Reason, is Fr. Barron doing it wrong?

[JiminyCricket]

wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/June-2014-(1)/Bill-Maher-and-Not-Understanding-Either-Faith-or-t.aspx

A friend of mine posted the above article and when I got to the third paragraph I became very frustrated. He suggested I post my response here. It was specifically this passage that threw me:

“Real faith is not infra-rational but rather supra-rational, that is to say, not below reason but above reason and inclusive of it. “

Father Barron is attempting attempting to defend the rationality of Faith by describing it as ‘supra-rational’. This doesn’t make any sense to me. First of all, Faith does defy rationality. We all know this, this is why we’ve all struggled with faith from time to time. If it were completely rational then we wouldn’t call it faith, we’d call it a plausible hypothesis and there wouldn’t be any need for apologists to write articles like these. Even if you accept St. Thomas Aquinas cosmological argument for a first cause, there is still a huge gap between the big bang and the virgin birth and resurrection. A god of the first cause gap doesn’t get you a virgin birth. Virgins do not give birth. This is but one of several extraordinary claims made in the apostles creed. To believe these claims without very good evidence is not rational. So what does Father Barron actually mean by supra-rational?

“It is beyond reason precisely because it is a response to the God who has revealed himself, and God is, by definition, beyond our capacity to grasp, to see, fully to understand. “

It’s beyond reason to believe in something that…has revealed itself (how?)…but is also impossible to see (no evidence), or understand (defying reason)? No, I strongly disagree. To call something ‘beyond reason’ you need to first achieve reason, and then go further somehow.

In fairness, it appears that theoretical physicists do this all the time. They discover from evidence that certain forces must exist, they develop mathematical models that may fill the gap. But here’s the critical difference: they then look for evidence to support and disprove their hypothesis. That’s one critical element of rationality: an active, inquiring self-doubt. The other critical element is that they never assume anything is unknowable. An axiom like ‘God is unknowable’ ends the conversation for rationality.

The only way I can make sense of Father Barron’s argument that Faith is supra-rational is to imagine that what he actually means is Faith is more important than reason. It’s clearly more important to him. Father Barron is trying to reclaim reason for the faithful, but is unable to conjure a rational argument for doing so. This leads me to the question I came here to ask: Why is he bothering? Isn’t the value of Faith largely due to it being a struggle? Didn’t Jesus say something like: “you need only believe in me and you will be saved”? If this belief were rational, wouldn’t he have been able to say “you need only think about it for a minute, and consider the evidence…”? I’m not saying this to be a wise-***. It seems obvious to me that if the claims of the apostles creed were mundanely rational, you (the faithful) wouldn’t need it any more. You wouldn’t feel the swell of solidarity chanting the apostles creed at mass. You wouldn’t struggle with your Faith and pray and go through a heart-wrenching confession and come out on the other side feeling stronger in your Faith. That experience is real, and I don’t doubt that it has real value for many people. I am here, a defender of reason on an apologists forum asking the question: do you have a better argument for the rationality of the Catholic Faith than Father Barron, or is your Faith, as a lived experience, simply more important to you than the less mystical experience of rational inquiry?

 

[Casilda]

Hebrews 11 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

1 Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.
2 For by this the ancients obtained a testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God; that from invisible things visible things might be made.

Hebrews 11 New Century Version (NCV)

What Is Faith?
1 Faith means being sure of the things we hope for and knowing that something is real even if we do not see it. 2 Faith is the reason we remember great people who lived in the past.
3 It is by faith we understand that the whole world was made by God’s command so what we see was made by something that cannot be seen.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I think you are judging Fr. Barron’s comments too harshly. Could he have said it better? No doubt. You have to remember that he wasn’t writing a dissertation, he was merely commenting, no the spur of the moment, to something that irritated him. Certainly the articles of Faith as enumerated in the Creeds consist of things that can be known only by faith. But they are not opposed to reason. As Fr. Barron said, they are beyond reason. But there are reasons, and good ones, why we accept them ( The Divine Revelation itself, the credibility of the Church and so on.).

Even the ordinary teaching of the Magisterium must be accepted on faith by those who don’t understand the reasons why the Church holds those teachings ( i.e homosexual unions or " marriage " are intrinsically evil and thus seriously evil and scandelous ).

Linus2nd

 

[JiminyCricket]

Linus2nd: You claim to have good reasons to consider Faith above reason, citing the ancient tome and the cabal of theologians you trust to interpret it. These are both appeals to authority, which is exactly the tactic that Father Barron used next:
”
“I would invite you to read any page of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton and honestly ask yourself the question, “Does this sound like someone who has suspended his critical faculties?

My response would be yes! We are, every one of us, flawed and capable of both rational thought and irrational thought. Neither appeals to authority, nor human testimony should hold much weight in rational discourse. This is because you and I and Augustine are all riddled with preconceived notions and biases. The only reasons that are in fact good reasons have either good evidence or good rational argument to support them.

Linus2nd, how would you argue that Faith is “beyond reason”? You and Father Barron have both asserted this, but without any kind of reasonable argument. It still sounds to me like you simply value faith more than you value reason.

Casilda: Thank you for that quote, it’s new one to me. I find it validating of my point of view that Faith is more about what we hope to be true than what is actually true. To quote Fr. Barron:

“It is an ersatz “knowing” that falls short of the legitimate standards of reason.”

Thank you both for engaging me on this,
JC

 

[ynotzap]

Faith is reasonable, it is not opposed to reason for the Author of Faith is also the /Author of reason. As a matter of fact this is what St,Thomas, St. Augustine and others proved, St.Thomas synthesized reason and faith. Faith is a gift, not a product of reason, and it is above reason because it is based on Divinely revealed truth that reason could never approach.
St,Paul even stated that the existence of God could be proven by the use of reason when contemplating the created world. St, Thomas proposes several ways to by the use of reason to prove the existence of God. But it through faith that we can identify God in Jesus Christ, the IAm Who Am. It is faith that reveals this to us. By the facts of history and traditions we see Jesus as a real personality by the testimony of the Apostles, ordinary men who accomplished tremendous things in the propagation of the Faith, and we also have the testimony of the saints. So there is no conflict between reason and Faith, but Faith goes beyond reason and is not in conflict with reason. If we find conflict it is because we do not understand the relationship.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus2nd: You claim to have good reasons to consider Faith above reason, citing the ancient tome and the cabal of theologians you trust to interpret it. These are both appeals to authority, which is exactly the tactic that Father Barron used next:
”
“I would invite you to read any page of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton and honestly ask yourself the question, “Does this sound like someone who has suspended his critical faculties?

My response would be yes! We are, every one of us, flawed and capable of both rational thought and irrational thought. Neither appeals to authority, nor human testimony should hold much weight in rational discourse. This is because you and I and Augustine are all riddled with preconceived notions and biases. The only reasons that are in fact good reasons have either good evidence or good rational argument to support them.

Linus2nd, how would you argue that Faith is “beyond reason”? You and Father Barron have both asserted this, but without any kind of reasonable argument. It still sounds to me like you simply value faith more than you value reason.

Casilda: Thank you for that quote, it’s new one to me. I find it validating of my point of view that Faith is more about what we hope to be true than what is actually true. To quote Fr. Barron:

“It is an ersatz “knowing” that falls short of the legitimate standards of reason.”

Thank you both for engaging me on this,
JC

You forget that Catholics have good reasons for believing what the Church teaches. I am talking about the authority of Divine Revelation and Christ’s promise that the Church would never err in transmitting the truth of Christ’s Revelation. To us that is reasonable. But reason alone cannot attain to these truths.

Linus2nd

 

[MPat]

First of all, Faith does defy rationality. We all know this, this is why we’ve all struggled with faith from time to time.

Actually, in most cases those “struggles” are caused by emotions and not by reason. Look around this forum and you’ll find some examples, where someone finds it hard to believe, because of some death or suffering. But let’s look at Catholicism as a hypothesis: does it predict that death and suffering will not occur? No, actually it predicts that all of us are mortal and all will have to carry a cross. Thus any instance of death or suffering actually supports Catholicism (although extremely weakly) rather than being contrary to it. Thus, is it rational to have such “struggles”? No, and even more so when one also dismisses the actual arguments that are at least supposed to be contrary to faith. Thus we can see that such “struggles” are caused by emotions, not by reason.

Similar “struggles” happen when, let’s say, someone is scared of travelling by plane and not by car.

If it were completely rational then we wouldn’t call it faith, we’d call it a plausible hypothesis and there wouldn’t be any need for apologists to write articles like these.

By that reasoning one would have to claim that it is not completely rational to say that aliens haven’t visited Earth, as otherwise no one would be actually saying that… It doesn’t look like a feature of good reasoning.

Even if you accept St. Thomas Aquinas cosmological argument for a first cause, there is still a huge gap between the big bang and the virgin birth and resurrection. A god of the first cause gap doesn’t get you a virgin birth. Virgins do not give birth. This is but one of several extraordinary claims made in the apostles creed. To believe these claims without very good evidence is not rational.

And why do you think it is not rational…? It is easy to say so, but can you give an actual argument?

 

[JiminyCricket]

Linus2d: In my previous post I attempted to explain why I think appeals to the Divine Revelation and the credibility of the church are not good reasons. The gist is that extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed. The book itself does not constitute good evidence because as Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard have recently demonstrated, anyone can write a book and kick off a religion. Joseph Smith’s revelation also asserts that his church is inerrant. Revelations are a dime a dozen, why are you sure yours is the correct one?

MPat: We usually don’t believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence because to do so is dangerous! I’ve invented a nuclear fission powered car. It’s perfectly safe! Would you like to go for a ride? I have a goose that lays golden eggs, which can be yours for only 1,000,000.00 USD. MPat if you are thinking rationally, you should recognize the danger of being wrong, and you should demand evidence. Do you ever want less information before making a decision? (or did I misunderstand your challenge…were you asking for an argument against Aquinas?)

Thank you both again for discussing this with me. I know that I may be risking offense with my position on this issue, and that was not my intention. I was honestly confused by what Father Barron was claiming with his use of the term supra-rational. To be perfectly honest I imagined 2 responses to my original post:

1. “here’s a rational argument for the God of Abraham that you may not have heard!..”
2. “Yeah, we know it’s not rational, but it’s more important and here’s why…” basically a fidiest perspective.

I didn’t hear either of them did I? I’ve learned something! Based on the responses here, you believe faith and reason are both divine gifts, and both offer access to exclusive truths. However you don’t seem to recognize the conflict between them. (please correct me if I’m wrong here, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.) Many of you seem to think Thomas Aquinas hit it out of the park, and are satisfied that your faith is rational, or at least rational enough.

I have to admit that it might boil down to what you think constitutes an extraordinary claim. I have known Intelligent Design advocates who simply can’t see a beautiful thing without imagining God crafted it just for them. For them the idea that there isn’t a creator is an extraordinary claim. I’m sympathetic to that point of view. Our existence as living beings does appear to be remarkably rare in the universe and our consciousness even more so. It’s staggering. However, viewing our circumstances through God of Abraham-tinted glasses clouds the image. It’s more beautiful and more detailed without preconceived notions! I think the articles of faith, with the possible exception of the 4th, are all extraordinary claims, and I think Thomas Aquinas only offered a flawed argument for the 1st one. I think evidence is needed. More information always helps your odds of being correct. Is my thinking on this matter rational?

The claim that Faith is above reason feels like an attempt to remove faith from the scrutiny of reason by elevating it. All of the arguments I’ve heard on this thread seem to be trying to do the same thing. What should qualify something to escape reason? Being a gift from god? That is a circular argument if what you are debating is the existence of God. Nothing should qualify an idea to escape from rational scrutiny. This is what I meant by ‘more important’ than reason. You may not wish to admit it, even to yourself, but you do value faith more highly than reason. When forced to choose, you choose faith and choose to be satisfied with mediocre reasoning. However I trust that since you are all smart people (who read a philosophy forum!) when you are not forced to choose, you are probably all exceptionally rational.

-JC

 

[adawgj]

Linus2d: In my previous post I attempted to explain why I think appeals to the Divine Revelation and the credibility of the church are not good reasons. The gist is that extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed. The book itself does not constitute good evidence because as Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard have recently demonstrated, anyone can write a book and kick off a religion. Joseph Smith’s revelation also asserts that his church is inerrant. Revelations are a dime a dozen, why are you sure yours is the correct one?

MPat: We usually don’t believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence because to do so is dangerous! I’ve invented a nuclear fission powered car. It’s perfectly safe! Would you like to go for a ride? I have a goose that lays golden eggs, which can be yours for only 1,000,000.00 USD. MPat if you are thinking rationally, you should recognize the danger of being wrong, and you should demand evidence. Do you ever want less information before making a decision? (or did I misunderstand your challenge…were you asking for an argument against Aquinas?)

Thank you both again for discussing this with me. I know that I may be risking offense with my position on this issue, and that was not my intention. I was honestly confused by what Father Barron was claiming with his use of the term supra-rational. To be perfectly honest I imagined 2 responses to my original post:

1. “here’s a rational argument for the God of Abraham that you may not have heard!..”
2. “Yeah, we know it’s not rational, but it’s more important and here’s why…” basically a fidiest perspective.

I didn’t hear either of them did I? I’ve learned something! Based on the responses here, you believe faith and reason are both divine gifts, and both offer access to exclusive truths. However you don’t seem to recognize the conflict between them. (please correct me if I’m wrong here, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.) Many of you seem to think Thomas Aquinas hit it out of the park, and are satisfied that your faith is rational, or at least rational enough.

I have to admit that it might boil down to what you think constitutes an extraordinary claim. I have known Intelligent Design advocates who simply can’t see a beautiful thing without imagining God crafted it just for them. For them the idea that there isn’t a creator is an extraordinary claim. I’m sympathetic to that point of view. Our existence as living beings does appear to be remarkably rare in the universe and our consciousness even more so. It’s staggering. However, viewing our circumstances through God of Abraham-tinted glasses clouds the image. It’s more beautiful and more detailed without preconceived notions! I think the articles of faith, with the possible exception of the 4th, are all extraordinary claims, and I think Thomas Aquinas only offered a flawed argument for the 1st one. I think evidence is needed. More information always helps your odds of being correct. Is my thinking on this matter rational?

The claim that Faith is above reason feels like an attempt to remove faith from the scrutiny of reason by elevating it. All of the arguments I’ve heard on this thread seem to be trying to do the same thing. What should qualify something to escape reason? Being a gift from god? That is a circular argument if what you are debating is the existence of God. Nothing should qualify an idea to escape from rational scrutiny. This is what I meant by ‘more important’ than reason. You may not wish to admit it, even to yourself, but you do value faith more highly than reason. When forced to choose, you choose faith and choose to be satisfied with mediocre reasoning. However I trust that since you are all smart people (who read a philosophy forum!) when you are not forced to choose, you are probably all exceptionally rational.

-JC

Those books you mentioned were written by an individual. If it’s the Bible you are referring to as a book to kick start a religion, it is a book of many books and many authors.

I don’t think you have offended us. We love discussion were not Bible thumpers.

May I ask why faith and reason have to conflict? It seems to me that they work as a team.
Aquinas in my opinion did hit a home run, the fact that his work is timeless is quite noble.

May I ask you why is the God of Abraham view clouded and what makes the opposite clear?

 

[Estevao]

Yes I would have to say Fr. Barron is doing it wrong. I see a real discord between what he’s saying and the traditional view on reason found in the Christian tradition, summed up by Aquinas and other great theologians. It doesn’t concern me too much because I don’t put much stock in what Fr. Barron says anyway. He holds to a sort of pseudo-universalism, where there is a “reasonable hope that all may be saved” and that Hell is empty. This is not traditional Catholic teaching and is very close to the heresy of universalism. If Fr. Barron can get the Last Four Things wrong, then he might just get faith and reason wrong too.

wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/June-2014-(1)/Bill-Maher-and-Not-Understanding-Either-Faith-or-t.aspx

A friend of mine posted the above article and when I got to the third paragraph I became very frustrated. He suggested I post my response here. It was specifically this passage that threw me:

“Real faith is not infra-rational but rather supra-rational, that is to say, not below reason but above reason and inclusive of it. “

Father Barron is attempting attempting to defend the rationality of Faith by describing it as ‘supra-rational’. This doesn’t make any sense to me. First of all, Faith does defy rationality. We all know this, this is why we’ve all struggled with faith from time to time. If it were completely rational then we wouldn’t call it faith, we’d call it a plausible hypothesis and there wouldn’t be any need for apologists to write articles like these.

Does the same thing apply to evolution? I had a very tough time believing that the complexity of life is to be explained by natural selection working upon random mutation, so I picked up an Darwinian apologetic book called “Why Evolution is True” by Jerry Coyne and I was convinced. Many people struggle with believing evolution, the Darwinian biologists have not been entirely successful of convincing people of the truth of their beliefs, so there is a need for apologists to write these kinds of books.

Even if you accept St. Thomas Aquinas cosmological argument for a first cause, there is still a huge gap between the big bang and the virgin birth and resurrection. A god of the first cause gap doesn’t get you a virgin birth. Virgins do not give birth. This is but one of several extraordinary claims made in the apostles creed. To believe these claims without very good evidence is not rational. So what does Father Barron actually mean by supra-rational?

“It is beyond reason precisely because it is a response to the God who has revealed himself, and God is, by definition, beyond our capacity to grasp, to see, fully to understand. “

It’s beyond reason to believe in something that…has revealed itself (how?)…but is also impossible to see (no evidence), or understand (defying reason)? No, I strongly disagree. To call something ‘beyond reason’ you need to first achieve reason, and then go further somehow.

Yes, well the thing is that I don’t think any proponent of the First Cause argument has ever stated that the first cause argument works, therefore Jesus is God. That’s why there are several hundred pages after the Five Ways in the Summa Theologiae by Aquinas which argue for the traditional divine attributes and for the rationality of miracles.

Also, who gets to decide what is an “extraordinary claim”? If the metaphysical worldview of Aristotle to Aquinas holds, along with the salvation history of the Old Testament, a miracle such as the incarnation doesn’t appear all that extraordinary.

You know I think I really have to disagree with Fr. Barron. I don’t think faith is beyond reason. You can make the exact same comparison between faith and science. The reason why most people believe in evolution is because their high school biology teachers told them so. But there are some skeptical people very familiar with the material who might be able to poke holes in the theory in their biology class. So said skeptics might have to take a trip to a university biology department, and even then only the best professors are going to be able to answer the claims and doubts of the honest skeptic who is very familiar with the material. It’s the same thing with faith: the vast majority of us believe what our parents or pastor teaches us, but some people need to have more questions answered, so that’s where the great Christian philosophers and theologians come in.

 

[Estevao]

In fairness, it appears that theoretical physicists do this all the time. They discover from evidence that certain forces must exist, they develop mathematical models that may fill the gap. But here’s the critical difference: they then look for evidence to support and disprove their hypothesis. That’s one critical element of rationality: an active, inquiring self-doubt. The other critical element is that they never assume anything is unknowable. An axiom like ‘God is unknowable’ ends the conversation for rationality.

You mentioned St Thomas Aquinas’ cosmological argument above…are you familiar with the way his Summa Theologiae is organized? There are 4 parts, divided into hundreds of “questions” (which we would more likely call articles), and then into thousands of “articles” (which we would more likely call questions). In each of these articles, St. Thomas marshals up the best objections to his position that he can find. So over God’s existence, he begins the article by the header “whether or not God exists”, and then follows it up with all the objections that he can find (which, by the way, are just two [much fewer than normal]: the existence of evil and what we might call the scientific objection, that God is unnecessary to explain things). He then states his position and rebuts each objection. That sounds exactly like what you describe here to me: active and inquiring.

The only way I can make sense of Father Barron’s argument that Faith is supra-rational is to imagine that what he actually means is Faith is more important than reason. It’s clearly more important to him. Father Barron is trying to reclaim reason for the faithful, but is unable to conjure a rational argument for doing so. This leads me to the question I came here to ask: Why is he bothering? Isn’t the value of Faith largely due to it being a struggle? Didn’t Jesus say something like: “you need only believe in me and you will be saved”? If this belief were rational, wouldn’t he have been able to say “you need only think about it for a minute, and consider the evidence…”? I’m not saying this to be a wise-***. It seems obvious to me that if the claims of the apostles creed were mundanely rational, you (the faithful) wouldn’t need it any more. You wouldn’t feel the swell of solidarity chanting the apostles creed at mass. You wouldn’t struggle with your Faith and pray and go through a heart-wrenching confession and come out on the other side feeling stronger in your Faith. That experience is real, and I don’t doubt that it has real value for many people. I am here, a defender of reason on an apologists forum asking the question: do you have a better argument for the rationality of the Catholic Faith than Father Barron, or is your Faith, as a lived experience, simply more important to you than the less mystical experience of rational inquiry?

I think this is a little unfair to Fr. Barron. I don’t think he was defending the faith with argumentation in this article, but just trying to explain what faith is. Also IMO this paragraph is mostly a psychological objection to what Catholics do and believe, both against us and against you. Psychological objections just really boil down to a genetic fallacy. People might have doubts borne out of inquisitiveness, or they might have doubts borne out of an unwillingness to look into the evidence for Christianity, and just assume that it’s all BS or there isn’t any at all. (I’ve heard this put as the modus tollens objection to Theism:

1. If this argument is true, then atheism is false.
2. But Atheism isn’t false.
   C. Therefore, this argument isn’t true)

Or they may have a tough time believing that the Apostles’ creed is true, but people also have a tough time believing that evolution is true. But whatever the case, a psychological state of a person has nothing to do with the veracity of the belief itself.

Yes I think there are better defenses of the rationality of faith. The classical Christian position is that faith and reason do not contradict because truth does not contradict truth. There has been some falling away from this position in reaction to the Enlightenment in some fundamentalist American Christian circles, and also in the straw-men of pop-atheists today who say again and again that “faith is belief without evidence”, but it is not the position of classical theism. Here are some works which I think more faithfully defend the work of Classical Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas:

“Faith and Reason”, by St. John Paul II (particularly paragraph 34 and the footnote) (For free here: ewtn.com/library/encyc/jp2fides.htm)
“The One Minute Aquinas”, by Kevin Vost
“The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism” by Edward Feser (who runs an excellent blog here: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/ - there are many posts which defend classical theism here, but most of them presuppose that you have read his book)
“The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas”, lecture series by Peter Kreeft:
audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/The-Modern-Scholar-Audiobook/B002UZHPWY/
(just in case books and reading aren’t your thing)

 

[Estevao]

OP this article appears to be more about the Bible than the relationship between faith and reason. Since I don’t really dislike Fr. Barron because I think he appeals to left wingers and secularists and does a service in that regard (he just doesn’t appeal to right wingers like me)

I think he does a better job defending his position in this video:

youtube.com/watch?v=GcH_5Iecu5s

 

[MPat]

Thank you both again for discussing this with me. I know that I may be risking offense with my position on this issue, and that was not my intention. I was honestly confused by what Father Barron was claiming with his use of the term supra-rational. To be perfectly honest I imagined 2 responses to my original post:

1. “here’s a rational argument for the God of Abraham that you may not have heard!..”
2. “Yeah, we know it’s not rational, but it’s more important and here’s why…” basically a fidiest perspective.

I didn’t hear either of them did I? I’ve learned something! Based on the responses here, you believe faith and reason are both divine gifts, and both offer access to exclusive truths. However you don’t seem to recognize the conflict between them. (please correct me if I’m wrong here, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.) Many of you seem to think Thomas Aquinas hit it out of the park, and are satisfied that your faith is rational, or at least rational enough.

Well, if you want, there is a very long blog post by Edward Feser - “Pre-Christian Apologetics” (edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/05/pre-christian-apologetics.html) - with an outline of a series of arguments (just an outline, thus one would have to look for arguments themselves elsewhere) that could slowly lead one from almost nothing to Christianity.

But in the original post you didn’t ask for a different argument. You have said that, in your opinion, “Faith does defy rationality” and it is not compatible with what Fr. Barron wrote.

And I think it would be a good idea to find out what exactly did you mean. I suspect that “Faith” meant Catholicism, but I don’t know what exactly did you mean by “does defy rationality”. Does it mean “is self contradicting”? Or “is not possible to understand completely”? Or “cannot be reached by reason without revelation”? Or something else?

In different cases different answers could be offered. For example, Catholicism is not self-contradicting and it is relatively easy to respond to a contrary claim (let’s say, with “Can you show an example?” etc.).

That’s why I asked why do say that “To believe these claims without very good evidence is not rational.” - with the hope that the answer will clarify things a little.

MPat: We usually don’t believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence because to do so is dangerous! I’ve invented a nuclear fission powered car. It’s perfectly safe! Would you like to go for a ride? I have a goose that lays golden eggs, which can be yours for only 1,000,000.00 USD. MPat if you are thinking rationally, you should recognize the danger of being wrong, and you should demand evidence. Do you ever want less information before making a decision? (or did I misunderstand your challenge…were you asking for an argument against Aquinas?)

Actually, it does not show what it was supposed to. What could be demonstrated by such examples is something like “If acting upon some belief could be dangerous, do not adopt it without checking it really well.”. But that would simply run into Pascal’s Wager, as rejecting Catholicism mistakenly might be more dangerous than accepting it mistakenly. Are you really ready to demand extraordinary evidence before rejecting Catholicism…?

Still, the answer would seem to indicate that you are interested in “rational choice” that maximises some “gain” and minimises some “loss”.

I have to admit that it might boil down to what you think constitutes an extraordinary claim.

Yes, it would be nice to have a definition. It is hard to find out why “extraordinary claims” should need “extraordinary evidence”, if we do not even know what they are…

I think the articles of faith, with the possible exception of the 4th, are all extraordinary claims, and I think Thomas Aquinas only offered a flawed argument for the 1st one. I think evidence is needed. More information always helps your odds of being correct. Is my thinking on this matter rational?

Well, sometimes we have to use the evidence we actually have rather than complaining that we’d like to have more of it. In fact, sometimes using the evidence that is available is more rational than getting more evidence. There is such thing as “search costs” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_cost).

And I’d say we are dealing with such a case here. That is, we will all get much more evidence after the death. But it is not very rational to wait until then, when we have to make decisions (for example, “Should I go to the church this Sunday?”) much sooner.

 

[JiminyCricket]

Adawgj: Faith and reason are in conflict because when we begin rational inquiry under the assumption that God exists we are doing it wrong. The existence of god hasn’t been proved, and so one of our premises is potentially false, therefor any argument we make using that premise is invalid. The other problem is that even if we don’t use the existence of God as a premise we are still prone to confirmation bias. This is where Thomas Aquinas went astray. He identified the need for a first cause, but he had no justification (evidence or rationale) to call it the God of Abraham rather than Brahma or Osiris. In fact he didn’t have justification to bestow this entity or force with any properties at all except the ability to cause existence. The first cause may very well be an undiscovered natural force with no consciousness or intent at all. The first cause also may well have been a conscious entity who ceased to exist the moment the universe began.

Of course there is also the problem of what caused God. The first cause argument sets up an infinite regress. I’ve read apologists describing a point of view where God, existing outside space and time, needn’t precede the existence of the universe chronologically, and in their fervor describe a situation where God is creating reality continuously from moment to moment. By this view, time has no meaning for God and so God doesn’t need a first cause. This argument strikes me as pure conjecture (no evidence that moment to moment creation is needed, and no evidence that such an entity is possible), and gives God such a vague and expansive a definition as to justify an ignostic stance.

I think if you take Thomas Aquinas’s arguments as proof of the existence of the God of Abraham, you are like him, suffering from confirmation bias.

 

[JiminyCricket]

Estevao: Thank you so much for your thorough responses! I was unaware that Fr. Barron represents a non-traditional point of view.

Also IMO this paragraph is mostly a psychological objection to what Catholics do and believe, both against us and against you. Psychological objections just really boil down to a genetic fallacy. People might have doubts borne out of inquisitiveness, or they might have doubts borne out of an unwillingness to look into the evidence for Christianity, and just assume that it’s all BS or there isn’t any at all.

What I was attempting to do is turn a mirror on the doctrine of faith, and show that in practice it serves a powerful social and psychological purpose. If faith were easy, it seems obvious to me, it would lose it’s power to bond the faithful. It would be as global and uninteresting as enjoying Coke. The doctrine of faith is a crucial survival mechanism for the meme of Christianity. This does not constitute a claim that it’s untrue, but it does reveal the reason for it being a persistent part of our culture whether or not it’s true. All successful ideologies appear to contain a powerful psychological hook of some kind.

Also, who gets to decide what is an “extraordinary claim”? If the metaphysical worldview of Aristotle to Aquinas holds, along with the salvation history of the Old Testament, a miracle such as the incarnation doesn’t appear all that extraordinary.

I’ve admitted that we each might have a different definition for what is an extraordinary claim, however, we need to value evidence above anything else, because you can drop evidence on your foot. There is no doubt that it’s real. Folklore, such as the contents of the bible, is not good evidence because so little of it is verifiable. Meanwhile, we know through science and centuries of record keeping that virgin births are impossible and resurrection is impossible (or at least it is without a modern hospital). Not only do our sciences, our records, and our common sense tell us that those are extraordinary claims, but the simple fact that these attributes of Jesus are held up(without evidence) as evidence of his divinity should tell us that they are extraordinary. If Jesus had acknowledged his human biological father, performed no miracles, suffered, died, been buried, and stayed dead, then he wouldn’t be touted as supernatural would he? Of course these claims are extraordinary! If you hold a metaphysical world view in spite of a lack of evidence, then your worldview itself is an extraordinary claim.

 

[JiminyCricket]

Or they may have a tough time believing that the Apostles’ creed is true, but people also have a tough time believing that evolution is true. But whatever the case, a psychological state of a person has nothing to do with the veracity of the belief itself.

Your comparison of the two is unfair. As you know there is an overwhelming volume of evidence supporting natural selection, and not one well documented case of a virgin birth, life after death or any evidence of a heavenly kingdom. Clearly one claim is more extraordinary than the other, and the difference has nothing to do with the psychology of the observer.

Thank you for the suggested reading. Thomas Aquinas, a very smart, rational man had very little knowledge of the universe and only a Christian Aristotelian world view for context. We now know that the immovable mover is nonsensical under special relativity, and with an inflationary universe. Matter/energy can and does change state without cause (quantum flux), a first cause is not necessarily needed under string theory, and why should the first cause be Yahweh?. The argument from contingency is a tautology and an argument from ignorance (any god or space aliens would work too). The argument from perfection’s second premise is bunk. Why must there exist such an entity, and if there is a God for love is there also one for the properties of evil and ticklishness? The teleological argument does not stand up to scrutiny, natural selection explains complexity, and the universe does not appear hospitable now that we’ve seen more of it, and once again, why the God of Abraham? “Faith and Reason” is utterly unconvincing to a skeptic because it only refers back to scripture (and occasionally Galileo and your erstwhile hero Thomas). It boils down to: Faith and Reason are compatible because the bible says so!

I’m not rattling off these arguments against Thomas to be glib, I just assume that they have been well trod elsewhere on these forums. If they are new to you, I can elaborate. I also don’t mean to make it sound as if refuting the Five Ways has been easy. His confirmation bias was evident from the beginning, but It’s only very recently that we have had plausible competing theories for the origins of the universe and they are not easy to understand. They don’t follow common sense, but they do work.

Thanks for the link to Fr. Barron’s video. His metaphor of falling in love helps explain what he means by supra-rational, although I think a better term for what he’s describing is post-rational. As he describes it you try to know the Lord through reason, and you can know a lot, but at some point to truly know him you have to stop using reason, surrender, and fall in love. He says the church resists a rationalism that is aggressive and controlling. That’s exactly what I’ve found, poor church can’t take the heat! His romantic metaphor is ridiculous because the girl probably doesn’t exist and skeptics are not looking for her, they’re trying to talk sense into the poor sap who is smitten but can’t explain why. Man! I’m getting frustrated again. Father Barron can sure get me riled up. I need to stop.

Thank you once again everyone, I have more nuanced understanding of the Catholic Faith today than I did yesterday. I still don’t think it’s rational, largely because its rife with the inherent confirmation bias of Thomism, and the under-valuing of evidence. But there clearly is a thread of Aristotelian reason that one can follow to bolster ones faith if so inclined. That same thread however can be debunked if you are so inclined and up to date on your science. As I am. I’ve spent too much time on this thread over the last few days, and need to get some work done, but if anyone else has some suggested reading or watching for me I’ll come back to it.

-JC

 

[MPat]

Adawgj: Faith and reason are in conflict because when we begin rational inquiry under the assumption that God exists we are doing it wrong. The existence of god hasn’t been proved, and so one of our premises is potentially false, therefor any argument we make using that premise is invalid. The other problem is that even if we don’t use the existence of God as a premise we are still prone to confirmation bias. This is where Thomas Aquinas went astray. He identified the need for a first cause, but he had no justification (evidence or rationale) to call it the God of Abraham rather than Brahma or Osiris. In fact he didn’t have justification to bestow this entity or force with any properties at all except the ability to cause existence. The first cause may very well be an undiscovered natural force with no consciousness or intent at all. The first cause also may well have been a conscious entity who ceased to exist the moment the universe began.

Of course there is also the problem of what caused God. The first cause argument sets up an infinite regress. I’ve read apologists describing a point of view where God, existing outside space and time, needn’t precede the existence of the universe chronologically, and in their fervor describe a situation where God is creating reality continuously from moment to moment. By this view, time has no meaning for God and so God doesn’t need a first cause. This argument strikes me as pure conjecture (no evidence that moment to moment creation is needed, and no evidence that such an entity is possible), and gives God such a vague and expansive a definition as to justify an ignostic stance.

I think if you take Thomas Aquinas’s arguments as proof of the existence of the God of Abraham, you are like him, suffering from confirmation bias.

That argument is not meant to demonstrate the existence of “God of Abraham”. It is just one of steps, demonstrating the existence of “God”. Later we find out that this “God” is one, unchanging etc. Then, for example, that “one” should rule out “Osiris”.

And “Of course there is also the problem of what caused God.” sounds as silly, as a try to disprove the number theory with “a problem of what natural number comes before 1”. “1” is defined as the lowest natural number. No natural number comes before it. Likewise, if there is a “first cause” (and at that point “God” is just a shorthand for “a first cause”), it is silly to ask what caused it.

I’d say you should read edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html before commenting about arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas…

 

[Patty23]

The issue won’t be settled since faith and reason since both “methodologies” are very different.

The points on this thread are:

1. Faith is supra-rational
2. Faith defy rationality
3. Faith is more important than reason.

Philosophy and logic can only go so far and it will always come short for giving a sufficient reason for doing things.

Nietzche was right, suppose there’s truth (God), why choose truth rather than untruth?

I struggled to answer that question and I came to the conclusion suppose Zeus was real, I may follow and admire him but I don’t think I will ever love him.

That’s why argue that the only “logical” reason why one should love God is because there’s a a fundamental difference than merely a God-mortal relationship, but a father-son relationshp.

Okay we can still go on and say, what is the “oughtness” of a son to follow his father. We can stop there for now bcause I think if you still truly doubt that then there must be something seriously wrong. I can doubt why green is green more than why I should love my dad.

You might be wondering what’s the connection.

1. Faith is supra-rational:

Faith is supra-rational in the sense that conforming to the truth through faith is nobler than conforming to the truth via logic.

e.g. Dad says to a 5 year old to take paracetamol. While in fact it’s laudable that the 5 yr. old arrives at the conclusion that paracetamol does in fact cure headaches, it’s still nobler to just follow his daddy first and then research second.

1. Faith defy rationality:

Faith doesn’t defy rationality it just beyond reason. We can reason why we should or shouldn’t follow our teacher but we can’t reason out why we should love our parents, it’s not irrational, it’s just not based on reason.

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot understand” - Pascal

1. Faith is more important than reason.

Keep in mind that God is best understood as father and not as science or science, and he is in fact a father not just an analogy of a father. Sartre the atheist agreed that the only reason life can be meaningful is if real genuine love exists. Sufficient reason ends and is only satisfied when love is present. You cannot argue love.

I’m not confusing faith with love, but you can see they’re intertwined.

 

[abucs]

Cricket,

there is a well known saying that insanity does not occur because one loses his reason, but when one has nothing left but his reason.

For the Christian, reason is but one great attribute of the source of life we call God. In this way reason is supra-rational along with beauty, love and justice.

We use our rational brains within the context of our limited existence. there is nothing wrong with that, but we realise it can only ever be a partial look at reality.

Joining our spirits to God is to experience, glorify and pursue reality in its fullness, including reason.

For many, including myself, it is the very definition of sanity and ultimate reality.

 

[Jaaanosik]

Very nice thread, thanks all contributing.

It’s important to analyze and to understand what’s being discussed.
Here are some observations about faith and reason.

• there is a subject - one’s mind
• the mind builds an understanding of the world - a model/concept - out of building blocks
• some building blocks are based on reason/logic - supported by evidence and/or sound logic
• some building blocks are based on faith - accepted without any evindence
• the resulting model of the world is mix of both types of building blocks

The above describes the process happening in one’s mind. The reason and faith work together in understanding of the world.

Then there is a completely new discussion about objects of the faith and the authority that teaches them.

This is independent of the religion. It works the same way in science, …