Practicing Faith in Reason

Sam Otten

Fall 2004

PHI 310

The following statement is necessarily true a priori: either God exists or God does not exist. In this assertion “God” refers to the creator of our world without making any claims as to the qualities surrounding God (benevolence, omniscience, immortality). Let us consider the case in which God does exist. This means that God created the human animal and instilled in him the unrivaled power of intellect. Did God give humans the capacity to reason intending they never use it? Certainly not. God then must have given human creatures their logical and rational abilities intending that they use and rely on them. Now let us consider the case in which God does not exist. In this situation, with the absence of the metaphysical, it becomes clear that human’s reason is the last best foundation on which to rest the weight of our decision-making and the direction of our existence. Therefore, I choose to have faith in reason, because I can identify no situation in which this faith is misplaced. Furthermore, I shall reject any argument that requires me to reject my reason.

Is my statement of faith compatible with known definitions and requirements concerning faith? Søren Kierkegaard would most likely disapprove of my primary reliance on reason, since he openly criticized “objective thinkers”. However, Kierkegaard writes that “without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual’s inwardness and the objective uncertainty.”1 I say that my faith is placed in reason. Have I not taken a risk? Reason can be hijacked by ego, selfishness, addiction, persuasion, as well as other known and unknown forces.2 Thus, it is a risk to have a firm faith in reason, but a risk that I have chosen to take. Similarly, I cannot know with objective certainty that my reasoning is infallible, but the depths of my inwardness allow me to be comfortable with my reliance on reason. Paul Tillich describes faith as “the state of being ultimately concerned.”3 This means that a person’s faith gives them something to be devoted to and center their existence around. Surely I can devote myself to reason, allowing it to take a central role in my life. The practicality of this arrangement will be addressed at the conclusion of this paper. Tillich goes on to distinguish between true and false ultimacy. In short, faith or ultimate concern is true only if it is placed in something ultimate, otherwise the faith is “idolatrous”. I feel that human reason is a worthy receiver of faith because it can be described as ultimate, never-ending. The day that human reason ceases to exist is the day we cease to be human. Additionally, the argument presented at the onset of this essay testifies to the validity of reason as a target of true faith.

Having satisfactorily passed my statement of faith over two hurdles, it remains dynamic and can be placed in dialogue with several arguments for the existence of God. Descartes conjectured that existence is a perfection and God is a perfect being, therefore God exists.4 This argument is logically valid, but my reasoning takes issue with one of his premises. I would argue that God could not be perfect. Let us assume to the contrary that God were perfect, then most assuredly any of God’s creations would be perfect because a perfect being would only form perfect things. God created the Earth and everything on it, but neither the Earth nor its creatures are perfect. This is a contradiction, and we must conclude that God cannot possibly be perfect. Without the premise of God being perfect, Descartes’ argument fails.

Another argument for the existence of God comes from Richard Taylor, extrapolating on the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Taylor makes the claim that everything in “the world depends for its existence upon something else, which in turn depends on still another thing.”5 Taylor claims that this string of contingency cannot go on forever and must then have a “first cause” which he calls God. Though this argument attempts to rest on logic, reasoning leads me to several problems. Why is it that the line of causation cannot continue backward to infinity? Is it because the concept of infinity does not exist in reality? Taylor himself claims that God is infinite, so he must admit that the infinite is possible. I also refer to the conservation laws of science which state that energy is never lost, it only changes form. This implies that the total amount of energy in the universe has remained constant ad infinitum. Infinity exists in reality, and I see no reason that it cannot be attached to the line of contingency. I would also like to ask Taylor who created God. He supplied an answer, though an unsatisfactory one. He said that God is God’s own “principle of sufficient reason”.6 When I see qualifications like this begin to arise in an argument, I, like Antony Flew, become skeptical. Another reasonable criticism of Taylor’s attestation is that it offers no practical application, no motivation to worship his God, no guide for how to live, and no insight concerning God’s nature. God has become, as Freud describes it, an “unsubstantial shadow” of the holy and righteous God found in religious doctrine.7 It is a reasonable conclusion, then, that Taylor’s argument is useless.

The most meaningful argument to me for the existence of God is the design argument offered by William Paley. It is logical to observe the world and gather evidence either for or against God’s existence. Paley sees order in the world, and since there “cannot be design without a designer” he concludes that a great designer must exist, namely God.8 I also have weighed the evidence of my world, and have reason to reach the opposite conclusion. Why is the world better suited for insects than for man? Why is pain at the forefront of the human condition? Why would God allow the human creatures to remain in various states of war throughout history? Why would God create a world with unnecessary suffering, greed, grief, jealousy, and deceit? Why would God make it so difficult to believe in God? These questions lead to four possible explanations – either God does not exist, God is absent in our world, God lacks divine qualities, or God willfully allows evil. None of these cases provide a reason to offer God worship, praise, or a life of servitude. Paley says that “it is not necessary that a machine be perfect” in order to conclude that it was designed.9 But I say to him, it is necessary that a machine not be corrupt before I offer worship and devotion to the designer. If someone thinks that perhaps humans are simply unable to comprehend the purpose of the world’s aforementioned atrocities, I would ask them as I did before: why would God give us the capacity to reason without wanting us to use it?

I find it much more reasonable to conclude not that God created man, but that man created God. It seems more likely to me that religious ideas arose in mankind not because God was truthfully revealed to them, but they constructed religious notions because of “the necessity of defending oneself against the crushingly superior force of nature.”10 Humans through the ages and to the current day build and subscribe to religious notions because they answer questions that are central to existence.11 I would also like to illustrate how obvious it is that religious doctrines are man’s wishful creation, not divine truth. Imagine that one day I stumble across a box and I decide, before opening it, to wish for what I want to find inside. I settle upon the wish of finding fifty lollipops and a bar of soap. Since there are infinitely many different things that could be in the box, the chance of my wish turning out to be true is near zero. Even if I called the entirety of mankind to my side and we all agreed that it would be great to find the lollipops and the soap, the chance remains essentially zero for them to turn up in the box. Similarly, mankind wishes for a creator, an omnipotent and omniscient guiding force, moral order, infinite justice, and an afterlife; but the probability is logically zero “that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. And it would be more remarkable still if our wretched, ignorant and downtrodden ancestors had succeeded in solving all these difficult riddles of the universe."12 Thus, the likelihood of the alternative, that man created the religious beliefs to fit the wishes, is near certainty. In this way, my reason has led me away from the existence of God, though my faith in reason does not allow me to cling unquestioningly to any conclusion. It is reasonable to continually reevaluate positions of belief in the face of new evidence, therefore I cannot say this will be my unchanging position.

William James and Søren Kierkegaard did not attempt to prove that God exists, but they did attempt to give compelling arguments stating that one is right to believe God exists. Within James’ argument, he identifies living and dead hypotheses which exist for each individual. A dead hypothesis is one that “refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all.”13 He later states that we should “regard the chase for truth as paramount,” placing this above the desire to avoid error.14 At this point James has entered the realm of the unreasonable. Since believing in God or not is a forced option, James requires us to pursue the truth. But what if the truth lies in a hypothesis that is dead to us? The search for truth would then require us to revive all dead hypotheses and consider them along with all living ones. This is an irrational requirement. Shunning error, on the other hand, is a much more rational priority. An individual’s living hypotheses can be carefully considered, the evidence weighed, and if reason warns of an erroneous conclusion, then that conclusion is avoided moving us in the direction of the alternative, constantly approaching the truth by not taking the wrong path. This leads us to Kierkegaard’s proposal of a “leap of faith”. Kierkegaard states that the walk with reason can only bring us so close to a belief in God, and faith is the vehicle we need to clear the gap and arrive at a place where belief in God is achieved.15 But what if reason, as in my case, leads directly away from that place where belief in God is achieved? Then wouldn’t it be better – a smaller gap – to leap directly to belief, prior to using reason? This, however, constitutes a rejection of reason, and this is incompatible with my faith in reason.

I have given my statement of faith a substantial workout to this point, and I feel it remains upright. Yet one last question remains, what is its “cash-value”? Will faith – ultimate concern – in one’s own ability to reason lead to a fulfilled and good life? The real test of any system of faith is how it impacts the lives of the faithful and how those lives go on to influence the surrounding civilization. Kierkegaard claims that “every moment is wasted in which [one] does not have God,”16 but I object resoundingly to this claim. It is reasonable to develop empathy which leads to compassion which moves us toward a world in which people treat one another with more respect. It is reasonable to refrain from performing harmful deeds unto others and to instead perform good deeds, for these acts are advantageous to all. In fact, any rules or motivations that have come from religion which are beneficial to mankind would also exist in a reasoned life for precisely that purpose – they have proven beneficial to mankind. While faith in reason keeps the positive aspects of religious practice, it at the same time improves upon it because faith in reason does not require acceptance of false premises but is instead grounded in reality and offers sound reasoning and justification for all of its conclusions. Furthermore, faith in reason will be more fruitful than conventional religions because it does not appeal to a higher authority. Religion has been prevalent in all corners of the globe for thousands of years, and it is clear from looking around us that it has failed miserably in its quest to achieve goodness. If my faith in reason were universalized, to borrow Kant’s term, no longer would we have to cede control to a metaphysical presence, hoping that some god provides goodness and justice; instead, the power to affect change in the world would fall into our own hands, and with this new sense of power would come a stronger sense of motivation and duty among the people, ultimately leading to a better world. I believe that my faith in reason is well placed, the “firmest vessel” I have identified,17 and it has carried me to predictions and expectations that are quite profound and amazingly hopeful.