Faith Versus Reason

Author: Walter Nuñez

It is not the right attitude to pit faith against reason, as if to make it appear that they are in direct opposition against each other. However, reality check: a lot of people especially street debaters and like-minded individuals in the public fora (e.g. Luneta Debating Ground and Plaza Miranda) are making a big deal about this arguing either sides: the pros and cons. Some argued that faith should be upheld because it is the only thing that matters, and get rid of reason as it is a hindrance to one’s belief and faith in God. Others retort that it is reason instead that must take precedence over faith, and if at all, throw out faith the moment contradictions between them begins to present itself or emerge.

To clear the coast, let us define the terms involved, to wit: faith and reason. Faith is defined as: “1. Confident belief or trust in a person, idea, or thing”.   It comes from the Latin word “fides” which means “belief”. Reason, on the other hand, is defined as “1. The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction. 2. An underlying fact or cause that provides logical sense for a premise or occurence. 3. The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought…..” (pp. 308, 698 The American Heritage Dictionary Fourth Edition, 2004)

For want of a better definition, faith is: “The acceptance of the word of another, trusting that one knows what the other is saying and is honest in telling the truth. The basic motive of all faith is authority (or right to be believed) of someone who is speaking. This authority is an adequate knowledge of what he or she is talking about, and the integrity in not wanting to deceive.” (p. 142 Pocket Catholic Dictionary, 1985)

While, on the other hand, reason is: “the power of grasping concepts and inferences.” (p. 357 Indigo Dictionary of Philosophy, 2002)

Given the above mentioned definitions, and going deeper into the depths of the subject, nowhere can one earnestly find that it  entails a contradiction. If at all, a contradiction is so perceived, then it is only a seeming contradiction, not a real one. Real contradiction applies only to mutually exclusive proposition. According to the principle of golden mean and / or excluded middle, or more properly called as the law of “bivalence” a thing or proposition can either be true or the other is false. A mutually exclusive proposition does not admit middle alternatives or possibilities. It (the truth) is limited or exclusive only on the given proposition or premise. It means that such proposition cannot be true at the same time and in the same respect. For example: one cannot say that a door is closed and, at the same time and in the same respect, it is opened. Or to say that one is at two places at the same time and in the same respect.

Hence, it is not applicable for faith and reason. It is not the case that if one has faith then one’s reason is canceled out. . On the contrary, a man of faith can also be a man of reason, at the same time, and in the same respect. Examples abound to prove that such is the case. Among them are as follows: Nicolas Copernicus was a Polish Catholic Priest, and yet went on to found the Heliocentric Theory that states that the sun is the center of the solar system and the planets and all the objects in it revolves around the sun. Gregor Mendel was an Agustinian Monk, and yet is also the father of Genetics. Georges Lemaitre was a Belgian Priest and Physicist at the same time. He was noted to be the first to propose the theory of the Big Bang, which is the most widely accepted theory insofar as the origin of the universe is concerned. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan Friar but is considered as the father of modern science. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit Priest and a notable philosopher so to speak.  In contemporary times, we have Dr. Francis Collins a born again christian and yet was the Director of the Human Genome Project, which is responsible for successfully decoding the human genome.

In the words of the great church father St. Agustine: “believe in order to understand; understand in order to believe.” This just goes to show that faith and reason only complement each other, rather than at loggerheads.