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Here are some attitudes toward the relation of reasoned thinking and theology according to a variety of Christian thinkers. Justin Martyr: "Whatever all people have said well belongs to us Christians…. For all writers were able to see the truth darkly, on account of the implanted seed of the Logos which was grafted into them." Tertullian What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem? between the Academy and the church?… We have no need for curiosity after Jesus Christ., nor for inquiry after the gospel. When we believe, we desire to believe nothing further." Augustine "If those who are called philosophers, particularly the Platonists, have said anything which is true and consistent with our faith, we must not reject it, but claim it for our own use, in the knowledge that they possess it unlawfully. The Egyptians possessed idols and heavy burdens, which the children of Israel hated and from which they fled; however, they also possessed vessels of gold and silver and clothes which our forebears, in leaving Egypt, took for themselves in secret, intending to use them in a better manner (Exodus 3:21-2; 12:35-6). . . In the same way, pagan learning is not entirely made up of false teachings and superstitions… It contains also some excellent teachings, well suited to be used by truth, and excellent moral values. Indeed, some truths are even found among them which relate to the worship of the one God." Thomas Aquinas "Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered. . . " Blaise Pascal "We know the truth, not only through our reason, but also through our heart. It is through this latter that we know first principles; and reason, which has nothing to do with this, vainly tries to refute them. … We know that we are not dreaming. Yet however unable we may be to prove this by reason, this inability demonstrates nothing but the weakness of our reason, and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge, as they assert. . . . " John Henry Newman "We know from experience that beliefs may endure without the presence of the inferential acts upon which they were originally elicited. . . . Still they are beliefs, and when we first admitted them we had some kind of reason, slight or strong, recognized or not, for doing so. However, whatever those reasons were, even if we ever realized them, we have long since forgotten them. Whether it was the authority of others, or our own observation, or our reading, or our reflections which became the warrant of our belief, anyhow we received the matters in question into our minds, and gave them a place there. We believed them and we still believe, though we have forgotten what the warrant was. At present they are self-sustained in our minds, and have been so for long years."
In suggesting that there are two different kinds of knowledge - knowledge of the heart and the knowledge of reason - and that reason has no authority or power when it comes to matters of the heart -- Blaise Pascal is trying to protect his faith from the attacks of people such as John Locke, an Enlightenment thinker who claimed to be using reason in showing that Christianity was unreasonable. A different sort of response to Locke is found in C. S. Lewis' story The Silver Chair when Puddleglum breaks the enchantment of the with who's been holding Prince Rilian prisoner and who tries to convince the Narnians that their knowledge of Narnia is simply a dream which they have constructed based on the reality of the caverns in which they're held prisoner. John Henry Newman raises the question of what constitutes a proper foundation for faith. He points to the phenomenon of a belief which was once based on some other belief being left hanging. For example: once I believed that my Mom was always right about everything, and I based my belief in God on my belief in my Mom. Since she told me about God, I believed her. Now I know that my Mom isn't always right about everything, which means that now my belief in God is just hanging there in mid-air (it's "self-sustained in my mind") without a foundation. Help! Now what? Is it ever appropriate for a belief to be self-sustaining? What sorts of foundations may there be for a belief? Do I have an obligation to slide some new support under my belief in God, now that I no longer believe in my mother's infallibility? What sort of support might that be? |
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 Nancy Zylstra |