Reason is superior to faith

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Most of the replies here haven’t defended faith, but only attacked reason or implied nothing can ultimately be known. This is worrying, does catholicism really require such denial of the capability to grasp immaterial reality? I also thought of the church as the heir to classical philosophy, but this is a bit insulting to it.
 
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Platonist said:
Again, such blind faith seems insulting to God who is logos.
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No, because it can be reasonable to have faith. For instance is it reasonable to believe that God has communicated with his creation? It can be reasonable to believe so if you trust the source and agree with the likelihood that God would communicate with people, but you still have to faith because such knowledge cannot be known directly through reason alone. And neither does knowledge through faith have to be blind.

Do you trust scripture, divine revelation? Without faith such knowledge is lost to us.

Some things are a question of trust, not just reason alone.
 
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An interesting article on axioms, the foundation of logic and faith.

www.dominicanajournal.org

Axioms of Faith

One of the greatest joys that I have found in my religious life as a Dominican friar has been the opportunity to use my previous studies in mathematics to talk about matters of the Catholic faith; …
www.dominicanajournal.org www.dominicanajournal.org
 
I think it is necessary to define your terms here. You keep saying “blind faith”, etc so I think a difference in definition is hampering the discussion.

Faith involves an assent to that which is divinely revealed, which is ultimately reasonable.
 
Yes. But it can’t be known, only believed. I guess the issue is, a geometry textbook seems to be closer to God’s reality than scripture.
 
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Mmarco said:
I never meant anything like that.
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The “God of the philosphers” is God. The greeks had a better understanding of the reality of God and transcendent being than the hebrews.
 
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I believe that true faith–not blind faith nor overzealous faith–is superior to reason. To believe without knowing for sure but taking reason into account is, to me, the highest form of belief. Doubting is part of our human nature, if for no other reason that we realize we are mortal and limited in our reason. Therefore, to be able to overcome doubt through faith requires a leap of faith by means of the grace of Gd. Nonetheless, there is something superior even to faith, and that is love.
 
Platonist said:
Yes. But it can’t be known, only believed. I guess the issue is, a geometry textbook seems to be closer to God’s reality than scripture.
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What cannot be known and only believed? What is the “it” here?
Yes, I agree, a geometry textbook can tell us about God. But Scripture tells us much more when properly understood. Ultimately, though, God is 3 Persons, and we can know Him personally. I won’t get that from a geometry textbook. I wouldn’t know how to live and order my life. I wouldn’t know that I had to lift up my cross and follow Him.
 
Kei said:
What cannot be known and only believed? What is the “it” here?
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The Triune God (maybe–this could possibly be arrived at logically), the Incarnation, just Catholicism in general, really.
 
We can know God through a living faith.

Once again, I think you need to define your terms clearly.

To (perhaps poorly) paraphrase St Thomas Aquinas, faith is more certain than mere human reason in regard to its cause, because its cause is Divine Truth. It is less certain (here concerned with the more the intellect can lay ahold of a thing) in regard to its subject, as matters of Faith are above human intellect.
Faith is more certain simply, but less certain relatively.
 
Kei said:
To (perhaps poorly) paraphrase St Thomas Aquinas, faith is more certain than mere human reason in regard to its cause, because its cause is Divine Truth. It is less certain (here concerned with the more the intellect can lay ahold of a thing) in regard to its subject, as matters of Faith are above human intellect.
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Stuff like this is what makes me leery of Aquinas. Its cause is divine truth? Even “faith” in things which are wrong, ie Islam? No of course not, because thats not true faith. But how do we know what is human error and what is divine revelation? You ultimately can’t know, only believe. This is the problem with faith. God is approached through knowledge of the truth, not through taking a chance with a “roulette wheel” of belief.
 
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Platonist said:
Stuff like this is what makes me leery of Aquinas. Its cause is divine truth? Even “faith” in things which are wrong, ie Islam? No of course not, because thats not true faith. But how do we know what is human error and what is divine revelation? You ultimately can’t know, only believe. This is the problem with faith. God is approached through knowledge of the truth, not through taking a chance with a “roulette wheel” of belief.
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Once again, please define faith.

The true Faith, whatever it is, would have a more certain cause than our mere reasoning capabilities, no?

Pretty sure you aren’t expected to just randomly pick a religion and hope it’s right…
 
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Platonist said:
God is Reason itself, the logos of the universe, pure knowledge and being, etc etc. You cannot approach God without knowing him. If you dont know of God, how could you even begin to raise your spirit to him?

It seems that reason or knowledge (gnosis) is the only proper way to “commune” with God. Faith (ie belief in what you do not know) seems like it would be insulting to God, who is knowledge itself. Wisdom and virtue all come from knowledge of the Good.

Why is faith considered the highest virtue then? Why should Knowledge cherish ignorance? Faith doesnt seem like it should even be a virtue. It seems insulting to God. Where is my thinking wrong on this?
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Revelation, supernaturally originated as it necessarily is, goes beyond what reason can aspire to on its own. Faith is the acknowledgment and acceptance of that revelation. No one can know the enormous love of God in any immediate -and reason satisfying manner, incidentally- sense just by pondering, by coming to know something of and about Him via reason alone.
 
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Platonist said:
Lol, if you give credence to any philosophical system from nominalism on, you might not have the capacity to discuss actual reason.
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Which is not any sort of argument but rather a “horse laugh,” I suppose?
Platonist said:
I didn’t make this thread to teach metaphysics 101, read about it on your own
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Also not an argument. Best wishes to you in your persistence in your varying beliefs that you try to pass off as (somehow) knowledge.
 
Reason alone cannot truly lead to God. This was discovered by Descartes, who found that by reason alone, everything can be doubted, except one’s own existence.
 
. . . . Cartesian cosmology is incoherent and unreasonable, a product of nominalist ignorance/bad education.
 
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Platonist said:
How do we know whats revelation? Through faith?
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Through grace, which faith is a gift of. Why should the God, arrived at via human reason alone, need to conflict with the ever more completely known God revealed by Himself? That should only serve as a welcome vindication of the concepts that reason, limited as it is in such matters, can determine.
 
Platonist said:
I did in the OP.
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I see no definition in the OP.
Platonist said:
Why would there be a true “faith”? God is reason itself, how can he approached if not through true knowledge?
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He CAN be approached through true philosophy and reason. However, reason alone can only tell us so much. So, if He desired us to know more than only reason can tell us, indeed have a relationship with Him, then He would reveal it.

Not to mention human reason can be flawed and succumb to fallacies or axiomatic errors.
 
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