The relationship between faith and reason has always been a matter of discussion both in philosophy and religion throughout history. Religious or irreligious, can we believe something without reason? What is the difference between knowing and believing; are they the same concepts in essence; are they independent from each other; or do they complement each other? When we say we know something, what do we exactly mean? These questions are residing at the intersection of epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, and religion. In this paper, I will try to tackle these questions from the perspective of the philosophy of religion. Indeed, the field of philosophy of religion is established to reconcile the differences between faith and reason.
As Thomas Gray puts it, “Ignorance is bliss, ‘It’s folly to be wise.” Educated or uneducated, for ordinary men, these brain-frying questions are irrelevant. For most of the people knowing and believing, faith and rationality are almost the same concepts and they go hand in hand. It might be surprising that most of the educated people don’t need any justification for their beliefs, yet if we look at the masses who believe in crazy conspiracy theories, we can see it is true for educated people as well as uneducated. However, when one starts reflecting on the nature of knowing, one might start to question his own existence. That is because, whether those who don’t believe in metaphysics admit it or not; reasoning, knowing, and believing happens within the boundaries of consciousness; thus, they are metaphysical processes by nature.
To distinguish knowledge from belief, philosophers introduced the concept of justified true belief since Plato. Plato says in his Theaetetus that “Knowledge is true belief based on argument (in other words justified true belief).” A person-S is considered to know a proposition-P is true only if,
- S believes that P is true,
- S has enough reasons to believe P, and also,
- P is true.
However, this definition is paradoxical within itself because it contains the concept of truth in it. Truth can only be known to be true with knowledge, which brings us back to the same definition. This simplistic stance was first challenged by Hume’s (d. 1776) skepticism in the eighteenth century and then by many philosophers in the twentieth century, most significantly by Edmund Gettier (b. 1927). That is because in real life there are many cases where this formula of justified true belief fails to describe knowledge. For example, S can believe in P without having enough justification, yet P might still be true; or S can believe in P with enough justification and P can turn out to be false. So, justified true belief is not a sufficient definition for knowledge.
On the other hand, what is religious faith? Ignoring the shortcomings of the definition of knowledge, religions are by definition associated with faith or dogma rather than reason and knowledge. Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes faith as, “Faith involves a stance toward some claim that is not, at least presently, demonstrable by reason. Thus, faith is a kind of attitude of trust or assent. As such, it is ordinarily understood to involve an act of will or a commitment on the part of the believer.”[1] Here, the key element of faith is trust; whereas it is ‘justified true belief’ with knowledge.
Again, the definition gets obscure when we try to describe the key term, trust. Can we trust somebody or something without enough justification? In most cases, the answer would be no. So, for both faith and knowledge, we must have some sort of justification. Without diving into the dark waters of skepticism, we can simply say that justification for knowledge is an empirical justification that can be experienced with our five senses and tested in the laboratory; and justification for faith is priori-based justification, that is based upon intuition or emotions. Here, one can argue that there can be empirical justification for faith such as historical data or miracles. Yet, at the root of all religions lay the spiritual experiences the prophets or believers claim to have, which are based on spiritual experiences again. So, we can conclude that justification for knowledge is empirical justification and justification for faith is priori justification.
If that is the case, then can we say religious faith is purely a matter of heart and knowledge is a matter of mind and reason in totally separate spheres? Or can we reach faith through reason as well? It is interesting that there are philosophers who believe the duality of faith and reason on both sides of the aisle; among the believers as well as atheists or agnostics. For example, Bernard Russell (d. 1970) explains “We may define ‘faith’ as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of faith. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” Russell describes himself as an agnostic in the philosophical sense and an atheist in the cultural sense.[2] “He was once asked what he would say if, after dying, he were brought into the presence of God and asked why he had not been a believer. Russell’s reply: ‘I’d say ‘Not enough evidence God! Not enough evidence!’”[3] Whether the knowledge of two plus two makes four is true through empirical experience as Russell claims or is it a priori as Kant claims[4] is another discussion point.
Positivist thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment portrayed religions as myths that were created as byproducts of humanity’s sociocultural evolution which will diminish and disappear in time with the scientific advancements. They only believed in empirical justification which can be felt through five senses and that can be experimented and proven in the lab. As Bediuzzaman Said Nursi describes it, their minds were reduced to their eyes.
According to Sigmund Freud, “These (religious ideas), which are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishes.”[5] He also describes religion as “a childhood neurosis and an illusion which derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”[6]
Are the religions the mythological stories of the past as the Quran mentions from the mouth of an unbeliever, “When Our verses are recited to him, he says, ‘Legends of the former peoples.’”[7] Or, can faith be acquired through priori justification and it is a basic instinct just like survival, nourishment, and reproduction, something that is inscribed to our consciousness? Haven’t all religions been established on this very fundamental instinct? Time has proven those positivists wrong. As they were waiting for the demise of religions, 85% of the world population today, associate themselves with either an institutionalized religion or describe themselves as theists believing in the existence of a creator.[8] Therefore, today the relationship between faith and reason is as relevant as it was at the time of Plato.
Fideism (from fides, Latin for faith), is the name given to the school of thought which claims that faith cannot be attained by reason, but it is acquired instinctively by heart. Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy defines fideism as “Faith is in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason. In contrast to the more rationalistic tradition of natural theology, with its arguments for the existence of God, fideism holds—or at any rate, appears to hold that reason is unnecessary and inappropriate for the exercise and justification of religious belief”.[9] Fideists believe that faith is independent, hostile and superior to reason.
Within the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, as well as among the positivist philosophers, there are many proponents of fideism. For example, resonating with Russell, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that “claims believed on the basis of proof or direct sensory evidence are claims believed by reason. Claims believed on faith, then, are based on something else”.[10]For Pascal, there is an order of the spirit above that of the flesh; but above the order of the spirit there is that of love: “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know”. And, “It was not then right that [Christ] should appear in a manner manifestly divine, and completely capable of convincing all men [through reason] and thus [He was] willing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart.”[11] John Calvin speaks of this reason of heart as an instinct commonly shared by all men;
“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Ever renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops. Since, therefore, men one and all perceive that there is a God and that he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to consecrate their lives to his will. Therefore, since from the beginning of the world there has been no region, no city, in short, no household, that could do without religion, there lies in this a tacit confession of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all”.[12]
I must say that I have always agreed with Calvin in that one of the most significant proofs for God’s existence is this universal intuition shared by all cultures and by all men who bother to think about his existence. As much as they try to deny it, even atheists have this intuition, which is why they try to disprove it so desperately. The Quran also points out the same fact in the ayah, “Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah, hearts are assured”.[13]
According to Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932), there are two types of fideism, moderate fideism, and extreme fideism. Moderate fideism claims that we must rely upon faith rather than reason in religious matters, whereas extreme fideism dictates disparaging and denigrating of reason in favor of faith. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (d. 1855) who can be considered as an extreme fideist, believed that to have faith is to lose your mind and win God and to acquire that faith one needs to have a leap of faith”.[14] For Kierkegaard, “Faith is the most important task to be achieved by a human being because only on the basis of faith does an individual have a chance to become a true self. This self is the life-work which God judges for eternity”.[15]
In the Islamic tradition, we can classify early Mu’tazilas as rationalists (Ahl al-Aql), Sunnis (Ash’aris and Maturidis) as moderate fideists and Atharis (mostly Hanbelis) as extreme fideists according to Plantinga’s classification. The role of reason in reaching faith was one of the main conflict points between Mu’tazila and Ahl al-Sunna. Eleventh century Mu’tazila scholar, Qadi Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025) explains why one should choose reason upon revelation as follows:
“Some might find this ranking strange and think that the sources should be limited to Quran, Sunnah, and Unanimous Consensus (ijma). Or they might think that reason, as a source of knowledge, should come after (these sources). But this is not true. For God, the Exalted only addressed the people of reason (Ahl al-Aql). And it is on the basis of reason that we know the Quran to be authoritative, likewise with the Sunnah and Unanimous Consensus. Thus, the reason is the primary source (al-asl). And we only speak of the Quran being primary inasmuch as it alerts us to the dictates of reason”.[16]
On the other side of the spectrum, Atharis as extreme fideists claimed that faith is something that cannot be attained by aql (intellect) and one must believe the revelation from God without questioning it. For them, rational proofs for the existence of God are irrelevant and invalid unless they are coming from the Quran. According to Al Harawi (d. 1088), a Hanbali scholar, “The completion of Islam in the time of the Prophet was a gift from God to be gratefully accepted by all believers, not to be disputed or meddled with. There is no need to strive to understand what human beings can never truly grasp. Rather human beings need to believe and obey”.[17]
Another Hanbali scholar, Ibn Qudama’s (d. 1223) views on theologians who try to reach faith through reason is much harsher, “The completion of Islam in the time of the Prophet and His companions was a gift from God to be gratefully accepted by all believers, not to be disputed or meddled with. There is no need to strive to understand what human beings can never truly grasp. Rather human beings need to believe and obey”.[18] Although the Quran commands the believers to use their reason again and again and associate disbelief with heedlessness and stupidity, Atharis refused to use reason even about the verses that attribute hands and face to God when taken literally.
As moderate fideists, Ahl al-Sunnah scholars thought reason must be used to acquire faith as a foundation to a certain degree. However, they thought faith is something beyond what the mind can comprehend, something that should be experienced by heart. It is ironic that maybe the most preeminent Kalam scholar, Imam Ghazali (d. 1111) wrote Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of Islamic Sciences) after he used reason extensively to destroy philosophers claims that were contradicting to the orthodox Islamic creed in his Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of Philosophers). In his Al-Munqidh min al-Dalāl (Deliverance from Error), he compares the degrees of knowledge through empirical justification and priori justification naming them as sense data and reason judge and at the end, he posits the perception of heart at the top.
“Then sense-data spoke up: What assurance have you that your reliance on
rational data is not like your reliance on sense-data? Indeed, you used to have
confidence in me. Then the reason-judge came along and gave me the lie. But were it not for the reason-judge, you would still accept me as true. So there may be, beyond the perception of reason, another judge. And if the latter revealed itself, it would give the lie to the judgments of reason, just as the reason-judge revealed itself and gave the lie to the judgments of sense. The mere fact of the nonappearance of that further perception does not prove the impossibility of its existence”.
My conclusion on the dilemma of reason vs faith can be summarized as follows.
1- I believe the borders of faith and knowledge become blurry once we start questioning the concept of knowledge. That is because, as Ibn Khaldun describes it quite neatly in Muqaddimah; reasoning and perceptions taking place in the consciousness are metaphysical processes and a matter of soul beyond our limited cognitive capacity.[19] He also classifies men as he does plants and animals from simple to complex. The ordinary man has ability to think within the borders of empirical justification, the more capable, educated men can think beyond empirical sensibility, within the borders of priori justification, and most capable men can sense beyond priori justification through their spiritual eyes. In this respect, prophets are at the top of the pyramid, because their souls are equipped to see the metaphysical world and receive revelation from God. Below them are the Ahl-Allah (Friends of Allah) and other men who can perceive metaphysical beings/happenings (physics, people who deal with black magic and who can see and communicate with Jinns) beyond our physical world.
2- If we are to put it simplistically like Plato’s justified true belief, we can think of a scale such as the pH scale; which, on one end there is pure knowledge (yakin), and on the other end, there is pure faith. Every person’s consciousness is equipped differently, and their tendencies can be measured somewhere on this scale. Some people are wired to have faith without reason and some people need enough justification to believe. People who have nature like Abu Bakr Siddiq (PBUH) can acquire faith on pure intuition, with little or no reason -like merely his trust to the Prophet (PBUH)- and on the other hand, people who are wired like Omar (PBUH) need strong justification for their faith.
3- Although Kalam scholars like Sanusi claim that for every legally responsible person it is an obligation to study theology and understand the basics of reasoning for faith,[20] I believe it is not a requirement for all. If people like Sufi masters or Christian monks claim that they have and experience faith through instinct, we don’t have any right to question or belittle their faith.
4- On the other hand, people like me whose consciousness is wired on the reason end of the knowledge/faith scale (rationalists) need strong justification for their faith. Yet, faith acquired through reason can be just a foundation for the actual faith (marifa) which can only be experienced in the heart and strengthened through worship. On the other hand, positivists relying only on the empirical justification are off the chart from the reason end of the scale and they can never acquire faith.
[1] “Faith and Reason,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 23, 2020, https://www.iep.utm.edu/faith-re/
[2] Am I An Atheist or An Agnostic, “Scepsis Magazine of Science and Social Criticism,” accessed March 3, 2020. https://scepsis.net/eng/articles/id_6.php
[3] Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” Faith and Rationality, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, 18.
[4] “Kant’s Theory of Judgement,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed March 23, 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/
[5] Chad Meister, Introducing Philosophy of Religion (New York, Routledge, 2009), 16.
(Referenced from Sigmud Freud, “The Future of an Illusion,” 31)
[6] Chad Meister, Introducing Philosophy of Religion (New York, Routledge, 2009), 16.
[7] Quran (83:13)
[8] Chad Meister, Introducing Philosophy of Religion (New York, Routledge, 2009), 7.
[9] Fideism, “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” accessed Mar 3, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/
[10] Murray, M., & Rea, M. (2008). Faith and rationality. In An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy, pp. 93-122)
[11] Knowledge and Ignorance, “Encyclopedia of Religion,” 5205.
[12] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), book 1, chapter 3, pp. 43-44.
[13] Quran (13:28)
[14] Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” Faith and Rationality, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, 87.
[15] Soren Kierkegaard, “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” accessed Mar 3, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/#Reli
[16] Qadi al-Jabbar, Fadl al i’tizar wa tabaqat al-mu’tazila, ed F. Sayyid (Tunus: al-Dar- al-Tunusiyah li Nasrg, 1974), 139; quoted in Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 49.
[17] Jeffrey R. Halverson, Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 37.
[18] Jeffrey R. Halverson, Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 38.
[19] Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. trans. Franz Rosenthal (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2015), 349.
[20] Shayh Said Faudah, A Refined explanation of The Sanusi Creed The Foundational Proofs (Rotterdam, Sunni Publications, 2013), 55.
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