Can 'faith' be a principle of Philosophy?

[slalyew]

OK, I may have some of my lingo wrong, but here’s essentially what I’m curious about:
When discussing things from a Catholic Philosophical point of view, can we talk of having faith in something, or can we only deal with knowing something?

This came up when a group of mates were discussing how we know that that door exists. The priest with us said it’s because we know that our senses meet reality, and through our senses we recognise that as a door. I agreed mostly, but then added that we only know that our senses meet reality because we trust them - ie we made a leap of faith.
He argued that I was essentially agreeing with Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”.

edit When I say ‘trust’, I mean it in the sense of having ‘faith’ that God exists - more than just a hope for a reality, but a real trust that leads to knowledge, fact etc edit

What do you guys think? Could you also provide any resources (good, Catholic resources, like the Summa or some saints!) that argue one way or the other?

 

[Bravo_6]

Some say faith is an emotion,an involuntary action of the senses?That is not faith at all and certainly not the faith required by the Catholic Church.By faith we believe things.Now people do not believe with their feelings or emotions.They believe with their minds.Belief is a mental conviction.If I tell a woman her son has been killed,her faith in my knowledge and veracity will make her believe her son has actually been killed.From this knowledge emotion may follow as an effect.But an effect is not it’s cause.Faith,then,is not an emotion,nor is it of the senses. Faith is the intellectual admission that a certain thing is true because although we have not seen the reality ourselves,we reasonably admit that the one who has told us must be reliably informed and not intending to deceive us.Nor is faith involuntary.If I see an accident,I know it occurred and it is useless to tell myself that it did not occur.But if you tell me of an accident and I did not see it myself,then I have no direct evidence.All my evidence is indirect and I can choose to believe you or not.I can put my faith in what you tell me,or refuse.The Church has solemnly defined this type of assent(emotion,senses,etc,…)to be no faith at all.Anyone who believes that such a caricature can do duty for the intellectual conviction known as faith upon entering the Church needs to be corrected.

 

[stanczyk]

Why of course faith can be a part of philosophy! I know it is central to my philosophical view, at least. While he may not be a Catholic philosopher, I find Soren Kierkegaard to be most insightful. I reccomend his book Fear and Trembling, which deals with this topic. Though written from a Danish Protestant perspective, the principles are the same and apply equally to the True Church.

 

[DCNBILL]

A hard read but well worth the effort is Karl Rahners work Foundations of Christian Faith describing the ways that the Christian faith can be discerned from the movement from philosophy to a philosophical/theological concept and then into the concept of Christianity. One may want to start with his book Hearer of the Word as a primer for this previous work, however.