Tag Archives: Reason

In Search of Rationality—A Lament for Reason (R.I.P.)

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In the kingdom of humanity, reason was born to rule. Reason is the power by which we see what is, what can be, what should be, and what may be. It is the power by which we bring under control and direct all the irrational elements and impulses in the world and in our lower nature toward higher ends. Reason is light in darkness, order in chaos, stillness in the storm. Apart from it, such chaotic passions as anger, hatred, lust, greed, jealousy, and envy struggle with each other for control. War breaks out within the soul, floods over into the community, and engulfs the whole world. When passion rules, reason becomes an instrument of evil. Human beings are reduced to clever animals—dangerous ones too!

I am and always have been a champion of reason and rationality. I find my Christian faith in God illuminated by reason and my reason awakened by faith.  Reason is the created light by which we see the uncreated light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6). Reason is to invisible light what eyes are to visible light. It is to spiritual reality what hands are to physical reality. To suborn reason to passion is to suborn God to creation. Passion seeks its good in temporal things alone. Reason drives us upward toward the eternal. To depose reason from the throne of the soul is to depose God from the throne of the world. For God rules the world by setting truth and goodness before the eye of reason.

There never was an age of reason. It has always been the age of passion. It has always been what Jesus called “the world,” that is, the order that is ordered by disorder (John 15). It is temporary, evanescent, unreliable, and we are not supposed to love it in the least (1 John 2:15-17). We are supposed to love the Father. Everything depends on getting things in the right order. For good things wrongly ordered is evil. And this is why evil is so deceptive. It deceives us into doing evil in pursuit of a good cause.

A distinguishing mark of the age of passion is confusion in the order of goods. Passion is by definition chaotic. It creates an array of ever-shifting of mutually exclusive trends, fads, styles, causes, images, movements, perceptions, memes, and so on. Each has its day, and for that day seems to carry the weight of heaven on its shoulders. Our passion-driven culture justifies these changing values not with reason subservient to truth but with confused ideologies constructed of ideas, maxims, tropes, symbols, and assertions taken from different spheres, mixed together, and directed by a practical goal.

The book of Proverbs laments the scarcity of faithful people (20:6) and people of “noble character” (31:10). Sometimes I ask in the same spirit of despair, “A rational person, who can find?” If you find a friend whose soul is ruled by reason, you are blessed indeed.

The Limits of Reason and Divine Revelation

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Reason has limits. We can reason only from what is given to the senses or the mind. We can extend our knowledge of the empirical world by tracing the causal connections among the data given to the senses. Our knowledge of the mental world can be expanded by tracing the connections among the ideas and concepts given with the mind. But reason cannot reach beyond what is given to it except, perhaps, in its sense of not being able to grasp its own existence. When we reason about any natural object given to us, we feel in control of our power to understand it. We feel even more in control when we construct an artificial object. But when we turn our minds to the question of the origin and existence of the mind itself, we find no object given to reason that could be subjected to reason’s power. Reason confronts its limits in its experience of not being able to grasp the ground of its own existence and powers. Reason operates powerfully within the limits of natural given objects, but when confronted with the question of its own origin, it faces a mystery beyond its comprehension.

Unless this Mystery freely itself reveals itself to reason, our thinking about it will be limited to speculation based on decisions about which analogies to press into the unknown. In previous essays in this series, I labeled these decisions about analogies “decision points.” At the first decision point we had to decide whether to conceive of the unknown ground of our existence as matter or mind. We chose mind. The second decision point forced us to choose between an impersonal and a personal God. We chose a personal God. The third decision point now confronts us with the choice between a personal God who is interdependent with the natural world and a personal God who is completely independent and transcendent to the natural world.

Why would any modern western person think of God as part of the world, just as dependent on the world as the world is on God? As far as I can tell, thinkers who view God this way share the presupposition that everything that is real in any sense falls within the sphere of reason’s natural space. We can reason our way into the divine nature from what is naturally given to the mind and the senses. Hence nature’s most fundamental laws apply equally to God and nature, and the concepts, propositions, and words used to understand nature apply to God in a literal sense. Allow me to depart from my usual practice and quote two twentieth-century thinkers who express this view quite clearly. Alfred North Whitehead stated his central axiom in these words: “God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification” [Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 521]. Charles Hartshorne asserts that “theology (so far as it is the theory of the essence of the deity) is the most literal of all sciences of existence…the pure theory of divinity is literal , or it is a scandal, neither poetry nor science, neither well reasoned nor honestly dispensing with reasoning” (Divine Relativity, pp. 36-37). Hence God is continuous with nature.

But when we follow the logic of those who think God must be continuous with nature, the resulting picture of God differs dramatically from the traditional Jewish and Christian view of God: God evolves, learns, and grows along with the rest of nature. God is not eternal but bound to time and space. God does not know the future and knows the past only by remembering it. Although God is infinite in potential, he is finite in actual existence. God did not create the world from nothing and is not all-powerful. God acts only by persuasion and never (ever!) gets all he wills. Miracles make no sense because the laws of nature bind God as well as us.

I think it is fair to ask whether the word God should be used of such a being. Before the rise of Christianity, in the ancient near east or Greece and Rome, the word “god” could be used of such a limited being. But most people under the influence of Christian theology would reserve the word God, to quote Augustine, for the being than “which nothing more excellent or exalted exists.” Even more definitively, Anselm of Canterbury urged, “God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.” How can we think of God as a being that could in reality or in thought be surpassed in excellence and perfection—even by himself?

Now we return to the thought with which we began this essay: reason has limits. Given reason’s  lack of self-comprehension and experience of its inability to comprehend the mystery of its origin and ground, it is reasonable for reason to look beyond nature and its laws for their divine origin. Though such an act cannot be deduced or predicted by natural reason, it makes sense to maintain openness for the divine mystery to reveal itself within our sphere. And Christianity claims that this revelation really happened, and its view of God is definitively determined by its understanding of this revelation.

Next Time: We are now ready to pose the fourth decision point at which we will be confronted with the decision to enter the sphere of Christian faith or remain in the realm of theism, where God is not named and identified.

Christian Belief: Knowledge, Faith, Opinion, or Just Wishful Thinking?

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In this installment of our study of Christianity’s truth we continue clarifying the basic vocabulary, framework, and rules for the discussion. Many discussions about God’s existence and Christianity’s truth suffer from confusion. We get in a hurry, talk past one another, and express our feelings rather than take the time to communicate clearly and understand each other. So, I believe it is necessary to give some time to these introductory matters.

In recent posts I’ve addressed the issues of truth and reality and the issue of who bears the burden of truth. Today, I will focus on knowledge. What does it mean to know something? In transitioning from truth to knowledge, we shift from the issue of the properties of a proposition to the issue of how a proposition is held by a knower. In addressing the question “Is Christianity True?” how would it profit us to clarify what it means to claim that Christianity is true, if we have no idea what it would mean to know that Christianity is true? And, of course, in due time we need to secure that knowledge.

What is Knowledge?

What does it mean to know something? To say that we know something speaks about the way a truth is held by the knower. First, knowledge concerns truth. Belief in a falsehood is not knowledge, no matter how certain you are of its truth and no matter how diligently you work to discover and test its truth. There is no such thing as mistaken knowledge. Second, believing a truth is not sufficient for knowledge. You may guess correctly how many fingers I am extending behind my back; that is not knowledge. Guessing, tossing the dice, accidents, wishful thinking, and prejudices of all kinds, even if they hit on the truth do not count as knowledge. You need something else. The “something else” concerns the way you hold that truth to be true.

Contemporary philosophers differ on the exact thing needed to transform a true belief into knowledge. I am not going to take sides in this debate. We need either “justification” or “warrant” in addition to true belief. The justification criterion demands that we make a good faith effort to examine a belief and that we are able to give good reasons for accepting it as true. The warrant criterion focuses on the proper functioning of our belief-forming mechanisms. If our belief is true and it is formed under the right conditions and our belief-forming mechanisms are functioning properly, we possess knowledge.

Does knowledge come in different quantities and qualities? The answer is yes. There is a qualitative scale of knowledge, with perfect or absolute knowledge at the top and complete ignorance and falsehood at the bottom. And our vocabulary of knowledge reflects this scale. We speak of knowledge, faith, opinion, supposition, educated guesses, probability, certainty, likelihood, etc. Absolute or perfect knowledge is held by God alone. Everything that is, is either God or the effect of God’s action. And God knows his own being and action perfectly. God knows everything about everything. Human beings do not and cannot possess such knowledge. Does this mean that anything less than absolute knowledge is not knowledge at all, that human beings know nothing? This skeptical conclusion would imply that in relation to knowledge there is no qualitative difference between guesses, wishful thinking, prejudices, etc., and true, justified or warranted belief, no difference between science and superstition. I reject this view. I believe our efforts to discover truth are worth the struggle.

What is Faith?

What is Faith, and where does it fall on the scale of knowledge? A common misunderstand opposes faith to knowledge. It assumes that to hold a belief by faith rules out its status as knowledge, and that to know something rules out its being held by faith. This opposition would be correct only if knowledge had to be defined as absolute knowledge. To say a belief is held on faith specifies that the believer has only indirect access to the reality to which the belief refers. The act of faith holds a belief to be true on the word of a trusted person or authority that has direct access to the reality in question. For example, to possess faith in the resurrection of Christ is to hold this belief to be true on the word of Paul, Peter, the Twelve and other witnesses to the resurrection appearances. Can such a belief be justified or warranted. Sure, it can. And, if it is true and justified or warranted, it counts as knowledge. There is no opposition between faith and knowledge. However there is a difference. One can believe a falsehood to be true, but one cannot know a falsehood to be true or a truth to be false. Knowledge concerns how a true belief is held and faith concerns merely how a belief is held whether it is true or not.

The true counterpart to faith is intellectual or empirical intuition, not knowledge. Intuition has direct access to the reality it knows whereas faith has indirect access. We intuit logical and mathematical truths, and our senses make direct contact with the physical/empirical world. These intuitions produce beliefs. Logical deduction is slightly removed from intuition, and so its relation to reality is also indirect. It grasps the truth of a proposition through its logical relationships to other propositions that we hold to be true.

What is Opinion?

Like faith, the word opinion refers to an act of the knower and does not require the thing held as probably true to be really true. One forms an opinion by assessing the evidence for the truth of a proposition as weighty enough to make the proposition more likely true than not. In contrast, faith trusts the word of someone it believes really knows. In this sense, faith stands higher in the order of knowledge than opinion.

What is Certainty?

Certainty is a measure of the subjective purity with which a belief is held. A belief held with certainty by someone is beyond doubt to this person. They hold it with untroubled passion. However, certainty is not a measure of truth or knowledge. One can be certain that a falsehood is true and that a truth is false.

Are Christian Beliefs Knowledge, Opinion, Certainties, Or Faith?

As we proceed in our study, we will see that many of the central Christian beliefs are held by faith. However, as I argued above, their being held by faith does not rule out their also being knowledge, that is, true, justified or warranted belief. Some Christian beliefs are supported by intellectual and empirical intuition. Some require a chain of logical reasoning. Other beliefs fall into the category of opinion. And Christians experience different levels of certainty in their faith at different times.

 

Thinking and Thoughtfulness (Part 1)

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Since a major theme of my blog is “thoughtfulness in religion,” I owe it to you to explain what I mean by thoughtfulness and why I believe it is so important. Today I begin a short series on thinking and thoughtfulness. So, think with me for a while about thinking.

 

To understand a concept thoroughly it is not enough merely to define it. We must grasp its relationships to other concepts in the neighborhood. Only by bringing to light how it differs and resembles to those nearby ideas can we locate it on a conceptual map. The larger the scope of our vision, the more precise will be our sense of its location. Hence I plan to consider thoughtfulness in relation to such concepts as intelligence, reason, observation, common sense, critical thought, introspection and thoughtlessness.

 

A few years ago I read Bernard Lonergan’s huge book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957). This book stands in the long tradition of books with similar titles: John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). Lonergan surveys the map of concepts and activities that orient us to the human act of insight, which is the act of understanding. I will not attempt to summarize his study here. But I want to acknowledge that my thinking about thinking and thoughtfulness has been influenced by this profound book. Specifically, the distinction I make below between common sense and critical (or scientific) thought comes directly from Lonergan (p. 181).

 

Intelligence and Reason

Intelligence is a more encompassing concept than reason. Intelligence is the power of a living being to perceive and respond appropriately to the information it receives from its environment. Billiard balls and hydrogen atoms do not possess intelligence even though they respond to physical contact by other things. Intelligence involves interpretation or processing of information by internal systems capable of such activity. Many intriguing questions arise at this point. What is information? Is information always the product of intelligence? Is it possible to construct an intelligent machine? But I won’t pursue them here. Human beings are not the only living creatures to possess intelligence. Horses, rabbits, mice and even one-cell creatures are marked by intelligent behavior.

But human beings possess a higher form of intelligence we call reason. Reason is not simply more intelligence; it is a qualitatively different kind of intelligence. In brief, reason is intelligence combined with freedom. Human beings not only respond intelligently to information in the automatic ways animals and plants do, they are conscious of their intelligence and partly in control of its application. We can initiate the processes of thinking and imagining apart from external contact with information bearing systems. We can resist being determined by the information pressing in on our senses, and we can anticipate several steps ahead to future states of our world. Reason is the power to see, understand or comprehend relationships— spatial, temporal, mathematical but especially causal and logical relationships. Information is always encoded in a system of relationships, and reason can see the relationships and read the information written therein. Only reasoning beings can attain insight or understanding.

Observation

All intelligent beings can receive information from their environment but only reasoning creatures observe the world. Observation is an intentional act designed to raise mere perception to a higher level by giving the object the kind of attention that will allow it to show itself in its fullness. In ordinary life it usually suffices to see things as images in their wholeness. To avoid hitting the car in front of us, it is enough to see the image as a car. We need not observe it in detail. In that situation, observing would be a foolish thing to do. Observation is the skill of focusing intently on the appearance of something. It is taking note of the details of its parts and shades and activities. If you don’t notice something you can’t think about it or take into account how it might affect you. So, observation precedes serious thought and analysis. To become a good observer you have to train your mind to notice things that we ordinarily overlook. Description is the way we communicate the results of observation.

Common Sense

As I said above, reason is the power to see all sorts of relationships. Common sense is reason’s power to grasp relationships between things and us; that is, common sense enables us to anticipate how things will affect us in practical ways. It learns from personal experience and the experience of other people how things work, how to adjust to them and use them for our benefit. It also works to avoid danger, to make a living or to achieve success in our activities.

It reasons like this: when you do this, that happens; or when that happens, it affects us like this. It is the form of reason used in learning a skill: auto mechanics, bricklaying, getting along with difficult people, or playing basketball. It is not directly interested in theoretical explanations. It gets impatient with any line of thought where the practical relevance is not evident.

Clearly, common sense is very important for daily life. We are related to everything in our environment, and to act wisely we need to anticipate how our actions will affect other things and how those things may affect us. Common sense conforms to the general pattern of reason; it sees connections, analogies and relationships of all kinds. It is especially sensitive to causal relationships. It can use this knowledge very creatively to solve problems. To be continued…

Next: critical thought, introspection and thoughtfulness