Faith and Reason

2017 ◽  
pp. 716-734
Author(s):  
Maria Rosa Antognazza
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Reasonable Belief

This chapter discusses Leibniz’s conception of faith and its relation to reason. It shows that, for Leibniz, faith embraces both cognitive and noncognitive dimensions: although faith must be grounded in reason, it is not merely reasonable belief. Moreover, for Leibniz, a truth of faith (like any truth) can never be contrary to reason but can be above the limits of comprehension of human reason. The latter is the epistemic status of the Christian mysteries. This view raises the problem of how it can be determined whether a doctrine above the full grasp of human reason does or does not imply contradiction. The notion of “presumption” and the “strategy of defense” are discussed as Leibniz’s way to tackle this issue. Finally, the chapter explores the “motives of credibility” that, according to Leibniz, can and should be produced to uphold the credibility of a putative divine revelation, including his account of miracles.

scholarly journals Reply to Eleanor Helms on Faith Versus Reason in Kierkegaard

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merold Westphal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Outright Rejection ◽  
Biblical Faith

Two reasons are given for speaking of “reason” even where Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Climacus, speaks of “understanding.” First, we are dealing with a significant contribution to a centuries-old discussion of an issue that goes by the name of “faith and reason.” Second, whereas Kant and Hegel sharply distinguish mere understanding from reason, no such distinction is at work in Kierkegaard’s text. At issue is the quite different distinction of unaided human reason and divine revelation. It is not just any notion of reason that is the target of Kierkegaard’s critique, but an autonomous reason, independent of revelation, that claims hegemony over biblical faith in both its popular and academic forms. This hegemony expresses itself in both outright rejection of and radical reinterpretation of elements of biblical faith.

Saint Thomas and His Sources

2021 ◽  
pp. xxi-20
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Torrell
Keyword(s):  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Bible ◽  
High Regard ◽  
The Church

St Thomas’s sources are to be found in the ‘authorities’ he quotes; he uses them according to precise criteria that make it possible to put them in a hierarchy. First, citations from the Bible have an authority that is absolute in principle. The argument from authority is the weakest of all in human reason, but it is the most efficacious if it is based on divine revelation. Second, the authority of the Fathers of the Church is great in the realm of faith, but not in other matters; they are susceptible to an expositio reverentialis. Third, when they speak the truth, the authorities of human reason represented by the philosophers likewise carry weight, since reason is not in itself contrary to faith. Since grace does not destroy nature, it is legitimate to have recourse to the philosophers. Thomas holds them in high regard, and the manner in which he behaves in respect to them remains exemplary for us all, whether we be philosophers or theologians.

The Torah

Gersonides ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 198-223
Author(s):  
Seymour Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Human Reason

This chapter explores why a divine revelation, in particular the Torah, was given if destiny is defined in terms of intellectual perfection and involves knowledge of the sciences and metaphysics. It talks about Gersonides' whole enterprise of showing the philosophical provability of the fundamental truths of metaphysics, which pertains to true happiness and reveals his complete confidence in the powers of reason. The chapter describes one of the earliest Jewish theologians to confront the issue on the contrast or conflict between human reason and divine revelation head-on, Sa'adiah Gaon. Sa'adiah Gaon was quite confident in his own rational powers and throughout his book engaged in philosophical argument to show that Judaism was a religion wholly compatible with human reason, albeit revealed through prophecy. It points out how divine revelation, according to Sa'adiah Gaon, provides supplementary information that aids in applying the general teachings of the Torah to the specific circumstances of everyday life.

Deism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
Future State ◽  
The World

In the popular sense, a deist is someone who believes that God created the world but thereafter has exercised no providential control over what goes on in it. In the proper sense, a deist is someone who affirms a divine creator but denies any divine revelation, holding that human reason alone can give us everything we need to know to live a correct moral and religious life. In this sense of ‘deism’ some deists held that God exercises providential control over the world and provides for a future state of rewards and punishments, while other deists denied this. However, they all agreed that human reason alone was the basis on which religious questions had to be settled, rejecting the orthodox claim to a special divine revelation of truths that go beyond human reason. Deism flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, principally in England, France and America.

A Response to John Frame’s Presuppositional Approach to Faith and Reason

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-376
Author(s):  
Andrew Ter Ern Loke
Keyword(s):  
Human Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Truth Claims

AbstractPresuppositionalism is popular among certain groups of Reformed Christians today, and John Frame is one of its leading proponents. In contrast with the Evidential Approach concerning faith and reason, which affirms experiences and reason as starting points, Presuppositionalists assume the truth of scripture as starting point in their assessment of the truth-claims of Christianity. They appeal to Christians by emphasizing the authority of scripture, by criticizing autonomous human reason, and by highlighting the noetic effects of sin. I address these considerations, show that Frame’s approach is self-defeating and unacceptably circular, and answer his objections to the Evidential Approach.

AHMAD S. MOUSSALLI, Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and the Islamic State (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999). Pp. 249. $49.95/cloth.

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRUCE B. LAWRENCE
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Islamic Political Thought ◽  
Sayyid Qutb ◽  
The Subject

This is the slyest, and therefore smartest, assessment of Islamic fundamentalism currently available. The author, a prolific Lebanese political theorist, has offered in this, his fourth monograph on the subject, a well-argued, highly original thesis. Moussalli asks one basic question: does Islamic fundamentalism have a philosophical basis? “Yes, it does,” he replies, “but it is not the same basis for all Islamic fundamentalists.” He then proceeds to demonstrate how particular Islamic fundamentalist theorists have addressed issues such as ideology and knowledge, society and politics, from their own philosophical perspective. The argument is markedly tilted toward politics, as each of the six chapters examines either a facet of political philosophy or the discourse of a particular theorist on the Islamic state. The first three chapters are framed as general overviews, first of the fundamentalism–modernism dyad, then of the epistemological divide between divine revelation and human reason, and finally of the discursive dichotomy between the Islamic state and democratic pluralism. The next three chapters shift to dominant theorists, the three “heroes” of Islamist ideology. Chapter 4 examines Hasan al-Banna on the Islamic state; Chapter 5, Sayyid Qutb. Chapter 6 takes up the most prominent current Islamist: Hasan al-Turabi. Not since Hamid Enayat's Modern Islamic Political Thought (Texas, 1982) has any scholar made such a comprehensive effort to trace the patterns of similarity—and the evidence of conflict and disagreement—among the major ideologues of Islamic fundamentalism.

ONCE AGAIN, JOHN PAUL II’S FIDES ET RATIO

2004 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
Eduardo J. Echeverria
Keyword(s):  
Human Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fides Et Ratio

Roy Clouser’s reply to my article on John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio (FR) is learned, engaging, clear--and, respectfully put, full of errors on many points regarding John Paul’s understanding of faith and reason.1 On this matter, he attacks a straw man. Indeed, at times I wondered whether Clouser and I had read the same encyclical. Despite this, however, let me underscore my genuine appreciation of Clouser for pressing me to be clearer on my view of the encyclical’s position on faith and reason.2 My reply is organized in two parts. First, I argue that in FR (1) faith is a form of knowing; (2) John Paul II is not a rationalist; and (3) the impact of the fall into sin on human reason is integral. Second, I defend the view of FR that a metaphysical theology is necessary in order to give an account of the intelligibility of the Christian revelation. Indeed, one of the biblical requirements for a “Scriptural philosophy” is a philosophy of a truly metaphysical range, according to John Paul (FR, nos. 80-83).

scholarly journals Cosmopolitanism and the German Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Leander Fillafer ◽  
Jürgen Osterhammel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
German Society ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Innate Ideas ◽  
The Universe

The European Enlightenment has long been regarded as a host of disembodied, self-perpetuating ideas typically emanating from France and inspiring apprentices at the various European peripheries. This article focuses on the idea of cosmopolitanism in the context of the German Enlightenment. There clearly was a set of overarching purposes of emancipation and improvement, but elaborating and pursuing ‘the Enlightenment’ also involved a ‘sense of place’. The Enlightenment maintained that human reason was able to understand nature unaided by divine revelation, but attuned to its truths; many Enlighteners agreed that God, like Newton's divine clockmaker, had created the universe, but thereafter intervened no more. John Locke's critique of primordialism challenged the existence of innate ideas and original sin. This article moves on to explain notions of religion, empire, and commerce, as well as the laws of nation. Transitions in the German society in the nineteenth century and after that are explained in details in this article.

Islam and Science

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-224
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hashim Kamali
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Meat Eating ◽  
Dietary Restrictions

This chapter explores the basic compatibility or otherwise of Islam with science, especially with reference to stunning and halal slaughtering, halal vaccines, genetically modified organisms, and the environmental impacts of meat eating. It addresses the basic premise of these concepts. Halal and haram are not determined by reference only to human reason or scientific knowledge, but by a combination of these and the guidance mainly of divine revelation (wahy). Worship matters (‘ibadat) are normally determined by the shariah independently of scientific evidence, and this could also be said of a limited number of dietary restrictions Islam has imposed—even though there may be some scientific justification for them. Still, Islam is on the whole receptive to scientific evidence.

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