PART 1: THE DIALECTIC OF FAITH AND REASON

TRUTH IS THE AIM OF ASSERTION...ONE MUST ASSERT WHAT ONE KNOWS.¹

On 12^th September 2006 a certain public figure went back to his university to give a speech. He was invited to make an address to 'representatives of science' on the issue of his views on 'Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections'. He reminisced early on in the speech, causing polite laughter, about a critical comment from a colleague who said:

'There was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God.' He went on to say that 'even in the face of such skepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question'.

Maybe Pope Benedict XVI had similar thoughts about its reception as he gathered his notes and moved on to the main part of his Regensburg University address. By all accounts he was surprised by the reaction to some opening remarks he made in his next paragraph. He intended these words to merely serve as a starting point for the thesis that violence and religion were not compatible, and that faith must be integrated with a respect for reason and vice versa. A media storm ensued whereby many Muslims considered the chosen remark as offensive to their tradition, resulting in much damage limitation being provided by the Vatican to address this major upset.

In the furor that followed his remarks, the main message of the Pope's address - the integration of Faith and Reason - was lost. This series of entries examines the principles he expounded and looks into their background and wider implications.

We will look at this issue across a 4 part series on Truth and Tolerance – Integrating Faith and Reason. This being the first part we will set out the argument and then look in subsequent parts at the the problems arising and at their implications, and then conclude with the way forward offered by the Pope.

Which way are we going?

Consider this example: You are driving with two friends in the back seat, and you approach a cross-roads, you ask their advice as to how to proceed. In some cases (not all) there seems to be no possible compromise you can make between their arguments over direction. You have no clear idea which of them is right, if either. You therefore have three choices;

1. Ignore one of the friends and go with the other's advice consistently, or
2. Choose when they are in disagreement, try to pick the best advice according to circumstances, or
3. Stop the car and ask for them to work their conflict out and give more consistent and useful advice!

In this story the friends stand for reason and faith (one gives advice exclusively from one perspective and the other from the alternative point of view - in real life it's hard to find such exclusive positions, but for the sake of our example let's suppose that). You see when it comes to making some key decisions in 'life, the universe and everything', it may often appear that there are just two competing and opposite ways of looking at meaning and truth. This leads to what many find a deeply unsettling tension between science and religion, ie, the hypothetical dialectic of faith and reason (actually as we shall explore they need not be opposites though this is often presumed)²

Two Fundamental Worldviews

The way a person constructs his picture of the world, its truths and meaning, is that person's worldview. As an example, consider the question of going to war. For some people there are specific circumstances where this is a reasonable course of action yet for others it will always be abhorrent to their pacifist faith. Big issues can be at stake so we should proceed with care.

Faith-based Worldview

One worldview might find meaning in accepted truths based on a given morality, ethics and wisdom tradition in which they are inculcated. They trust these truths and build their loyalty to their community that share these points of view accordingly. They may also have personal subjective experiences that reinforce this system giving them a degree of personal certainty. This system may or may not have within it a belief-in-God proposition (Buddhists, for instance, do not have a concept of a Personal God). We call this a faith-based worldview. In our car friends example above this might be the friend that at a particular key decision advices us to turn left.

Reason-based Worldview

Alternatively, meaning can be reasoned through a set of truths, values and beliefs based on rigorous rational and logical analysis as well as theory/model building - all suitably backed up by scientific experiments that are predictable in their outcomes. This can be described as a reason-based worldview. In the above car friends example, this might be the party that may offer contradictory advice, ie, turn right at the same junction as mentioned above.

The Dialectic

For some this is entirely adequate, meaning to say their reason-based or faith-based worldview are considered complete and independent by them. Furthermore they are radically committed to their perspective. All they consider meaningful is best viewed from one of these perspectives they believe, for the key decisions in their life, the alternative worldview is considered meaningless.

We might call these hard or fundamentalist positions (and for the car friends example they might think it best to drive always taking just one of their friend's advice to the exclusion of the other, ie, option 1). This is a legitimate choice to consider.

It's important to understand this dialectic in order to judge whether what someone has said has meaning and/or is true. But what one person finds meaningful another finds nonsense. Trying to navigate between opposing points of view, when they are based on deeply held convictions is a sensitive subject.

With that said let's define the fundamental faith/reason dialectic more formally;

• Those who hold the faith-based only worldviews (Fideists) believe that faith cannot be supported by reason, and that this results from the limitations of reason rather than of faith.
• Whereas those who hold the reason-based only worldview (Skeptics) believe that faith is irrational, and that this results from the limitations of faith.

An Integrated Worldview

However not everyone accepts the fundamental worldviews, they are uncomfortable ignoring either one of them. They see value in both, maybe applying one approach for one part of their lives and the alternative for other aspects. The choice for these is reason and faith (albeit applied in separate problem areas). Stephen Jay Gould described this position in his Non-Overlapping Magisteria of Science and Religion (NOMA) supporting a respectful dialog, of constant input from both magisteria toward the common goal of wisdom.

A further significant step forward in this regard is the work on Critical Rationalism³. The integration of both worldviews is possible with this approach by applying reason or faith-based approaches for the problems they are best suited for, sometimes that’s easier to say than do. This is like option 2 in the car friends example above.

But is it real to say you have faith if this is only carefully and sparingly applied? There are studies that indicate there are physical benefits to having an active faith⁴. This has lead some to an argument that an evolutionary perspective on faith may thus explain how religion came about by natural causes. In this entry (that otherwise takes the controversial position, to those of a faith-based worldview, that their faith is entirely a natural phenomenon predisposed through natural selection) it confirms that there is substantial evidence to conclude a correlation between faith and;

• Longer life spans,
• Evolution of a pool of wisdom and experience; a shared faith confers a clear performance and survival advantage on a group,
• Rates of survival during the holocaust of faithful against non-faithful,
• Faster recovery from surgery,
• Reduced risk of disease.

Yet blind faith (eg, reckless trust in divine providence, ie. the guardianship and control exercised by a deity) may lead one into irrational actions that are risky.

A worldview that combines faith and reason simultaneously provides the benefits of both without the risks of either.

With this in mind one choice is to look for an integration of faith and reason in such a way that there is no need to choose between alternatives, there is just one integrated worldview (where you require your car friends to stop their bickering and resolve their contradictions to allow progress with agreement, ie, option 3)⁵.

A Third Way

There is a growing interest right now in this synthesis of reason and faith. But you might be surprised that it’s far from a new, or a Post-Modern
invention (some post-modernists also hope to achieve this goal but in its extreme formulation they often regard all truths as equal; unfortunately you can’t drive your car both right and left at the same time!). Notwithstanding this 'contribution' the goal of integration is something we will look at further in Part 2 of this 4 part Entry.

General References

• As Rod Stewart once said, '...I've got faith to believe' (Faith of the Heart). Read news and get insight into faiths of all denomination and background at BBC Religion.

• As Coldplay once said, '...Tell me your secrets, And ask me your questions' (The Scientist). Read the latest from BBC Science.