Reason and Faith - Take Number 1
Rollins Chapel
Dartmouth College
Richard R. Crocker, Ph.D., College Chaplain
February 1, 2007
Text: Psalm 8
There is, in our academic culture, a resurgence of evangelical
atheism. Scholars like Richard Hawkins, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, and
others have become convinced that scientists, in particular, have a duty to
protest against the undue deference given to religion in our culture generally
and in the academy in particular. They are convinced that reason and religion
are antithetical, and that one must choose between one and the other. Their
stance is of course not entirely new; similar arguments have been made at
various times in western culture, but these men, in their latest writings, have
renewed the critique of religion in a spirit that is fiercely evangelical. They
believe it is their duty to bring the gospel of science to benighted religious
believers.
One can of course understand, partly, their animus. Some of them are
reacting, as scientists, to the popular misunderstandings of science that have
been perpetuated by some religious believers who have been attempting to cloak
their particular religious beliefs in a pseudo-scientific jargon. I understand
their frustration. I get similarly irritated when people who know nothing about
Christianity speak authoritatively about it.
So the challenge for me today, and for the next few weeks, is to speak about
the relationship between faith and reason in a way that is helpful and
clarifying, without being either defensive or inaccurate. I will try to do
that. And I invite each of you to suggest someone - either yourself or someone
else - who might be invited to speak on this topic at one of our forthcoming
chapel services. I will be pleased to issue an invitation to anyone who wants
to address the subject, provided they confine their remarks to ten minutes!
I attended a mass at Aquinas House last Sunday celebrating the feast day of
St Thomas Aquinas. For those of you who are unacquainted with Aquinas, it is
important to know that this 13th century scholar - later saint - is best known
for his attempt to combine faith and reason - or to show how reason leads -
almost - to belief in God. He confessed that it does not lead the whole way,
just part of the way. The bridge is revelation. We can not get all the way to
belief in God through reason, but we can get most of the way.
Aquinas's synthesis has been largely rejected by theologians, outside the
Roman Catholic Church. For Protestants, and certainly for secularists, reason
seems to take us a far shorter distance toward belief than it seemed to
Aquinas. Because Protestants largely abandoned Aquinas, casting their lot
through Luther and Calvin mainly with St Augustine, the primary emphasis in
much modern theology has been on the revelation of God, with a secondary
emphasis on reason's role in faith. And so, when modern Christians, or Jews or
Muslims, or believers in any transcendent God, are asked today to give reasons
for their faith, they usually stutter or resort to the primacy of their
feelings ("I just believe...") or to the authority of a tradition or
a holy book. Reason, as the critics rightly point out, is seldom invoked.
So I want today - and in a series of sermons following - to build what I
consider a reasonable case for faith - a case that will perhaps not take us all
the way to faith, but that will make it clear that belief has its reasons. As
Pascal said,"the heart has its reasons that reason does not know."
Well, yes, but there are also reasons that reason does know. So I want to talk
for a while about those.
Today, just this, as a beginning: we human beings wake up and here we are.
We have no idea where we came from. Just think about it for a minute. Here we
are, existing. We see others around us like ourselves - other human beings.
Some are family. They take care of us and help us "fit into society."
And there are other creatures that are sort of like us, but not really. The
mystery of our being, if we are thoughtful at all, turns in to the mystery of
being itself. And we are led, inexorably, to the question, where did we come
from? or why are we here? or why is there anything?
Now these are basic human questions. We ask them - almost as soon as we can
talk. and think. And, as far as we know, we are the only creatures who ask
these questions. As far as we know, the other animals do not ask these
questions, nor do the plants or stones or microbes. Our parents usually answer
these questions by telling us stories. In most cultures, in most times, the
stories have involved God, or gods - that is, something or someone beyond us
who causes things to be. And if those stories are socially reinforced, we come
to believe them, to love them. I have a friend, a Methodist minister, who says
that when he was a child visiting his grandmother with his cousins, the cousins
would all be lined up on the floor, and the grandmother would come to each one
of them to sooth them before they slept, to whisper a prayer in their ear, and
to rub their back. So he says he is a Christian because his grandmother rubbed
his back. Almost
all believers can point to experiences of love that have cemented their
beliefs. So there is a reason for believing certain stories, but that does not
make the stories reasonable. They are stories that we find compelling for
deeply emotional reasons.
Science is different. It is hard to have an emotional attachment to a
scientific theory. I don't believe the second law of thermodynamics for
emotional reasons. If I believe it at all, it is because I have been told that
it works, and scientists continue to find that it works. Thermodynamics are
much more important in describing and understanding our world than my
grandmother's stories, but I am much more attached to my grandmother's stories
than to thermodynamics.
The questions we ask as we find ourselves existing can concern matter.
Science is a tool for answering those questions about matter, and those
questions are vital for our well-being. But there are other questions, also
vital for our well-being, that are not material. Just as we are the only
creatures who ask where we came from, we are probably also the only creatures
who think about death, and ask where we are going. What we really are asking
is: is there a larger context that gives our existence meaning? Almost every
religion says yes, there is. Meaning is as important to us as matter. Matter
can be explored through reason. Meaning also employs reason: if I exist, how do
I know it? And how can anything be said to have meaning? Yet the search for
meaning always pushes us to faith - of some kind. But it seems to be built into
us that we are people who require meaning to live. When we encounter an
almost universal human experience, it is reasonable to acknowledge its value,
isn't it? Yes, the critics say, but acknowledging that humans find a belief
valuable does not make it true. Perhaps not. But isn't it reasonable to
conclude that anything deemed valuable by a vast majority of human beings
throughout history deserves investigation? I think so. And that is a start.
More next time - especially about some particular challenges to
Christian faith. Volunteers and nominations are welcome. Otherwise, I will
continue.
copyright©2007
Richard R. Crocker
John Fanestil,
Mrs. Hunter's Happy Death, (New York: Doubleday: 2006. dedication page
and pp. 54-55.
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