Faith and reason: four historic accounts of their relation

Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 2.3

What you will learn

• Define faith and reason as they are used in this debate, and say why the definitions matter.
• Describe four historic accounts: faith seeking understanding, harmony with two levels of truth, suspicion of philosophy, and reasonable belief without argument.
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each account.
• Say which account best matches your own practice and why.

The big idea

Christians have never agreed on one account of how faith and reason relate, though almost all have held that they do not finally contradict each other. Four influential accounts are: faith seeking understanding (Augustine and Anselm), reason and revelation in harmony (Aquinas), wariness about philosophy (Tertullian and some later voices), and belief in God as reasonable without needing argument (Reformed epistemology). Each describes a real feature of how people come to believe. Seeing all four helps a student describe their own approach honestly.

Key terms

Faith

In Christian use, trust in God and assent to what God has revealed. Traditions differ on whether the emphasis falls on trust, on belief or on both.

Reason

The human ability to think, argue and draw conclusions from evidence.

Revelation

What God has made known, through creation, Scripture and above all in Christ.

Natural theology

The attempt to know about God by reason and observation of the world, without relying on special revelation.

Fideism

The view that faith does not depend on reasons and may even oppose them. The term is often used as a criticism, and few thinkers accept the label.

Evidentialism

The claim that a belief is reasonable only if it is supported by sufficient evidence.

Properly basic belief

A belief that is rational to hold without being derived from other beliefs, such as the belief that other people have minds.

Background

Scripture does not set faith against reason. Isaiah has God say, Come now, and let us reason together (Isaiah 1:18). Paul says that the invisible things of God are clearly seen in what he has made (Romans 1:20). Yet Paul also speaks of the wisdom of this world as foolishness to God (1 Corinthians 1:20). Christians have had to hold these passages together, and they have done so in several ways.

This lesson sets out four accounts. They are simplified, and individual thinkers do not always fit neatly. They are best understood as patterns that appear again and again. For each, ask what it gets right and what it risks.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Faith seeking understanding (Augustine and Anselm)

Augustine taught that belief comes first and understanding follows, a pattern often summarized as believe in order to understand. Anselm in the eleventh century gave the motto faith seeking understanding. On this view, faith is where the Christian starts, and reason works inside it, exploring and explaining what faith holds.

Strength: it fits the actual experience of many believers, who trust first and understand later. Risk: critics ask what stops reason from becoming a servant of whatever one already believes.

Step 2: Two sources in harmony (Aquinas)

Aquinas held that some truths about God can be known by reason, such as that God exists and is one, while others can be known only by revelation, such as the Trinity and the incarnation. Truth cannot contradict truth, since God is the author of both. When reason and faith seem to conflict, one of them has been misused.

Strength: it gives reason real dignity and supports serious science and philosophy. Risk: it can seem to make faith depend on proofs. Aquinas himself said that faith goes beyond what reason can reach. Protestants and Orthodox writers have worried that natural theology gives reason too large a role.

Step 3: Caution about philosophy (Tertullian and others)

Tertullian, writing around 200, asked what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, meaning what philosophy has to do with the gospel. He feared that philosophy had been the source of heresies. Later voices in this line include Luther, who attacked the use of Aristotle in theology, and Pascal, who said that the heart has reasons that reason does not know. Barth in the twentieth century was wary of natural theology.

Strength: it guards against letting human ideas judge revelation. Risk: it can slide into the view that faith needs no reasons at all, and it still uses reasoning (Tertullian himself used philosophical arguments).

Step 4: Reasonable belief without argument (Plantinga)

Alvin Plantinga and other Reformed epistemologists argue that belief in God can be rational even if one cannot argue for it, in the way that belief in other minds or in the past is rational. They claim that a belief is warranted when it comes from faculties working properly in the right setting, and that belief in God may be formed by such a faculty, which Calvin called a sense of the divine.

Strength: it challenges the demand that every belief must be proved. Risk: critics argue that the same reasoning could be used to defend almost any belief, and that it offers little to someone outside the faith. Plantinga’s work is technical and still debated.

Step 5: What the four share

All four hold that reason is a gift and that revealed truth is not irrational. They disagree about order (does reason or faith come first), about scope (what reason can reach) and about reliance (whether faith needs arguments). A student can profit from all four by using reason fully, staying alert to its limits, trusting what has been revealed and being ready to give reasons when asked, as 1 Peter 3:15 advises.

1. What do I mean by faith: trust, belief or both?
2. Do I need reasons for my belief in God, or can I hold it without them? Why?
3. Which truths about God do I think reason can reach, and which only revelation?
4. What would I do if a well-supported scientific or philosophical claim seemed to contradict my faith?
5. Do I use reason to explore my faith, or to defend it, or to question it?
6. Which of the four accounts is closest to the way I actually think?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching holds that faith and reason are two wings by which the human spirit rises to truth, a phrase made famous by John Paul II in 1998. The First Vatican Council taught that God can be known by reason and that faith goes beyond reason without contradicting it. The Thomist tradition is the classic expression.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology stresses direct experience of God in prayer and worship, and holds that the highest knowledge of God is not an inference but an encounter. Many Orthodox writers accept the use of reason to clarify the faith but distrust attempts to prove God’s existence as the foundation of belief.

Protestant

Reformed theology from Calvin onward holds that knowledge of God is given by a sense of the divine and by Scripture, with the Spirit’s inner witness. Lutherans stress that faith is trust given by God and not achieved by reason. Evangelical apologists often use evidence and argument, while others favor Plantinga’s approach.

Secular and skeptical views

Many philosophers hold that beliefs should be proportioned to evidence and that religious claims fall short. Hume’s discussion of miracles is a classic text. Some religious thinkers, such as Kierkegaard, accept the contrast and defend a leap of faith, though how to interpret Kierkegaard is itself disputed.

Why it matters

Every person has some account of how faith and reason relate, even if it is not stated. It decides whether doubt is treated as an enemy, whether science is seen as a friend or a threat, and whether arguments are welcome. Stating the account makes it available for correction, and a student who sees the four options can avoid caricatures of other Christians and of skeptics.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Which of the four accounts would your own church or family tradition favor?
2. When has reasoning strengthened your faith, and when has it unsettled it?
3. What would you say to a friend who says that believing without proof is irrational?
4. Is there a belief you hold without argument that you still consider reasonable? Why?

Independent assignment

Which account is mine?

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. State in your own words which of the four accounts best matches how you came to your beliefs and how you hold them now. Give one example from your own experience. Then state the strongest objection a defender of one other account would raise against you, and reply to it. If your view is a mixture, say what you take from each.

Further study

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read the opening and the account of Augustine’s conversion as a case of faith and reasoning together.
• Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion Read the preface, where Anselm describes faith seeking understanding.
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read the first question, on the nature of sacred teaching.
• Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics Find the passage about Athens and Jerusalem.
• Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief Warranted Christian Belief. Read a summary first.
• Blaise Pascal, Pensées Read the passages on the heart and on reasons.
• 1 Peter 3:15 Be ready to give an answer.
• Isaiah 1:18 Let us reason together.