FAITH AND REASON MAIL: Initial posts here and here. You can get Arthur Silber’s response to the aesthetics post here.

Roger Donway: I have always found it useful to realize that “faith” translates the Greek word “pistis.” Most people who have studied ancient Greek were taught to translate “pistis” as ‘trust.” And that is how I understand it to be used in the New Testament. The Apostles were calling on people to have trust in their testimony regarding the Good News.

This approach also makes sense of the concept “preambles to faith.” Obviously, before you trust (have faith in) what someone (an apostle, a Church) tells you, you must establish that your source is trust-worthy, and that knowledge must rest on some basis other than the source’s own assurance. In his splendid little book The Belief of Catholics, Msgr. Ronald Knox lists six such preambles to faith, facts that an individual must determine for himself–by philosophy or history.

I shall be very interested in hearing your further thoughts on faith after you reread Fides et Ratio, for I hope to write on this subject next year.

Jim Ycotto: Re your blog answer to this comment:

1) I’ll answer his third question first: “…And, to put one of the related questions more bluntly: doesn’t it bother you that you can’t defend your belief in God on rational grounds? If not, why not?”

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Many years ago someone asked this question along similar lines. I don’t see why any believer should be

“bothered” to defend belief in God along “rational” grounds. Just what is so special about rationalism? It is one of the most flawed modes of human thinking around. Among its many flaws:

(a) arrogantly presuming to understand phenomena or make decisions based on logical reasoning while ignoring the accumulated experience of past generations,

(b) the rationalist himself cannot present a certain justification for rationality (his appeal to authority is ultimately an appeal to just another theory–so what makes it superior to other theories?). Why are we supposed to accept what a rationalist argues–just because he makes an argument in favor of another theory among several other competing “isms”? In other words, where is HIS justification that is supposed to impress the rest of us? He demands “proof” from people of faith–well then where is his certain “proof” of the efficacy or certainty of his theories? One may well ask “Isn’t the rationalist bothered by his inability show certain proof of his theories?” Bertram Russell sure was. See here for example.

(c) Rationalism rejects “irrationalist” behavior like religion and embraces atheism or non religion. Very well, let them defend the practitioners of atheism and non-religion. Such practitioners with rational calculation, have produced as many if not more human disasters than religion–from the cynical (but politically successful) mass murder of Josef Stalin and other “scientific socialists” and their atheist ilk, to social engineers in the areas of crime, race and the environment. Just as rationalists demand that religion justify every disaster associated with it–so in turn let the rationalist defend the atheist and non religious “helpers of humanity”–Messrs Mao, Stalin and the killing fields of Pol Pot. It is time we stop indulging its proponents and demand the same certainity and proof that they demand of people of faith.

The above critique of rationalim is “lite” stuff. A 2 minute Google search turned up a ton of devasting rebuttals and critiques — and most of those are on non-religious grounds. If rationalists cannot even pull their own weight with certainty in the philosophical world, what gives them the right to demand anything from people of faith? Let them prove their own case first with certainity before presuming to lecture others. While we try to inform and instruct

no beleivers, Jesus himself spoke pretty bluntly in the gospels to those who questioned his faith. We are under no obligation to bow to the demands of those who cannot even prove their own theories.

Varous scriptures as to the tension between faith and “reason” are well known. Nothing elaborate is required

as far as I am concerned. No Papal bulls need to be quoted although I do not fault anyone who wants to do so. There are of course dozens of other scriptures addressing the issue, but Paul in Hebrews is worth quoting: “Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…” .

Well, there’s a lot going on up there. Let me just make a couple quick points:

1) I distinguish between reason and rationalism. Rationalism is the belief that logic + sense perception are the only valid tools for understanding the world. I think rationalism runs into a lot of problems, though I’m not sure they’re the same problems Mr. Ycotto sees. However, “reason” is a more flexible word, covering syllogistic reasoning, “reasoned discourse” (which of course can include allusion, metaphor, and similar moves of the kind Richard Rorty calls “re-description”), and everything else we mean when we ask someone to give us a reason why he believes X and we should too.

I responded to Arthur Silber’s question as if he were asking me, “Why should I be a Christian? On what experiences, premises, and philosophical conclusions do you base your belief? In other words, what reasons do you have for your faith?” If that question can’t be answered, then there can’t be any communication between atheists and Christians. (Well, maybe there can be poetry–but I’m even pretty skeptical of that. There couldn’t be literary criticism!) Fortunately, I think that through the usual philosophical combination of re-description and logic, people can be surprised into accepting a different, and reasonable, view of the world–a view in which certain questions are important, and certain answers plausible or even obvious. And when they do that, I think they will find that Christianity is true. I think this, of course, because this is what happened to me.

2) I don’t think there’s much point in the “who killed more of whom?” argument. It’s just too tangled and weird. Atheists have been in power less; did all the people who claimed to be Christians really believe in God?; what is a religion?; etc. etc. etc.

Then, after all that, Aaron Pease catches me using my terms sloppily: I stumbled upon your blog through Mickey Kaus and noted your assertion that aesthetic judgments cannot be made through reason. I wholeheartedly disagree.

I think that, first, you must distinguish between logical reasoning and discursive or interpretive reasoning–not every reasoned conversation must adhere to strict logic. For example, art often relies on maintaining an appearance at least of contradiction or paradox, which are anathema logically. (e.g., Scobie in Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter and the priest’s reaction to Scobie’s fate) However, we can discuss rationally what that parodox is, and how he is ensnared by it and why or why not his solution to the situation deepens the paradox or resoleves it) And with regards to paintings and sculpture, these types of art are based on principles of order, balance, symmetry, etc., (or refutation of such) which are, quite simply, things that can only be identified through the use of reason.

Just because T.S. Eliot believes that Hamlet fails as an artistic work because it does not meet his requirements of the “Objective Correlative” is not an occasion to shrug one’s shoulders when thinking about art, but is an opportunity to analyze the principle of the objective correlative and see if it is a valid way to critique literature in general, and Hamlet in particular.

I am not trying to eliminate the “subjective” in art, as matters of taste will also differ, but it seems to me that we cannot attribute art solely to the realm of the “non-rational”. While the effect of a work of art may be “supra rational”, we can always use our powers of reasons to determine why it has the effect that it has, such as the combination of elements in its composition and how they work together to achieve the desired effect. Such conclusions may or may not be authoritative, but that doesn’t mean they are not rational.

Read Jacques Maritain’s Creative Intuition and the Art of Poetry for an interesting discussion of art and the creative impulse. He is a Thomist, but I think that is an aid to his understanding of things, rather than a detriment.

My reply: Oh, see, I totally agree with the paragraph about the supra-rational, and I think I agree with the rest as well. But isn’t there a difference between saying, “Discussion of art requires the use of reason,” and, “An understanding of aesthetics can be derived rationalistically, via logic + sense perception”? Maybe not and I’m missing something here. I think I may–among other things–be conflating “aesthetics cannot be derived rationalistically” and “art cannot be based on logic + sense perception alone,” although I still think both are true.

I may have expressed myself poorly or come across wrong b/c I was refuting a specifically Objectivist take on art (which non-Objectivists have also applied to their own preferred philosophies): that aesthetics can be derived from “reason” (logic + sense perception) alone. In other words, I can tell you what is and is not great art a priori, probably with reference to what I value, and that great art will be in accordance with the conclusions of syllogistic reasoning. Disagreeing with THOSE bizarre claims doesn’t mean retreating into “we can’t say anything

about art! It’s just something you FEEL!”-land. I can definitely talk about what makes Hamlet (or The Long Goodbye!) great. I can even talk about what makes certain works of music, or statues, great–although that discussion will probably blur the lines between criticism, poetry, and philosophy even more than they’re blurred already! (Part of the problem with the Objectivist aesthetic stance, perhaps, is the reluctance to admit that sure, poetry has an element of philosophy in it; but philosophy ALSO has an element of poetry in it. There’s a tendency among Randians to colonize everything for Reason–construed, like I said, as logic + sense perception–which tends to leave me thinking, You know, if I’d wanted to write a treatise, I’d’ve written a treatise, not a poem.)

Anyway, thanks very much for your helpful note. I still don’t think I’ve fleshed out my stance esp. well, and so I will definitely revisit this question. But probably not this week!