FAITH WEDS REASON

   

The fundamental intellectual project of Christian culture is the marriage of between faith and reason. Historically and culturally this began with the emergence of biblical judo Christian culture with classical of Greeco Roman culture the two great tradition in the ancient world which have survived and form civilisation which is called Christendom, which now called simply western civilisation both by its defender and its despisers of the cultural civilisation, which is mostly or accurately called apostate-Christendom. The two most alliance fact about this two civilisation is that is ours, and that it rapidly committing intellectual and spiritual suicide, we feel little bit like a child, whose mother is killing herself leaving her husband and whoring after a man toxic of drug habit and if we don’t feel like that worsely the child has been also drug too. The marriage of this two culture was the marriage of historical new ways of thinking, faith and reason. We easily forget how new this two words were in civilisation of the ancient world. The two languages of this two culture contained many words that express-concept that have never occurred to any human mind before, concept that simply did not exist before in any other culture, for instance Balla which means to create something out of nothing which is an impossible nature to men or to accept by any god except Hebrew God. The other radically new concept was sin, which may not merely more evil, the breaking of uniquely intimate covenant relationship with God, the relationship that no other culture knew. If you don’t understand the intimacy of marriage you would not understand the meaning of suicide or tragedy of divorce. Still another unique Hebrew concept was reveal name of God, the identification of I’m, subject without object, a person with being, a moral will something eternally perfect. None of this concept could be found anywhere else in the world, in Greek language we also have unique concept like science, logic and essence, nature, substance etc. the radical newness this two culture is reveal in two words Gentiles, the word barbarians. The jew and the Greeks were so distinctive that each of them had a word for all other cultures, all mankind were either jews or Gentiles, either Greeks or Barbarians. There were only two kinds of people not many. To the greeks the jews were simply one kinds of Barbarian or to Jew Greeks were one kind of Gentile, the single most life changing, history changing and the distinctiveness of this two culture consisted in two new ways of thinking about everything. These two thinking changed history, they were Faith and Reason. We who forgotten history has forgotten how radically new this two words were. Atlas Santhiano was wrong when he said, who has forgotten history are doomed to repeat it they are not doom to repeat it, but that would be something of privilege , the worse is do not be conversion. What was this two new way of thinking why were they radically new. What faith have met for all gentile religion were simply private, esoteric and unverifiable. But what faith mean for the jew, the christian who learn from them is something quite different, something esoteric and public and something available to all and demand of all, it was express not in mystical experiences of someone but in words and deeds, the words of prophets and public miracle of salvation in history.  Judaism was not new religion but new kind of religion and new kinds of faith, equally new kind of reason were discovered by the Greeks. What reason or wisdom had met by all barbarian culture was purely practical wisdom that lead down by us mosts from tradition and authority and it was mediated by few authorities figures the sheers, just as faith become public an egalitarian and objective in Israel reason become public, egalitarian and object in Greece. When Socrates the paragon of reason appear on the scene in Athens, won every argument he engaged in because he clearly understood for the first time what logic was and how it had authority to interpret and judge even the highest tradition of any culture the god of humour, he appeared to the Greece as new kind of man, a wizard, he appeared to be a threatening one that he has to be executed.

Any marriage between Gentile religion and Barbarian philosophy would have been impossible because there is no common meeting point both were irrational, private and subjective but the marriage between jews religion and greek philosophy was possible because both were rational, egalitarian, public and objective. Both jew religion and greek philosophy effected the whole world  unlike Gentile religion or barbarian philosophy but only through christianity and the Roman Empire jew religion effected the whole world through christianity which is a missionary religion unlike Judaism which does not percentile until the Messiah comes. Greek philosophy effected the whole world through Rome which provide the body that carried the greek mind. Everywhere after the greek political body was absorb into omnivores body of  Roman stomach, Rome produce no new important philosophy but reveal the Greek mind even after conquering the Greek body, throughout the history of Rome rich parents imported philosopher from Greece to educate their children's. If an extra terrestrial sociologist with materialistic leaning had been studying earth in 6th century BC he probably never had predicted that 99pc future of the west would depends on these two little post stamp size civilisation, Israel and Greece. That should give us a clue how we should thrust our current prophets. Our first photo of this wedding is the prologue of John Gospel here we see the wedding night of the marriage and the conception of its embryo for here we see the two becoming one both are called logos the Devine sperm is the logos of God, word of God and mind of God which became flesh, the human egg is the logo of Greek philosophy, the truth sought by all philosophers, the marriage is like equation, the logos equal Jesus Christ. John identify the  very centre of classical culture, the logos short by the philosopher the eternal ultimate truth, the meaning of all things with the very central of Christian culture the concrete historical person of Jesus Christ, the Devine logos incarnate, the second person of trinity which has become this very finite mortal man and the word become flesh, the logos become sharks the greek words would mean the human soul and mind of human body. When John wrote his faithful equation like Einstein equation of matters and energy and the energy that was released transformed the world even more than nuclear energy. The equation Jesus equal the logos was not the hellenisation of Christianity but the Christianisation of Greek philosophy, man did not impregnate God, God impregnated man, that is the reason why the God of Judaism and Christianity is never symbolise as she only a HE, all christian culture is an extension of the incarnation and philosophy is essential part of it, coz Philosophy consciously reflects on its meaning, seeking its definition and its rational defence. Many great mind contributed to this enterprise  of this christian philosophy, the greatest ever more according to the definitive teaching of the church and articulated by the church of trends and almost every single pope since Leo the xiii is St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas answered almost every questions and make it a distinction. 

So my second point is after this long historical introduction, is the distinction between these three aspects of the faith-reason question. The first aspect take faith and reason to be timeless objective truths, the truth known  by faith and the truth known by reason. That is the aspect of the question St. Thomas dealt with. The second aspect could take both faith and reason to be temporal historical subjective act of the human soul, this is the typical word meaning of modern faith and reason, faith here involved, both intellectual belief, personal trust and commitment. The later is the religious faith that safe us because it allowed God to impregnate our soul with his Devine light, the other essence intellectual belief is, they are necessary but not sufficient part of the larger faith. It is not sufficient because the book of James said, the devil also believed and tremble with fear. A third possible aspect would take both faith and reason to be human culture  historical, cultural entities, something like Adam and Eve whose name refer not only to historical individual are first parents but also to all mankind through out history, that is why st. Paul said does not said that we are punished for another man sin but we all sinned in Adam. Now the first three meaning of faith and reason is what st. Thomas dealt with at the beginning in both of his summa, when he asked about the relationship between faith and reason, he made by this two things two ideal objectives entities to essences rather than historical actual concrete human acts, weather individual or cultural, thus faith mean for him that all the objective truth we can know by faith and reason mean all the objective truth we can know by reason. St. Thomas then asked the question how this two kinds of truth or set of two propositions related to each others? That is very easy to answer coz it is happy, clean and right question. He does give very, clean, right and bright answer to it. It is objective and ideas of question, to have pre-modern mind, the mind of a child who keep asking what is that? And his answer is in tow fold, first of all there can never be any contradiction between any truth known by faith and any truth known by reason because the same God is the author of both and this God never contradicts himself. The believers loved to say that God wrote two books, scripture and nature or natural reason, and both rightly interpreted are always true and truth never contradicts truth only error contradicts error. Therefore never has been and never can be contradiction between any divinely revealed any christian doctrine or any truth discovered by human reason by science, history, philosophy or common sense. All appearance contradiction are based on error and those errors in principal can be ask and corrected by human reason because they are error of human reason. Thus the supposed conflict between science and religion has no more real existence than obvious. The second parts of St. Thomas answer is that this two sets of truth are partially independence that they overlap so that some truth of faith like trinity cannot in principle be discover, understood or prove by human reason but over truth of reason like, existence, unity, intelligence and goodness of the uncaused-cause and some truth of reason like, discovery of natural sciences a part of Devine revelation, but other like the order of the universe , the uniqueness of human consciousness to form other part of Devine revelation. In other words there are three kinds of truth, the truth known by faith alone, the truth noble by both faith and reason and the truth noble by natural reason. Now that is very clear and very reasonable answer, it is only of five possible answers, for logically there are only five possible answer to the question about the relationship between any two things or classes of things, separation, identity, assimilation to the first thing, assimilation to the second thing or partial overlapping and all four the other logical possibility here, all four alternative to St.Thomas overlapping answer or unreasonable. First the total separation of the two denies the two middle mixed  category which is this, the total identity who denies both the first and the third category that is to deny independence of some of its to the other. Third the total subordination of reason and faith denied any independent reason. That is a very short summary of the st. Thomas answer to the questions of the relationship between faith and reason, there is no better question to the answer of what he conceived it.  But there are other question to that is otherwise conceiving the question, a second way to conceive the question is to mean by the relationship between faith and reason, the live relationship between precise act of faith and exercise act of reason within the circle of personal psychology of individual, now this is much less easy question and also less happy bright and clean question. It is complex, problematic dark and messy and it is a question for psychologist, not for philosophy, it is typically the modern question since typically the modern mind for better or worse  or for both is subjectivistic, is relativistic and psychologistic and individualistic rather then physicalistic and objectivistic, it is the mind of teenager who keep asking what is that? What is that? As who am I? Therefore since I’am no longer teenager I will not delve into this aspect of questions. Finally we could mean a third thing ask about the relationship between faith and reason  this is what I want to explore now, this is the historical epic of changing relationship between this two things in the life of mankind on earth. This is subjective and psychological like our second question but it is not individualistic and it choose a clear pattern rather than being really messy to different individuals. 

Many things has been written about the first two aspect of the relationship between faith and reason, so I would like to sketch a big picture about the third aspect in my talks. To do this now I will personify this two things, faith and reason and make them protagonist in allegorical drama, I will give them human names, to be very original I’ll call them Adam and Eve, there are no two more original than this. I will also deal with sexes and identify Adam with reason and Eve with faith because it is obvious to anyone, not corrupted by any politically correct ideology that man to value reason more than women do, while women value faith than man, though a thousands of devastating accurate and therefore devastatingly funny jokes about this. Adam and Eve have gone through three stages of life. These are the three stages of every story ever told, there were the essential structure of story as such, and in all story a situation is first setup then upset in someway then reset in someway, either happily or unhappily. Theologian called this, as creation, fall and redemption. All three are already present in the third chapter of Genesis. The first stage is,  perfect, innocent and primordial unity or marriage between Adam and Eve that is reason and faith. This historical ended with the fall but it must had been a real historical era, weather it lasted millennial age, for if it was not then the good God must had created mankind already in the state of sin, evil and separation, divorce which is absurd. In this first stage the creation of mankind in Eden, all the things that st. Thomas claimed, to be true in principal or dejure about the relationship between faith and reason are also true in practised. First of all Adam and Eve faith and reason look at each other with wonder and respect and are in loved, find each other beautiful, they have faith in each other, thrust each other therefore they understand each other. In the second place they are fit for each other like a puzzle, they are complementary, they complete each other, Adam called Eve “flesh of my flesh and bond of my bond…” First, women is taken out of Man, subsequently every man is born by being taken out of women. Adam and Eve, reason and faith perfectly fit each other, reason make faith more profound and faith make reason more profound. In the third place the two become one, without loosing there twoness, there difference, Adam and Eve are neither confused nor separated for overlapping, so each has something that the other has not have, thus many truth not known by reason nor by faith, like the truth of natural science, their is many truth not known by reason but known by faith, that is not comprehensible, discoverable or provable by reason alone but exceed the mind, example Trinity, yet the two are one coz all truth forms a home as man and women do. Adam and Eve together constitute the image of God, all man and female are of Gods, all truth faith and reason are Gods truth. Finally there is no possible contradiction or war between faith and reason as there is none even between Adam and Eve, when both are in their innocent ideal  and natural state, how could it be as God are the author of both, God never contradict himself. The second stage is historically the fall, first faith, reason and the marriage between them. In Genesis 2 there is three fold falls, first eve, then Adam and the relationship between them, it is significant that faith fall first, then reason. This is also the order of their restoration which begins with a women, marry the new Eve, the call of spiritual divorce between Adam and Eve was spiritual divorce from God, who was the source of their union, once they failed from God they immediately failed from each other from their marriage, they hid from each other  because they hide from God, they pass the book by blaming each other coz they both blame God, and Adam blame God for giving him Eve and Eve blame God for letting the snake in the grass. 

In the history of western thought too, faith failed first, then reason and the marriage between them, all four features of the marriage mentioned in stage one, reverse in the divorce stage two.

1. Missed trust in replacing thrust: This happen in philosophy with which philosopher called hermeneutic of suspicion or which Descartes called methodic doubt which we place methodic faith as relationship to truth in other words Descartes replaced Socrates, and it had happened earlier in Eden with Eve distrust replacing thrust as her new relationship with God. The fall was first of all a forfeit of trust, doubting God and suspecting that there may be more trustable as truth teller then Adam follow Eve down instead of leaving her out and up, the same happen to faith and reason historically, once faith failed, reason failed too as they stood together they failed together and when they failed together the fall apart.

2. Instead of Complementing, perfecting each other they threaten and blame each Other

Adam blame Eve and Eve blame satan and both blame God. It sought to hide from each other and it sough to hide from God and the same happen between reason and faith. In history, reason begin to see itself as self justified as foundational in Descartes and the result of this rationalism is was the crisis of reason in throughout modern philosophy and faith also begin to see itself as self justifying as the world into itself as human psychological experience or feeling which was the end with God as mere mean to this end as in Schleiermacher  and Russell and this is a self destructive   to faith as reason attempted self justifying autonomy is to reason, faith in faith replaced faith in God. You can’t sell faith in faith to real people only to professional theologians. Like the one in Cs.Lewis story theologian who died and met the guards of heaven, and he gave him a choice to entering heaven and enter theological lecture on heaven, he choose the lecture. 

3. Faith and Reason no longer overlapped 

Nor do they respect each other domain and individuality, there is a confuse and foil-over, each attempt to shrink rather then explain the domain of the other, thus religion become suspicious of philosophy and of science and traces their authority. Science and philosophy do exactly the same to religion and that is the most obvious difference between medieval and modern philosophy.

4.  War between science and religion dominate modern history

They devalue and debunk each other and they see each other as enemy instead of appreciating, by the way the so called war between science and religion is a total myth and impossibility, if only if we assume one premises, that atheism is false. The necessary presupposition of the real existence of mythical war between science and religion has to be atheism, for if there is a God, the God who is not either stupid or wicked and therefore does not tell a lie than faith and reason cannot contradict each other because they both are Gods invention. As St. Thomas said , only if  either faith or science lie can there be any contradiction? And war between them then it must be faith lie since neither science lies though scientist can, the philosophy can’t lie coz the sky itself is a science as for instance evolutionism as distinct from evolution.  

The result of divorce between faith and reason is the death of both, without faith there is no faith in reason, so reason dies  and without reason there is no reason in faith so faith dies. The attempt to ground reason in itself modern in philosophy, resulted in the present crisis reason, for instance, rationalism, relativism, deconstructionism etc.  everyone of this philosophy thought contradicts with each other in the direction towards which they do, they all love different things but they all ignore the same things. A rebellion faith against reason has been destructive to faith as rebellion against reason by faith has been treason, the attempt to ground faith in itself eminently rather then transcendently answered psychologically or logically rather than ontologically and theologically, which resulted in the collapse of faith in liberal and modernist theology the preening over  confidence and pride of both parties become opposite and sceptical crisis of self confidence and autonomy is proved to be suicide. The second stage of the fall or divorce does not last for any time at all without the second stage beginning, as soon as fall begins his undoing for redemption process that began in Eden and was consummated on calvary but it will not be complete until the apocalypse, the last judgement of the end of time.  

I have been telling double story here, a story about Adam and Eve, man and women and history about faith and reason my allegory makes it one story but really two, because the fall has made two things or two time period, first all the time since eden and secondly, more specifically modern time, in the last scenario meddle ages are little more like Eden than faith and reason and the marriage between them was more stronger, or three of them have been weaker from the last 500 years. And the same co-incidentally true to the life of both man and women. Man has become less manly, women become less womanly, the relationship less marital. That sounds quite pessimistic but remember the redemption begins its work as soon as the fall happen, if the last 5years have been a deeper and deeper fall can we expect a return or rise. Do I see immediate future as better or worse for faith, reason and their marriage, what about the prophet, how about the future of masculinity, femininity  and marriage, to be honest I cannot see any particular culture either in west in general and America in particular, immediately heading or up rather than down, transsexualism, homosexualism or gay marriage , faminization of male and womanization of man secularisation of marriage, or show no science of turning or diminishing the future, they do show such sign in the church, especially since Devine problem has provided us deep answer to the sexual revolution...