In modern western society, faith is often labelled anti-intellectual. The 2006 documentary aired on Channel 4 Religion: The Root of all Evil? made the point that religious people often believe things that are difficult to prove through scientific evidence – or even things which contradict scientific evidence. Richard Dawkins argued persuasively that faith is like a virus which attacks the young and damages their ability to think clearly and critically. Proponents of the radically secular scientific worldview would agree with his view; they assume an evidentialist position and dismiss the possibility that faith could be supported in any way.
Faith has not always been seen as opposed to rational argument, however. The basic belief in a necessary creator, a prime mover and uncaused causer, was supported through inductive argument by Aristotle and later by Aquinas. Aquinas’ five ways to God [link to /cosmological] all start with empirically verifiable observations of laws of the natural world and then seek to provide a logical conclusion which would explain them. Scientists use the same method, though they have suggested different conclusions.
Aquinas’ cosmological argument points to a God who is the prime mover, the first cause, the de re necessary being which supports a contingent universe. He starts by observing that all things move, change and are contingent and goes on to argue that a being that is not like anything else, a being that is unmoved, uncaused and not contingent, must exist if all other things are to be explained. This being cannot rightly be seen as a thing but it has a demonstrable effect in enabling all other things, so it is not nothing either (as Aquinas observes and scientists would agree, something cannot come from nothing). The "neither something nor nothing" is, Aquinas asserts, "what everybody calls God". Aquinas and the Catholic Church, which accepted his doctrine as foundational at the Council of Trent, challenge the claim that religious faith cannot be supported through evidence and argument.
Removing the need for a creator
A major logical objection to Aquinas’ conclusion was framed by the philosophers Hume and Kant. Hume asked, "Why cannot the universe itself be the cause?" and Kant noted that as there is no evidence of a de re necessary being within our frame of reference, to speak of one would be a "cupola of judgment". Aquinas’ appeal to another category of existence, something outside the universe (which Wittgenstein defined as "all that is"), may be an illogical conclusion, an inappropriate explanation for the features that he observed. Aquinas would not be the first scholar to develop a false a posteriori conclusion. Scientists have at various times argued that empirical evidence supports the idea that the moon was once part of the pacific ocean bed, that we are quickly entering another ice age and that cholera is not water-borne.
The view that the universe was self-causing or infinite was prevalent in science until the 1960s – like Hume and Kant, scientists saw no reason to conclude that natural processes must be explained by a "neither something or nothing" of any kind. The work of Hawking and Penrose changed the consensus in scientific understandings of the state of the universe however. Their evidence, supporting a Big Bang theory and thus undermining the Steady State approach (doggedly promoted by Hoyle until his death), indicated that the universe is expanding and thus must have started at a "singularity" – a point where time space, matter and energy conflate. The existence of a singularity is rendered impossible by the laws of conventional physics – but those laws are only supported by the inductive observation of processes in relation to so called constants, constants which were demonstrated to be in fact relative by Einstein. Penrose and Hawking enabled science to develop in a new direction allowing for, even necessitating the postulation of a de re necessary category of existence.
Reasoning God's existence
Scholars such as Polkinghorne have observed that the rational argument for a necessary God and that supporting the Big Bang theory share both inductive observations and a similar conclusion. It may then be possible to say that accepting the existence of a necessary God is an inevitable consequence of reasoned argument about the origins of the world. Even Hawking once observed that if the ‘neither something nor nothing’ that caused the universe could be called God then so be it – God exists.
Even if his argument supports belief in a creator that is "neither something nor nothing", Aquinas’ conclusion, that this is "what everybody calls God" could not be more controversial. Through the Summa, Aquinas attempts to reconcile the characteristics of a necessary being with those of the conventional Christian God. He shows that the necessary being could be analogously described as the creator, all powerful and all good. He demonstrates the possibility of such a being creating a universe that contains evil, effecting miracles and responding to prayer. He even describes how an afterlife with god in the "beatific vision" could be conceived of. Aquinas does not though describe how the being that he has, through rational argument, shown to exist could be the object of Christian faith. It seems that even if belief in the existence of God may be supported through reasoned argument, religious faith may not be.
'Faith inevitably contradicts reason'
The view that "faith inevitably contradicts reasoned argument" is not one that just characterises the radically secular scientific approach of, say, Dawkins. Many people of faith would argue that faith is not really faith if it can be supported through argument and evidence. Fideists maintain that faith must be based on trust and cannot be induced through argument. Tertullian famously described fideist faith saying, "The fact that it is certain is because it is impossible!" What makes faith real and valuable is the fact that it cannot be created and is not dependent on evidence or experience like other common beliefs. Fideists would agree with the title and confidently assert that faith inevitably contradicts reasoned argument.
The rational arguments for the existence of God are hardly conclusive and it certainly seems that some "leap of faith" or movement beyond the rationally supportable is necessary to arrive at a recognisable faith position. Even Aquinas acknowledged that arguments alone are not enough to engender faith – they just make faith more likely by removing potential challenges to its development. Whether they can do even this is somewhat debatable. The criticisms of, for example, Hume, Kant and more recently, Mackie, have shown the flaws in the supposedly rational foundations for faith and have made a propositional faith position more difficult – unless these objections and evidence which may undermine the conclusions are simply ignored.
Rational arguments for the existence of God are today advocated chiefly by reformed epistemologists – those who do not base their faith on rational propositions but who seek to "defeat the defeaters", to show rational arguments against their faith position are not valid. Plantinga and Hick are scholars of this type; they would disagree with the idea that faith is necessarily anti-intellectual, arguing that faith does not contradict reasoned argument but that faith is not based on it either.
Foundations of faith apart from reason
The view that faith cannot be based on rational arguments but that there is some reason for maintaining it anyway is referred to as "non propositional". Abelard suggested that faith stems from a lifetime's experience of worship and from the experience of beauty created by church worship in particular. Kierkegaard argued that real faith arises out of a despair with living in relation to oneself or one's community; he noted that some people realise that there must be more to life than petty concerns and that there is an imperative to live in relation to the truth, as Luther put it Coram Deo. While neither suggested that an argument could convince them to have faith, both provide a sound reason to believe. Interestingly the views of God presented by these advocates of non-propositional faith are neither abstract nor encumbered by the baggage of a particular religious tradition. Faith in a personal God may then derive from experience; it would then be difficult to form a reasoned argument against those who possess faith in this way.
Pascal would have agreed with the sentiment that faith cannot be arrived at through reasoned argument. His so-called "wager" does however provide an argument to support living as if God exists in the absence of possible evidence to confirm or deny the proposition. Like Kant later, Pascal felt that metaphysical arguments about categories of existence beyond the framework of time and space, beyond possible experience, were pure speculation. Pascal simplified the choice people have to make, arguing that either we live as if God existed or we do not, and he simplified the possible outcomes to either God exists or he does not. Given two courses of action, Pascal recommended that everyone choose to life as if God existed because, in his experience, this offered a better life and the possibility of an afterlife if God does exist.
Good faith, bad faith
Pascal’s voluntarist approach to faith and his recommendation that people choose to live as if God exists is mirrored in the work of James, whose "will to believe" argument weighs the advantages of a life in faith against those of living as an atheist and provides a rational argument to support a faith-choice. The aim of most scientific research is to accumulate knowledge and understanding which can then be applied so as to raise the standard of living for many people. If it is reasonable then to do something because it increases human happiness, to have faith could well be reasonable.
Dawkins provided a devastating critique of this position however. He noted that the current belief, that faith increases social stability, is not supported by evidence of the social exclusion, the discrimination, the violence and even terrorism that faith may foster. If this more sceptical, even pessimistic, approach is taken then it may seem that there is no reason to believe, that faith does inevitably contradict reasoned argument.
Mutually exclusive?
It seems that the view that faith inevitably contradicts reasoned argument either assumes an evidentialist position and then depends on the failure of the arguments for the existence of God or arises from a particularly fideist understanding of the nature of faith. If faith does inevitably contradict reasoned argument or, perhaps more significantly, if faith does not seem like a reasonable response to experience, then the implications for religion are immense. In the modern world to believe something despite the fact or even because of the fact that it is illogical seems perverse. Galileo observed that he could not believe that God would wish humans to ignore the faculty of reason with which he endowed them.
There will always be a tension at the heart of a faith which on the one hand appeals to the reason by seeking to ascribe the wonders of creation to God, and on the other seeks to quash reasonable questions and dissent. In the majority of cases, faith is an individual response to experience, whether of religion or directly of God. There is no doubt that dry explanations of how things happen are insufficient to reassure the human psyche. There is also no doubt that the intricate beliefs of those with faith cannot be explained clearly or supported, thus even if they serve to reassure the individual they may not be convincing to the crowd. The question hinges on the extent to which we are willing to accept things that cannot be proven, if they seem likely or serve a good purpose.
