Reply #48: Faith and reason are not really in conflict [View All]

[starroute]

The idea of a conflict between faith and reason is a modern Western concept. As I recall, it arose only in the later Middle Ages, when it became obvious that the revival of classical philosophy could not be kept subordinate to the teachings of the Church.

Opinions on the matter see-sawed back and forth over the next several centuries. During the early stages of the Italian Renaissance, there was a good deal of hope that faith and reason could be reconciled, but by the end of the 1400's, skepticism was taking hold again. In the 1600's, the tendency was to partition the world into those things that could be understood rationally and those that could not -- a compromise that lasted until Darwin kicked the skids out from under it. Ever since then, the dispute has appeared unresolvable.

But actually, it's only a problem if you define faith to mean "unquestioning belief in traditional Christian doctrines." Real faith is much larger than that. Science is based on a faith that the universe makes sense and that human beings can understand how it works. If you don't have that faith (and the creationists don't), you can't even begin to do real science. But faith in science can't ever be proven logically -- you just have to accept it as a starting point and go on from there.

Christianity, as nearly as I can tell as an outsider, is based on a faith in certain mysteries -- the incarnation, the resurrection, the trinity -- that were never meant to be understood rationally, but rather to be experienced metaphorically, as keys to the nature and the destiny of the universe. That sort of faith is ultimately no different from the faith of scientists: it is a source of understanding, gained through acceptance that certain things cannot be understood.

The fundamentalists have twisted the question of faith around by insisting that their "faith" requires a literal belief in Noah's Flood, the Garden of Eden, etc. But that sort of "faith" isn't real faith at all -- it's simply a stubborn adherence to very bad (or at least very outdated) science.

So by all means, let us come together on the basis of a shared faith in mystery and a shared willingness to reason about truth.