A Response to Mr. George H Smith - Part III
Smith contends that faith is also diametrically opposed to reason. He quotes various people in history who have believed in the CHristian claims because they are so unbelievable. As Smith himself writes, "Insofar as faith is possible, it is irrational; insofar as faith is rational, it is impossible... Belief cannot be based on both reason and faith."
I do not know where contemporary philsophers and scientists have come up with the idea of faith and reason being mutually exclusive, but it is sheer and utter nonsense. Faith is simply trust, not blind ignorance; which it has been used to mean due to misconception. Indeed, it even sounds as if Mr. Smith is putting a lot of "faith" in reason, so to speak. I won't belabor the point of fath vs. reason here, as I have done it before (See earlier post by same name "Faith vs. Reason") except to say that faith, that is trust, should only be given when one realizes that it is rational and reasonable to trust a certain person, or in a certain fact. Thus, reason can indeed produce faith, in which case belief is based on both.
Finally, Smith's final philosophical contention is that God's divine attributes are themselves unintelligble. These attributes are classical theological attributes: that God is necessary, an immaterial being (invisible)(, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent. I am also not going to belabor the consistancy of God being all-good, and all-powerful against the problem of the existence of evil because I have also written already at length about that in earlier posts. But I am going to respond to SMith's contention that it is impossible for God to exist because God is an incorporeal being. His backing for that particular objection is that a being that exists, and a being that is incorporeal, are mutually exclusive definitions - there are no such things as beings, that exist, that do not have physical form.
This is an absurd argument. Actually, it is not an argument at all but rather a presupposition that sounds to me like naturalism, or physicalism, or both. Simply meaning that Smith contends that an incorporeal being cannot exist because he has a prior philosophical committment to naturalism and/or physicalism, which states that everything that exists is a physical entity. It is like a Darwinian biologist claiming that miracles cannot occur because they violate the laws of nature (to which all things are bound to obey) when a miracle is, by definition, something that violates the laws of nature! The miracle is not discounted because of any evidence for or against it, it is dismissed out-of-hand, because of prior intellectual, personal and philosophical committments. All I have to say about that is this: if we allow our biases, and not information and facts, to lead us to discover any truth about anything - then we will never learn any truth at all. We will, instead, be viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses.
I do not know where contemporary philsophers and scientists have come up with the idea of faith and reason being mutually exclusive, but it is sheer and utter nonsense. Faith is simply trust, not blind ignorance; which it has been used to mean due to misconception. Indeed, it even sounds as if Mr. Smith is putting a lot of "faith" in reason, so to speak. I won't belabor the point of fath vs. reason here, as I have done it before (See earlier post by same name "Faith vs. Reason") except to say that faith, that is trust, should only be given when one realizes that it is rational and reasonable to trust a certain person, or in a certain fact. Thus, reason can indeed produce faith, in which case belief is based on both.
Finally, Smith's final philosophical contention is that God's divine attributes are themselves unintelligble. These attributes are classical theological attributes: that God is necessary, an immaterial being (invisible)(, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent. I am also not going to belabor the consistancy of God being all-good, and all-powerful against the problem of the existence of evil because I have also written already at length about that in earlier posts. But I am going to respond to SMith's contention that it is impossible for God to exist because God is an incorporeal being. His backing for that particular objection is that a being that exists, and a being that is incorporeal, are mutually exclusive definitions - there are no such things as beings, that exist, that do not have physical form.
This is an absurd argument. Actually, it is not an argument at all but rather a presupposition that sounds to me like naturalism, or physicalism, or both. Simply meaning that Smith contends that an incorporeal being cannot exist because he has a prior philosophical committment to naturalism and/or physicalism, which states that everything that exists is a physical entity. It is like a Darwinian biologist claiming that miracles cannot occur because they violate the laws of nature (to which all things are bound to obey) when a miracle is, by definition, something that violates the laws of nature! The miracle is not discounted because of any evidence for or against it, it is dismissed out-of-hand, because of prior intellectual, personal and philosophical committments. All I have to say about that is this: if we allow our biases, and not information and facts, to lead us to discover any truth about anything - then we will never learn any truth at all. We will, instead, be viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses.
posted by Brian at 1:13 PM
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