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Faith & Reason
Sheila E. McGinn, Ph.D.
Professor of Religious Studies
John Carroll University
Are Faith & Reason
Fundamentally
Incompatible?
Mis-defining Faith
• “Faith means that one considers a particular
claim (e.g., ‘God exists’) to be actual knowledge,
absolutely certain knowledge. This claim to
certainty is held in the absence of adequate
evidence, or in direct contradiction to the
evidence.”
– P. Wesley Edwards, “Understanding Reason and Faith”
(http://www.freethoughtdebater.com/reasonvfaith.htm)
– What is wrong with this definition?
– What about the website might have led you to anticipate that
its definition of this term might be slanted?
Inherent Contradiction of Faith?
• “Faith appears to combine believing something
wholeheartedly while lacking sufficient grounds for
doing so….” [Hence, “knowing” something by faith
appears to be a contradiction in terms.]
• “In nonreligious contexts we praise people for adjusting
the strength of their beliefs to the quality of the
evidence they have, but in religious contexts we find
them being praised for ignoring defects in the evidence
and persisting in spite of them.”
Faith v. Belief v. Reason?
• Belief is “accepting something as truth without 100% evidence.”
• “Faith is believing a statement that has more evidence against it
than for it.”
• “[I]t is clear that Faith is against Reason. If Reason tells us to
believe [that] A [is the case], it is called ‘Faith’ to believe ‘It is
false that A’ [is the case]….”
• Victor Gijsbers, “Is Atheism based on Faith?”
(http://www.positiveatheism.org/faq/faith.htm)
– What is wrong with this definition of faith, and how does it skew the rest of the
argument?
– What prima facie characteristic of this website might have led you to anticipate that
the author’s definition of “faith” would be less than even-handed?
Defining Faith
• An attitude of trust (i.e., involves the Will)
• Belief that exists without unambiguous,
confirmatory, material evidence (e.g., the claim
goes beyond currently available scientific or
historical data)
• Assent to a proposition that cannot (presently)
conclusively be demonstrated by reason
Defining Reason
• “The principles for a methodological inquiry, whether
intellectual, moral, aesthetic, or religious.”
– Includes (but is not limited to) rules of logical inference
– Algorithmic demonstrability is presupposed
• “Once demonstrated, a proposition or claim is
ordinarily understood to be justified as true or
authoritative.”
• James Swindal, “Faith and Reason,” The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/f/faith-re.htm)
The Faculty of Reason
Capacity of the human mind
to engage in logical thought
• Conception of ideas
• Judgment
– Assessing relative validity of propositions
• Ratiocination
– Drawing conclusions through systematic comparison of facts
• Intuition
– Insight into relations of data
– Not based on conscious process of deduction or induction,
but capable of de facto justification (i.e., in “hindsight”)
Reasoning
Edwards, op. cit.
• Applying logical principles to the available evidence (via
induction or deduction)
• Conclusions of logical reasoning are only as certain as
the underlying assumptions
• Scientific theories are derived from inductive reasoning
(inference) v. deduction
– Goal is high degree of probability (not absolute certainty)
– A theory corroborated by multiple independent tests is
“virtually certain”
Relating Faith & Reason
(Swindal, op. cit.)
• Conflict model
– Aims, objects, or methods are identical
• Incompatibilist model
– Aims, objects, or methods are distinct
– Each can be compartmentalized
– “Separate but equal”
• Weak compatibilist model
– Aims, objects, or methods are distinct, but dialogue is
possible
• Strong compatibilist model
– Faith & Reason have “organic connection, perhaps even
parity”
Reflection
1.
2.
3.
4.
What are the five most important things that you
“know,” even though you could not prove them to
someone else? What evidence do you have for those
beliefs? What kind of evidence is this?
In whom (or what) do you place your trust? Why?
What are the grounds for that trust?
What are the three most significant assumptions you
have about life (i.e., ideas that you accept without
question and without which you could not function
on a daily basis)?
What do your three lists have in common?