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.
https://ricochet.com/323118/archives/empiricism-and-miracles/
It depends on how good the evidence is.
Yes. Obviously, it only works if the evidence is good.
No one ever said it was science.
If good arguments against faith leave faith unshaken, then it’s plainly less than reason, not something that transcends it.
My only claim was that the Christian account of faith is that faith transcends reason. What sort of support for that did you want?
For a long time, even into my forties, the tendency of human beings to believe in similarly unprovable, supernatural facts was evidence that my hypothesis was closer to the actual facts than that Jesus actually did rise from the dead.
At some point well before my conversion to Christianity, I speculate that the Spirit softened up my resistance by attacking my mind on its very own scientific, logical ground.
In the true spirit of rational scientific skepticism, I suddenly decided to adopt the contrary premise and followed it to its conclusions. Proof by mathematical induction: assume the hypothesis is false, and try to prove that a contradiction follows.
This was just a first step. I suddenly read the same Scripture, that before seemed so inconsistent, especially from Old Testament to New, and it was no longer inconsistent. Furthermore, suddenly the alternate (complementary) explanation for the similarity of the Christian story and all the other religious stories, which would have been immediately obvious to a truly rational thinker, was just as rational as the interpretation of evidence I had blindly accepted. That explanation is that, rather than the Christian history mimicking every other history (or all of them being driven by a common inherited behavior), every other history mimicked Christianity. I had observed evidence of correlation, and made an assumption of causality that was possibly backward.
I think the most substantial change was that I lost my faith in my scientific reasoning and my logic. Without that, I recognized that I needed faith, but like the writer of Lamentations, I had no power to generate something with my mind that could support any faith at all.
I prayed, “you could not possibly be the God they say you are if your plan was to leave me here. To be God, you would have to be the one responsible for me being unable to initiate faith using my own intellectual powers. So your plan could only have been to just give faith to me as a personal favor, because I asked you to, in desperation, by some impossible, supernatural act. Prove it. I’ll wait. I have given up. I believe you only because you’ve left me no choice. I have seen Death twice, once in a dream and once when alive. Without you there is no hope for me.”
At least to me, it seems that First Cause is a prominent driver of the debate on faith and reason. If science demands that direct observation is the only means of proof for a satisfactory explanation of First Cause, it is proof that science cannot meet based upon its own rules.
There is no doubt that Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins have, or had good minds, but when they stray into First Cause their negation of faith is no more valid than my belief, or the belief in God. They have no evidence, or it is no stronger than a theory posited by any other Cosmologist. They violate their own rule of direct observation equals proof.
I do not consider the Bible a scientific text, but that does not negate that I do not believe in some cosmic accident that allowed non-sentient matter to produce something as simple as mouse. A cosmic accident that has not proved that it has been repeated throughout the universe. Perhaps there is and they would be more willing to reveal themselves, unless of course Three and a Half Men beamed across space is encouraging them to remain hidden.
Yes, exactly.
I would add that a way of looking at the inquiry is that if you come from a perspective that God doesn’t exist then nothing will appear to prove otherwise. Another way of looking at it is that if you come from a perspective that God does exist then everything will make sense of God’s existence. And if you come from an agnostic perspective that God may or may not exist, then your own bias will be your guide and prove nothing but what you are open to believing.
I agree.
Even slender evidence (not hearsay, anecdotes, etc) would be almosy instantly dispositive. There is none that I am aware of. Instead, we are stuck with just-so stories about how it’s all a test, and excuses layered more deeply than epicycles to avoid the overwhelming absence of evidence.
“Faith Transcends Reason”. Pull the other one, Chairman.
Science is applied reason, and is the cure for magical thinking. Religion seems to be the belated application of reason — competent at teasing out the implications of a mix of valid and invalid premises. Too late to guard your precepts, but just in time to brainstorm excuses and rationalizations.
Okay. But I don’t know of any tests, or any excuses. Just-so stories if you wish. Magical thinking. Got it. Science is provable. Are we still at ten-dimensions or an infinite number of universes? Or have we moved on to different magical thinking.
I can’t speak to your of excuses and rationalizations. But I’ve made none. I can’t make you believe, and you can’t make me disbelieve. That’s why I’ve stayed out of the He is!/ No he isn’t! argument.
But I’ll leave you with one thing: if you read the Bible, and read it with the perspective of it being true, of being open to it being fact, everything falls into place and it will make coherent real-world sense. If you look at it scoffingly that’s a different experience, with a different, forgone conclusion.
Added: This may sound like a con, but if you can honestly bring yourself to pray (and if I believe you’re anything, you’re certainly honest), “God if you do really exist prove it,” well, it wouldn’t hurt.
Bolded: no you haven’t (that I’ve seen) and I wouldn’t expect you to. I see you making reasonable arguments that stay in their lanes. Unlike “Faith Transcends Reason.” Sure, abandon reason, and whatever’s left is by definition faith.
As for ten dimensions and infinite universes, I’m not convinced about those, but I’m willing to be convinced. Call me agnostic on it. Even if the math which seems to imply or require these turns out to be based on improper assumptions (or whatever), in applying reason to understand that which exists, we mortals are allowed to be mistaken or uncertain. Claims of divine Revealed Truth, not so much. You’d think those would be right once and for all, if taking dictation from the Almighty.
One of my favorite science stories is the history of Phlogiston Theory. It was good in its youth, but wrong, and took a while to kill off. It is nevertheless impressive for the quality of thought and string of good predictions (IIRC). Eventually, it was overthrown.
Finally, when Democritus (et al) posited atoms, it was intelligent onjecture, but relegated to “unprovable” status. Things changed, and he was right.
I don’t understand what this means.
Is testimonial evidence by definition slender? Do you mean to say that there is no testimonial evidence concerning the truth of any religious claims? Whose “just-so stories about how it’s all a test” and whose excuses are you talking about?
I added something on the end of my comment.
I do take exception to the sentence I bolded. Faith is the the opposite of abandoning reason. It is if anything the upward extension of what you have reasoned; it is the acceptance of, or belief in, what you have reasoned, based on facts, which are based on experience. And the definition of faith is belief in accordance with experience and reason, not belief contrary to experience and reason; that’s a common misperception. Faith does have a prospective future component that simple does belief does not emphasize; as I always say I believe my brakes work and as I’m driving I have that same faith that they will work the next time.
In future, please read what I write more carefully before you respond to it. If reason is abandoned, it is not transcended. Abandonment of reason is not a faith-transcends-reason model. It’s a faith-completely-separate-from-reason model at best, an embrace of irrationality at worst–in which faith transcends reason just as much as the sewer transcends the skyscraper’s middle floors.
“Faith transcends reason” and “Faith rejects reason” are as different as “The top floor is higher than the middle floor of the skyscraper” and “The sewer is higher than the middle floor.”
You’re agreeing with me, right? :)
Yes.
With emphasis: Yes.
I don’t know if faith is a good thing, depending on what one means by “faith.” If by “faith,” someone means “confidence,” than this sort of faith could be justified in some circumstances and not in others.
If someone has “faith” that God will cure their illness and thereby decides not to see a physician, this kind of faith is likely misplaced. If someone has faith in that their spouse cares about them based on previous interactions with their spouse, this faith is likely justified.
Some people, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, have had faith that Jesus was coming soon and, thus, there was no need to pursue a career or seek an education, only to find out later that the world continued to spin on its axis and Jesus stayed where he was.
So, let’s discuss “faith is a good thing” in a bit more detail, if there is time.
This. Trust/confidence.
Or if there is a natural explanation for the evidence.
If I can’t find my car keys, a friend of mine might say that Gremlins moved my car keys. If I never find my car keys, my friend can claim that his assertion was correct. If I find my car keys somewhere in my house, my friend can claim that the Gremlins moved my car keys to this new location.
But I like my natural explanation better than my friend fantastical explanation: I placed my car keys somewhere and forgot I put them there, only to discover them later.
If you have confidence that God/Jesus will not save from death the millions of children who die each year before their 10th birthday, that kind of confidence is very reasonable, based on the empirical evidence.
If you have confidence that God/Jesus will not save from death those dying from natural disasters each year, that kind of confidence is very reasonable, based on the empirical evidence.
So, based on the empirical evidence, even if God does exist, a review of the empirical evidence makes it appear as though either God doesn’t exist or that God is indifferent to the cosmos that he created.
More precisely, considering natural explanations is a part of assessing how good the evidence is.
Did you know that Christians have known this for thousands of years now?
Ok, so do you want to talk about the problem of evil?
Sure. But let’s not let miracle issue be forgotten either.
I know what Hume meant by “knowing.”
Or rather, I know what I’ve read about what Hume meant by “knowing.”
What does that even mean? What issue are you even talking about?
Yesterday we were talking about the issue of miracle claims and what kind of evidence would be sufficient to make one believe a miracle claim was accurate instead of inaccurate. But if we have exhausted that discussion, we can move on the the problem of evil.
I was talking. I concluded we were done when you displayed disinterest in looking at the details.
I’m okay with looking at the details.
But as I mentioned in my Gremlins example, if you have a natural explanation (I forgot where I put my car keys) and a fantastical explanation (Gremlins stole my car keys), I think it makes sense to lean towards the natural explanation, at least provisionally.