Should Religious Knowledge Be Pursued Through Faith Or Reason?
This article will explore the problem of religious knowledge as presented by Paul Tillich, St. Thomas Aquinas and William James, and it will attempt to unravel whether their arguments are firmly grounded, or simply open the door to more questions.
In all the major religions, the sort of information held in high regard pertains to reported revelations of the word of God. Paul Tillich states that, "Scientific explanation and historical criticism protect revelation; they cannot dissolve it, for revelation belongs to a dimension of reality for which scientific and historical analysis are inadequate". With this statement, we immediately see that we are dealing with different criteria to establish truth regarding revealed knowledge and scientific or ordinary knowledge.
In scientific knowledge, there is no serious disagreement as to what constitutes probable evidence. However, this is not true with revealed knowledge. Tillich maintains that there is a brand of religious certainty that transcends deductive certainty. Besides, scientific knowledge is arrived at within an axiom or by "playing by the rules of the game". Within this axiom, logical arguments can be proven, but outside it, there is uncertainty. Therefore, even the scientist must accept the starting rules of the game on faith.
So, how can we tell if the Bible contains the word of God? A fundamentalist would say that it is enough that the Bible contains a sentence asserting that there is religious knowledge in the book. However, this assertion does not establish the truth-value of the issue at hand. The standards that we apply to determine whether a scientific or historical proposition is true appear to be completely different from those which some apply to religious information. Instead of logical or empirical evidence, there is an element of faith or revealed knowledge. Instead of relying on evidence contained within the previously mentioned axiom, the basis for accepting the Bible as the word of God is based on one's personal convictions or beliefs.
Now we will turn to the question of whether the existence of God can be proven by means of ordinary or revealed knowledge, or by both; or neither. This is a question on which St. Thomas holds strong views and he writes extensively about it in the Summa Theologica. Thomas believes that the existence of God can be proven through rational means although he does submit that the human intellect is inadequate to comprehend the divine substance. Here, we are dealing with questions that concern the existence of God and the nature of God.
The argument with which I am most familiar that claims to prove the existence of God through rational means is the argument from design. This argument claims that if we study the world around us, we will undoubtedly become increasingly impressed with its complexity and intricacy, and then we will come to the undeniable conclusion that there had to be a designer. Metaphorically speaking, it is impossible to throw bicycle parts up into the air and have them land as a perfect bicycle. Therefore, there must be an intelligent being who assembled it.
The most obvious flaw of this argument is addressed by the philosopher David Hume, who points out that natural effects do not resemble man-made effects to the point where we can assume that both must have had similar causal factors. There is a vast difference between assembling a Schwinn and creating a universe. Hume makes clear that the causes that we observe which effect human achievement are not necessarily the governing principles of the universe. Furthermore, given the undesirable events that we witness in nature, one would be hard-pressed to believe that the design of the universe is benevolent, or that a wise architect designed it.
The argument that St. Thomas relies on in the Summa Theologica is similar to the argument from design, but with a new twist. Thomas' argument, often called the causal argument, asserts that there must be either a cause of a prior event, or a reason for the occurrence of the event. This ultimate cause, according to Thomas, is God. The conclusion is that there must be a first cause of events.
However, Thomas seems to be applying much of the same criteria as the proponents of the argument from design. Specifically, those non-observable events must fall under the same governing principles of worldly observable events. Hume would contend that observable causes and effects require no ultimate beginning since they can be conceived of indefinitely. Nowhere is it written that the laws that govern our world and our tiny speck in the cosmos are the laws that govern the entire universe. If we accept this principle, then Thomas' argument loses much steam. Therefore, the proposition that the universe is its own cause is just a plausible as the proposition of God as the first cause. Even by his own admission, Thomas submits that there are some truths about God that transcend human knowledge, but the causal argument that he employs in the Summa Theologica applies only to the world of sense experience.
So, it would appear that all arguments that attempt to prove the existence of God through ordinary knowledge tend to fall short in one way or another since they are entirely speculative and prove nothing of which we can be sure. With that being said, we will now turn our attention to arguments for the existence of God through revelation, or revealed knowledge.
Proponents of revealed knowledge contend that the existence of God cannot be proven through ordinary knowledge, but is based upon revelation. Revealed knowledge is different from ordinary knowledge and, as Thomas or William James would say, philosophers have often failed to make this distinction. Revealed knowledge would appear to be a stronger argument for the believer, since it is unaffected by the criticisms leveled against the arguments that claim to establish the existence of God through reason. Even if the believer cannot prove through rational means that the revelation is genuine, he still has assurances that settle this question as far as he is concerned.
In his essay "The Will to Believe", William James argues that some people want to believe whether there is adequate evidence or not. James insists that believing is different from knowing, and one believes in spite of the lack of knowledge if it is of sufficient importance to him. James stresses the role of religious experience in human affairs and the importance it has in many human lives. The point that James tries to make is that the line between faith and reason is a lot thinner than we might think.
Now that we have broached the topic on the existence of God, we will turn our attention to the problem of the nature of God. Theories concerning the nature of God range from atheism, which thinks that God is only a figment of human imagination, to fundamentalism, which interprets the Bible as literal truth, with many gray areas in between both extreme views.
Atheists tend to be just as vehemently critical of devout believers as vice-versa. However, many of the arguments that atheists use against religion can be reflected just as effectively against them. Just as there can be no proof for the existence of God, there can likewise be no proof for the nonexistence of God.
The next step away from atheism would probably be agnosticism. While the agnostic believes that he is being reasonable by leaving the question of God open, William James would contend that this in itself is a decision of passion, and is attended with a risk of losing the truth. James thinks that there is danger in "shunning error"-to make no commitment is to never grow. However, would not making a commitment to one side or the other entail the same danger of losing the truth? What if we pick the losing side? On the other hand, perhaps there is no winning or losing side since the application of these criteria is within our realm of understanding, and few would argue that the concept of God transcends human understanding. I believe that there is no more danger of losing the truth through agnosticism as there is through atheism or devout religiosity. All contain an equal opportunity of losing the truth.
There are many other theories that purport to explain the nature of God. One of these is deism, which maintains that a divine being created the world, but now has nothing to do with any form of interaction in it. Another theory is theism, which believes exactly the opposite; that God has a direct personal relationship with human beings. There are so many theories on the nature of God that one scarcely knows where to turn. Is God a being of wrath and vengeance as in the Old Testament, or is he a loving and forgiving God as in the New Testament? Alternatively, should we believe Nietzsche when he proclaimed that God is dead? I now see that the original thesis statement was vain in claiming an attempt to unravel the mysteries of religious knowledge, because it has failed miserably. However, I can take solace in the knowledge that scholars, who are far more brilliant than I have written mountains of essays on the same subject that, in the end, also fail miserably.
So, my conclusion is that there is no conclusion except to say that no rational comprehension or satisfactory explanation exists to explain, defend, or attack the problem of religious knowledge or the existence or the nature of God to an adequate ending. We may be best served by following the lead of William James in observing the character of religious experience and its effect on human affairs rather than trying to unravel and comprehend the mysteries of the universe. But then again, the attempt to know the unknowable is one of the qualities that make us uniquely human.
Rick Huffman is a National long-haul driver who spent 20 years in the broadcasting industry before becoming a trucker. He describes the career change as, "...the best decision I ever made on one day, and the worst one I ever made on the next."
rickhu45@yahoo.com
http://lifeofanamericantrucker.blogspot.com
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