Reason &
Religion
Book
Caballero
Remolar
PHI 21
Today's Agenda
1
The Classical Period
4
2
The Rise of Christianity
5
The Nineteenth Century
3
The Medieval Period
6
The Twentieth Century
The Renaissance and
Enlightenment Periods
Introduction
F a it h
Traditionally, faith and reason have been
considered to be sources of evidence for
religious beliefs. Reason is generally
understood as the principles for a
methodological inquiry, whether
intellectual, moral, aesthetic or religious.
There should be some kind of algorithmic
demonstrability. Faith, on the other hand,
involves a stance toward some claim that is
not demonstrable by reason. Thus, faith is
an attitude that leans towards trust.
R easo
n
The Classical
Period
The Classical Period
Greek religions, in contrast to Judaism, speculated primarily not on the human world but on the cosmos as a whole.
Nonetheless these forms of religious speculation were generally practical in nature: they aimed to increase personal
and social virtue in those who engaged in them. Most of these religions involved civic cultic practices.
Aristotle & Plato
Aristotle – Nous
Thought thinking itself. Aristotle’s Physics
demonstrated the existence of an unmoved
mover as a timeless self-thinker.
Plato – The Form of the Good
All things gain their intelligibility.
Stoics & Epicureans and Plotinus
These schools of thought derived certain theological kinds of thinking from physics and cosmology.
Stoics
Absolute necessity rules the cyclic process and therefore identified with divine reason (logos) and providence. This
provident and benevolent God is sustaining the physical world and orders the universe without an explicit purpose.
Epicurians
Spoke of the gods as living in a blissful state without any interest in the affairs of humans. There are no relations in
between the evil in humanity and the divine aide or guidance of the universe.
Plotinus
The One - is not a being, but infinite being. It is the cause of beings. God, as simple, is know more from what he is not,
than from what he is. Nous is the soul or an intelligent purposive principle of the world.
The Rise of
Christianity
Rise of Christianity
Christians held that God created the world ex nihilo, that God is three persons, and that Jesus Christ was the
ultimate revelation of God. Nonetheless, from the earliest of times, Christians held to a significant degree of
compatibility between faith and reason.
St. Paul
Here he champions the unity of the Christian God as the creator of all.
God is “not far from any one of us.”
Claims that this same God will one day come to judge all mankind.
Paul is less obliging to non-Christians. Here he champions a natural theology against those pagans who
would claim that, even on Christian grounds, their previous lack of access to the Christian God would
absolve them from guilt for their nonbelief.
Argues that in fact anyone can attain to the truth of God’s existence merely from using his or her reason
to reflect on the natural world.
Claims that the world did not come to know God through wisdom; God chose to reveal Himself fully to
those of simple faith.
Rise of Christianity
Christians held that God created the world ex nihilo, that God is three persons, and that Jesus Christ was the
ultimate revelation of God. Nonetheless, from the earliest of times, Christians held to a significant degree of
compatibility between faith and reason.
St. Augustine
He felt that intellectual inquiry into the faith was to be understood as faith seeking understanding. To
believe is “to think with assent”. It is an act of the intellect determined not by the reason, but by the will.
Faith involves a commitment “to believe in a God,” “to believe God,” and “to believe in God.”
Augustine believed that Platonists were the best of philosophers, since they concentrated not merely on
the causes of things and the method of acquiring knowledge, but also on the cause of the organized
universe as such. One does not, then, have to be a Christian to have a conception of God. Yet, only a
Christian can attain to this kind of knowledge without having to have recourse to philosophy. he believes
that one cannot genuinely understand God until one loves Him.
The Medieval
Period
The Medieval Period
It was during this period that the thoughts of Ancient Greece, particularly Aristotle, resurfaced. Medieval
theologians adopted an epistemological distinction that the Greeks developed:.
St. Anselm
Anselm held that one must love God in order to have
knowledge of Him.
Argues that “the smoke of our wrongdoing” will prohibit us
from this knowledge
Famous for his ontological argument
Held that the natural theologian seeks not to understand in
order to believe, but to believe in order to understand.
Reason is not asked as a source of judgement on the
concept of faith, but used to discover explanations that
enable others to understand.
The Medieval Period
It was during this period that the thoughts of Ancient Greece, particularly Aristotle, resurfaced. Medieval
theologians adopted an epistemological distinction that the Greeks developed: between scienta and opinio.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas worked out a highly articulated theory of
theological reasoning and claimed that the act of faith
consists essentially in knowledge.
He characterizes the articles of faith as first truths that
stand in a “mean between science and opinion”.
Though he agrees with Augustine that no created
intellect can comprehend God as an object, the
intellect can grasp his existence indirectly.
5 Proofs of Aquinas
The Renaissance
and Enlightenment
Period
The Renaissance and Enlightenment Period
Evolutionary ideas during the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment developed over a time when natural history became more
sophisticated during the 17th and 18th centuries, and as the scientific revolution and the rise of mechanical philosophy encouraged viewing the
natural world as a machine with workings capable of analysis
Galileo Controversy
Galileo understood “reason” as scientific inference based and
experiment and demonstration.
He rejected Aristotle’s claim that every moving had a mover
whose force had to be continually applied.
The officials of the Catholic Church – with some exceptions —
strongly resisted these conclusions and continued to
champion a pre-Copernican conception of the cosmos.
the Church tended to hold to a rather literal interpretation of
Scripture, particularly of the account of creation in the book of
Genesis.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment Period
Evolutionary ideas during the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment developed over a time when natural history became more
sophisticated during the 17th and 18th centuries, and as the scientific revolution and the rise of mechanical philosophy encouraged viewing the
natural world as a machine with workings capable of analysis
Protestant Reformers
Martin Luther restricted the power of reason to
illuminate faith
He makes a strict separation between what man has
dominion over and what God has dominion over.
Reason is often very foolish
Luther thus rejected the doctrine of analogy,
developed by Aquinas and others, as an example of
the false power of reason.
Faith is primarily an act of trust in God’s grace.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment Period
Evolutionary ideas during the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment developed over a time when natural history became more
sophisticated during the 17th and 18th centuries, and as the scientific revolution and the rise of mechanical philosophy encouraged viewing the
natural world as a machine with workings capable of analysis
Blaise Pascal
Pascal rejected the hitherto claims of
medieval natural theologians, by claiming
that reason can neither affirm nor deny
God’s existence
He argued that since the negative
consequences of believing are few
(diminution of the passions, some pious
actions) but the gain of believing is infinite
(eternal life), it is more rational to believe
than to disbelieve in God’s existence.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment Period
Evolutionary ideas during the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment developed over a time when natural history became more
sophisticated during the 17th and 18th centuries, and as the scientific revolution and the rise of mechanical philosophy encouraged viewing the
natural world as a machine with workings capable of analysis
Empiricism
For John Locke, he defines reason as an attempt to discover certainty or probability through the use of
our natural faculties in the investigation of the world. Faith, by contrast, is certainty or probability attained
through a communication believed to have come, originally, from God.
Reason justifies beliefs, and assigns them varying degrees of probability based on the power of the
evidence.
But, like Aquinas, Locke held to the evidence not only of logical/mathematical and certain self-affirming
existential claims, but also “that which is evident to the senses.”
Locke thinks we have enough knowledge to live comfortable lives on Earth, to realize that there is a God,
to understand morality and behave appropriately, and to gain salvation
The Renaissance and Enlightenment Period
Evolutionary ideas during the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment developed over a time when natural history became more
sophisticated during the 17th and 18th centuries, and as the scientific revolution and the rise of mechanical philosophy encouraged viewing the
natural world as a machine with workings capable of analysis
German Idealism
Hegel’s rationalism yields a form of
panentheism in which all finite beings, though
distinct from natural necessity, have no
existence independent from it.
For Hegel, God does not exist apart from
creation, perfect and complete. Instead, Hegel
holds that God is actualized through the world
– in nature and, especially, in human nature.
God “in himself” is the Absolute Idea of the
Logic, an idea which is literally idea of itself.
The Nineteenth
Century
The 19th Century
Despite various changes to the Church over the years, religion has had a significant impact on people's lives.
Society has become permissive, temporal, and secular.
Karl Marx (Socialism)
All miseries are product of economic class
warfare, and can be eased.
Marx thought that religion was a major
impediment to such a revolution since it
was a "opiate" that kept the masses
sedentary.
Marx predicted a classless communist
society would emerge after capitalism's
inevitable downfall.
The 19th Century
Despite various changes to the Church over the years, religion has had a significant impact on people's lives.
Society has become permissive, temporal, and secular.
Existentialism
Faith requires a leap. It demands risk. "Leap of faith".
It is the philosophy of "the meaning of life" in a meaningless and purposeless world also known as the
"Absurd" -Søren Kierkegaard.
Catholic Apologists
Argued that one assents to God on the basis of one's experience and principles.
much of our reasoning is implied without being stated and is informal.
The Twentieth
Century
The 20th Century
Despite the evolution of new trends and interests, religion continues to play
a significant role in society.
Logical Positivism
Philosophy of religion in the 20th century took up
appreciation for scope and power of religious language.
Religious language shares characteristics with metaphysical
language. Anti-realist understanding of faith is based on
belief in moral motivations and self-understanding.
Faith is not the result of logical reasoning, but rather a
profession that God "as a living being" has entered into the
believer's experience.
The 20th Century
Despite the evolution of new trends and interests, religion continues to play
a significant role in society.
Philosophical Theology
Karl Barth, a Reformed Protestant, provided a startlingly new model of the relation
between faith and reason.
Barth argued that revelation is aimed at a believer who must receive it before it is a
revelation. God's revelation of Himself, His very communication of that self, is not
distinct from Himself, he said. The ground of faith lies beyond reason.
Neo-Darwinism
Darwinism continued to have a strong impact on philosophy of religion in the 19th
century.
The humanities have been enslaved by postmodern skepticism in recent decades,
whereas Darwinism, brimming with confidence in the genuine progress made in the
sciences of biology and psychology, has set its sights on rescuing the humanities from
postmodernism's ravages.
Our Conclusion
Although a lot of factors may comprise religion and acts
around it, it does not at all necessarily mean that
reason will always coincide with religion. To put it to
perspective, there is a difference between "believing in"
and "believing that".
Kierkegard stated that belief and faith are different
from each other; belief requires the support of
evidence whereas faith does not. Faith is opposed to
reason and is not compatible with reason. This is why
believing in God, he says, is a leap of faith.
Thank you!
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