Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys’ philosophies–these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either. C. S. Lewis
Even a 101 class in philosophy from a secular university will teach the idea that FAITH is a way of knowing. To so easily discount FAITH as a way of knowing ANYTHING is simply ridiculous.
Perhaps it is the WORD “faith” – since it has so many connotations associated with RELIGION. So begin by calling it simply a feeling, intuition, a sense of revelation, or insight. Call it the power of MYTH that communicates truth and knowledge better than anything else in human kind. What ever you choose to call it…it is real and a way of knowing. It is a basic tenet in epistemological research.
That said, many statements have been made advocating the jettison of FAITH – having it replaced with human REASON. I hear this often from atheists and agnostics.
LOL – let’s look at where that has got us. Human REASON has given birth to fantastic advancements in science, industry, and technology – no doubt. But it has also failed to keep its most basic promise.
The underlying assumption of the Enlightenment or Modern Era was that human reason, freed from tyrannical forms of government and superstitious religion, could provide humanity with a peaceful and prosperous world. Such a world has not been born. Rather what we see is worldwide oppression, racial and ethnic bigotry, rampant hunger, the destruction of the environment, the spread of political and sectarian terrorism, and the technological ability to destroy all life on the planet in a matter of minutes. Human reason has given us the ability to destroy all live fourteen times over. Once should be enough…but human REASON allows us to bounce the rubble.
Bottom line is the undeniable TRUTH that is evident (even under a microscope) it that instead of a world of peace and prosperity, human reason has helped bring into being a world filled with even greater turbulence and poverty.
So the appeal to REASON is fascinating to me, considering how much a failure it has been.
That said, it is fascinating how both the agnostic and atheistic mindset is similar to the fundamentalist mindset. Both appeal to rationalistic reason.
One says, “You can’t prove God exists using science. You can’t prove the Bible is historically true.”
The other says, “Oh yeah, we have ‘creation science’ and evidence that demands a verdict.”
BOTH side are appealing to the failed disciplines of human reason to prove something is logically true. I cannot go there…because reason is flawed and failed in so many ways.
So I am back to FAITH – intuition, feelings, beauty, love, etc. Subjective, sure. Reason has simply not show itself to be a reliable resource in this regard – at least nor more reliable that FAITH.
I think that many folks have an unhealthy faith in REASON.
