was talking about.
If you’re going to draw an analogy to Christian theology, you have to pay some attention to what Christian theology actually says. I’m certainly not asking you to believe it in order to pay attention to what it actually says, and your non sequitur straw-man fallacy of my beliefs is even further off-subject.
Has that typo always been there? Ouch.
I do that all the tim