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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.
Your thinking is very likely incorrect.
If atheists are mostly fakes, then my thinking is likely incorrect.
Or as I once told our pastor, “Some of the most religious people I know are atheists.” Internet atheists, anyway.
The personality of atheists isn’t really relevant to the question of why God would sit and watch Protestants and Catholics slaughtering each other or why God would sit and watch Stalin kill millions or sit and watch Hitler kill millions.
Those kinds of questions are of interest to lots of people of a variety of different worldviews.
But the personality of atheists is very relevant to the question of why they care. Maybe it’s because atheists are as religious as anyone else.
I suppose you could just ask one these atheists why they care. But maybe you’d rather build a straw man instead.
I don’t need to ask. I just listen.
It’s like the joke about how to tell if someone you just met has graduated from Yale. You don’t need to ask, because they’ll work it into the conversation in the first couple of minutes.
You don’t need to ask because you would rather create a straw man version of an atheist because otherwise you might have to think a bit.
I will admit that my information is colored by internet atheists–those who have a compulsion to talk about it on the internet. There are probably others who don’t fall into that pattern.
Godel showed that Reason also transcends Reason, in that we can demonstrate the truth of propositions that we cannot formally prove. Man’s reach does exceed his grasp…
HW, the only thing preventing me from asking why you care is … I don’t care.
I can tell. You are one of those nihilist Christians.
Yes, but does not transcend it. That would be vision.
:-)
I decided to see how the all-knowing internet defines “reason.”
Reason (definition): The power of the mind to think, understand, form judgements by a process of logic.
Would you accept that definition? Or do you think it’s deficient in some way?
Could someone get through life using reason alone and not use “faith?”
I suppose so, hypothetically, but humans aren’t made that way. I dare say you could get further along in surviving via attempting pure reason than by attempting pure faith. But this is all so many angels on the head of a pin.
Everybody has some magical thinking embedded somewhere. It’s part of our make-up. Some of us just try not to wallow in it.
About 4 hours south-east of where I live (in Indiana) are some churches that tell people “if you truly have faith in Jesus, you can handle poisonous snakes and no harm will come to you.” But then when the pastor gets bitten by a poisonous snake and dies, the rationalization is “God wanted another angel in heaven.” It was all part of God’s plan.
I can understand why someone living in that neck of the woods might say, when asked to attend the local snake-handling church, “Um. No. I don’t have enough faith to go to church with you.”
A group of people are sitting in the back yard of guy’s house on a dark night.
One of the guys, Jeff, says, “Ah, look at the moon.”
Frank response, “A full moon. And did you know that the moon is made of green cheese?”
Jeff responsds, “Actually, no. People have travelled to the moon and we’ve taken samples of it. It’s not made of green cheese.”
Frank replies, “Well, did they dig far beneath the surface of the moon to gather their samples? Because while the first 10 or so meters is not green cheese, below that level is green cheese.”
Now, some would say that Jeff has too much “faith” in our scientists and, thus, doubts that the moon is made of green cheese. But Jeff’s background knowledge of how the solar system was formed informs him that the moon is not, in fact, made of green cheese, even the entire moon has never been analyzed in detail.
I have an answer. This is for you to do, if you really care to know.
It’s not irrelevant to why you won’t even try to engage God who has the answer.
I have been listening for 55 years. So, to say I have not tried to engage God is not correct.
Have you read the Bible? That’s absorption of what He says.
But most importantly within this context, have you talked to him?
I’ve read the Bible a few times, old and new testament. I tried talking to God but it God never responded. Perhaps this is because God is a product of man’s imagination and does not exist in reality. Human beings have vivid imaginations.
Hm. I wonder why He didn’t respond. That’s unusual.
It’s typical. People might think they are talking with God, but it’s likely that it’s just their imagination.
Are you describing yourself as well? You were not talking to God?
I prayed to God. I got no answer.
Change the subject all you want. I don’t care. I never have. I just think it’s terribly annoying and also (unless you just don’t realize you’re doing it) rude to bring up a new subject as your direct response to an old subject.
Ok, so do you want to talk about the problem of evil? And will you stay on topic for a while?
7:5 against.
As I recall, just on the last page of comments you specifically said that you weren’t willing to talk to G-d even as the just-in-case-He’s-there strategy.
It looks like you’re listening without talking. Not a biblical model of prayer.
William James also has some advice for you:
Edit: See below for correction!