Philosophy: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into

[Ani_Ibi]

You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. ~Author Unknown

Is this true?

 

[freesoulhope]

Is this true?

Its very true. Look at Richard Dawkins, the poor sod.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Its very true. Look at Richard Dawkins, the poor sod.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

OK. Let’s see if these questions get us going. The second question I learned at university and I googled it for the source but can’t find the author. If anyone recognizes it, then please give us the name. Thank you.

Are we in an age of reason or unreason?

If philosophy is to speak to us in times such as these, then what form must it take?

Thoughts?

 

[mikeledes]

Judging by what I’ve reas in all these philosophy threads, I would say the age of unreason.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Judging by what I’ve reas in all these philosophy threads, I would say the age of unreason.

God Bless,
Michael

So, if philosophy is to respond reasonably to unreason, what form should philosophy take?

 

[Benedictus]

Its very true. Look at Richard Dawkins, the poor sod.

For the sake of a good discussion, what if we approach the issue from the opposite direction? Can you reason a believer out of his belief in God? Very few people arrived at their belief in God through the use of reason. If there were good arguments for not believing in God, would the typical believer accept them?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Benedictus:

For the sake of a good discussion, what if we approach the issue from the opposite direction?

OK. Take us there.

Benedictus:

Can you reason a believer out of his belief in God?

This is not the same question as the question below. I say yes. Or at least with pseudo-reason.

Benedictus:

Very few people arrived at their belief in God through the use of reason.

But it is possible to do so? Some people can?

Benedictus:

If there were good arguments for not believing in God, would the typical believer accept them?

Define ‘typical believer’ please. But just so that I don’t come off as being difficult, let me say that I believe you are onto something.

How much of what we profess to believe is the result of reason and how much of what we profess to believe is the result of unexamined emotion?

Now JP2 has said Faith can never conflict with reason

Yet Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living.

How can we reconcile these two polarities of our journey along the path of experience?

 

[Truthstalker]

Is this true?

No, it is despair. Reason reflects truth. This argues that truth cannot penetrate darkness.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

No, it is despair. Reason reflects truth. This argues that truth cannot penetrate darkness.

I like this. “Truth can penetrate darkness.” You’ve outdone yourself on this one. Thank you.

My next question: how? More specifically: If this is the Age of Unreason and if philosophy is to speak to us in times such as these, then what form must philosophy take?

Thoughts?

 

[Truthstalker]

I like this. “Truth can penetrate darkness.” You’ve outdone yourself on this one. Thank you.

My next question: how? More specifically: If this is the Age of Unreason and if philosophy is to speak to us in times such as these, then what form must philosophy take?

Thoughts?

Philosophy assumed the form of a man and hung Himself between heaven and earth to reconcile them, to reconcile them to Himself.

 

[Benedictus]

Define ‘typical believer’ please. But just so that I don’t come off as being difficult, let me say that I believe you are onto something.

I suspect that for most people, religion is a bit of an accident of birth. Most people belong to a particular religion because they were raised in that religion. Yes, there are converts, but even then, most of them already believed in something (e.g. God, Jesus, etc.) before they reasoned found a new religion. A lot of them found a community they liked and just accepted the community’s beliefs.

Very few people arrived at the existence of God through reason alone. Very few people arrived at the conclusion that Catholicism is the one and only correct religion through reason alone (I’m not sure the Church even says that is possible).

My point is that most people didn’t “reason” themselves into their religious beliefs. So it follows that if Dawkins can’t be reasoned out of his beliefs that he didn’t reason himself into, the same can be said for many believers.

However, all of the above begs the question: is it unreasonable to believe in something without using reason to determine what you should believe?

How much of what we profess to believe is the result of reason and how much of what we profess to believe is the result of unexamined emotion?

To the former: I don’t know. To the latter: a lot.

 

[freesoulhope]

If there were good arguments for not believing in God, would the typical believer accept them?

I dont believe that one can know through any method whatsoever the “Thruth”. I believe that any idea that we take to be the truth, is about what is most likely to be the thruth based on the evidence, and then we can only trust in are capacity to know it. So i think in anything we choose to be the truth, there is an element of faith involved no matter how reasonable that percieved thruth maybe. So faith cannot be percieved as some kind of opposition to the truth. Truth is a matter of what is reasonable, making as less assuptions as possible.

If there where good reasons not to believe, then it would be alot harder to have a reasonable faith. I think on matters of religion and scripture; i can understand why some people find it hard to believe in what a priest or otherwise might reveal to them; and i know that people general come to God out of despair: But there are alot of other reasonable ideas in other spheres of thought that suggest that there is a God, even if we dont know what the intentions or nature of that God is; where as, complete materialism, has no logical/reasonable evidents, suggestive or otherwise for where existents came from in the first place.

On this bases, taking in to account that: we are interactive personal creatures: we have a desire to be good and regognise morality as a way forward to peace and order: We can reason that there is a God, we can concieve of it as a principle, even if we make mistakes or talk fallacys about who that God is: The fact that people through out the ages have been experiencing something that appears to be a divine element trying to comounicate with us, and perform miracles that defy human understanding; Taking all this in to account, i cannot say i know, but i think there is a very good chance that, if there is a God, then that God wants and does try to have a personal and spiritual relationship with us; and on are part, this relationship takes the form of worshiping unltimate perfection or good; and the participation in prayer.

I believe that one can have a reasonable faith.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Benedictus:

I suspect that for most people, religion is a bit of an accident of birth. Most people belong to a particular religion because they were raised in that religion. Yes, there are converts, but even then, most of them already believed in something (e.g. God, Jesus, etc.) before they reasoned found a new religion. A lot of them found a community they liked and just accepted the community’s beliefs.

Do you have any research which supports your believe about “most people”? That would help give us the context.

Benedictus:

Very few people arrived at the existence of God through reason alone.

It’s been a long time since I read it, but what about Saint Bonaventure, The Mind’s Road to God?

what Kant was to say of the relationship between concepts and precepts, the Christian could have said of that between faith and reason, or religion and philosophy: faith without reason is blind, reason without faith empty… The difficulty with the extremists who maintained that either one or the other faculty was sufficient was that faith and reason were both supposed to assert something.

Whether you believed by faith or by reason, you believed in ideas which presumably made sense, could be stated in words, could be true or false. If you believed in one of these truths by faith, without reason, you were in the position of a man who had no knowledge of what he was believing nor why, nor even whether there was any good reason for believing in it rather than its contradictory.

It was all very well for a man like Tertullian to maintain that there was more glory in believing something irrational–inept–than in believing something demonstrably true.

Most Christian philosophers were anxious to put a sound rational underpinning beneath their beliefs… Similarly, if you had only rational knowledge, you were like a blind man who might be convinced that there were such things as colors, analogous to sounds and odors, but who had no direct acquaintance with them; or again like a man who had read an eloquent description of a great painting, but who had never seen it.

The student who has no acquaintance with the philosophy of Saint Bonaventura can do no better than to begin with the Itinerarium.

I don’t have a link for Itinerarium yet. And I have a lot to do today. So if someone else can find the link and post it here, that would be very helpful. Thank you.

The article I have already linked to is very good, but be careful not to proof-text it because it presents many conflicting points of view. Bonaventure’s MR2G is presented in full.

Benedictus:

Very few people arrived at the conclusion that Catholicism is the one and only correct religion through reason alone (I’m not sure the Church even says that is possible). My point is that most people didn’t “reason” themselves into their religious beliefs.

Why do you believe this? There are two poles to science: observational science and theoretical science. Let’s assume as Paul did that faith is described in Hebrews 11:1. That would make it theoretical science.

Benedictus:

So it follows that if Dawkins can’t be reasoned out of his beliefs that he didn’t reason himself into, the same can be said for many believers.

But is your first premise true?

Benedictus:

However, all of the above begs the question: is it unreasonable to believe in something without using reason to determine what you should believe?

Yes, it is.
Ani Ibi:

How much of what we profess to believe is the result of reason and how much of what we profess to believe is the result of unexamined emotion?

Benedictus:

To the former: I don’t know. To the latter: a lot.

So the question is: If this is the Age of Unreason and if philosophy is to speak to us in times such as these, then what forms must philosophy take?

 

[Mickey]

Moreover, the mind of demons, created by God, possesses by nature its faculty of reason. But we do not hold that its activity comes from God, even though its possibility of acting comes from Him; one could with propriety call such reason an unreason. The intellect of pagan philosophers is likewise a divine gift insofar as it naturally possesses a wisdom endowed with reason. But it has been perverted by the wiles of the devil, who has transformed it into a foolish wisdom, wicked and senseless, since it puts forward such doctrines. (St Gregory Palamas)

home.it.com.au/~jgrapsas/pages/Palamas.htm

 

[Ani_Ibi]

I asked Fr Busch today the question in the OP. His homily was about fear. He said that sometimes sheep are sick and they will no longer follow their master’s voice but will follow anyone who calls them. Then they will put their hopes in all sorts of false masters and empty offers.

Fear is often irrational. Hate comes from fear. I have noticed that many folks who hate the Church – note I use the term ‘hate’ not ‘disagree with’ – put themselves in our path. People whose hate of the Church is very very deep don’t come anywhere near us.

So those who put themselves in our path must be expecting some sort of response from us. And that response they must deem to be useful in some way to them.

So how do we respond? Fr Busch said that you can’t reason someone out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into. You can only persist in the happiness of Jesus and what he told us to do. Eventually those searching get it and say to themselves “I want some of that.”

What do folks see in your spiritual journey that makes them want to say, “I want some of that”? Not what you say, but what you do?

 

[utica]

So how do we respond? Fr Busch said that you can’t reason someone out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into. You can only persist in the happiness of Jesus and what he told us to do. Eventually those searching get it and say to themselves “I want some of that.”

What do folks see in your spiritual journey that makes them want to say, “I want some of that”? Not what you say, but what you do?

What if someone believes that they have actually used reason to get to their position, but in fact have not?

For example, many people of good will hold the position that they are personally opposed to abortion but still support abortion laws for others. At the same time, they hold the position that we ought to go forward with embryonic stem cell research, because they believe in the good of scientific research and that it can help alleviate human suffering.

In their support of ESCR, they believe they have used reason to come to their conclusion.

It’s a simple matter to point out that if they support ESCR then it puts into question why they would be personally opposed to abortion in the first place. If they support ESCR, what exactly are they opposed to in abortion?

I think that these people of good will sincerely want to find the truth in the matter. But they are going along believing that we live in a time of reason, when in fact we do not. So a little bit of solid reasoning helps put their positions in doubt. Hopefully, that doubt helps lead them to the truth.

As to what I do rather than what I say, I fear that I may drive more people away than I help. They often think I’m a raving lunatic. I’ve been making some progress with the raving part, but still seem to appear a lunatic nonetheless.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

What if someone believes that they have actually used reason to get to their position, but in fact have not?

I have to run so can’t respond in detail. But Chesterton deals with this in his book on Aquinas. I posted an excerpt on the thread Is Aquinas Overrated?

 

[utica]

Thanks, I’ll take a look at that.

 

[cor]

I suspect that for most people, religion is a bit of an accident of birth. Most people belong to a particular religion because they were raised in that religion. Yes, there are converts, but even then, most of them already believed in something (e.g. God, Jesus, etc.) before they reasoned found a new religion. A lot of them found a community they liked and just accepted the community’s beliefs.

Belief in a supreme reality is almost universal and cross-cultural. Those who are raised in no religion typically believe in a supreme reality as well.

Very few people arrived at the existence of God through reason alone. Very few people arrived at the conclusion that Catholicism is the one and only correct religion through reason alone (I’m not sure the Church even says that is possible).

The Church teaches that the existence of God can be arrived at with certainty through reason alone. I’m not too sure about the second statement; the way you phrased it makes it tricky to evaluate.

I disagree with your statement that “very few people” arrived at the existence of God through reason alone. You seem to, perhaps, be assuming that if they were taught that God exists and sustained that belief through childhood and adolescence that they are not believing it through reason alone. But that’s a false assumption. Believing in something based on reason alone does not require that there was a time when you once did not believe it! If it did, then no one would believe in one’s own existence by reason alone since everyone has always believed in one’s existence. No one would believe in the existence of the sun by reason alone since everyone has always believed in the sun’s existence (it’s not a belief that one “arrives” at from non-belief).

When people are asked, “Why do you believe in God?” my experience has been that they typically give rational reasons for their belief – they believe it, that is, by “reason alone”. Their arguments may not be as sophisticated as some professional philosopher’s but they give rational reasons nonetheless.

My point is that most people didn’t “reason” themselves into their religious beliefs.

Again you are, perhaps, making the mistake of assuming that just because someone didn’t reason their way into something that that means that they don’t believe it by reason alone. No one reasons their way into believing in the existence of the sun – yet belief in the existence of the sun is based on reason alone.

However, all of the above begs the question: is it unreasonable to believe in something without using reason to determine what you should believe?

It’s unreasonable to believe in something without justification.

I think you made some good points in your post.

I would say that what’s significant is not whether someone “reasoned their way” to a belief but whether their belief is based on reason or not, which as I have noted above, is distinct, if subtly so.

There are some things which it is not proper to believe without giving it much deliberative thought but there are other things which it is proper to believe without much deliberative thought at all (for example perceptual beliefs). I would say that belief in God, at least for the child, falls under the latter category. When the child is older and if the belief is challenged, he would be obligated by reason to explore the belief’s justification, IMO.

A Catholic’s duty to hear the magisterium is mediated through his conscience, the “aboriginal vicar of Christ” – I would contend that even a man’s duty to adhere to God is mediated through his conscience – and when it comes to what we believe, my conscience tells me that I need to follow my reason – maybe my conscience is wrong … following my reason leads me to question everything, but I cannot but follow my conscience in my pursuit of truth.