Faith, Reason And Testimonies

[Snow]

I'm teaching priesthood again this Sunday and the lesson is Personal, Abiding Testimony (#7 from the Heber J. Grant manual) and I thought that an exploration of the role of faith and its place along side reason in personal testimonies might be in order.

PD,

On a couple of occasions you have given us an enlightening treatment of faith and reason. All old messages were wiped clean and I can't find what I am looking for. Do you save any of your posts or can you post something that discusses the roles of faith and reason in religion.

If anybody else has something they consider worthwhile, please feel free... What about you Cal, got anything appropriate for priesthood.

[Snow]

Oh, I don't want to limit any input just to LDSarians. Anybody who has an interesting take would be aprreciated.

[Jason]

If I may, it seems that faith and reason sometimes don't go hand in hand. Let's face it , faith is basically not reasonable. (I believe we've touched on the difference between reasonable faith and religious faith.)

I know that it was my faith in mormonism that kept me there for many years when my reason dictated otherwise. It is faith that keeps us religious and fearing God, while reason sometimes makes us sit back and say to ourselves: "Do I really believe in all of this?"

It's like Peter Jennings Jesus and Paul show tonight. Watching that did two things to me, increase my faith and increase my skepticism. Did St. Paul really corrupt original Christianity? Can I accept that God became man in such a pathetic little Roman province? Im not sure where Im going with this....

Anyways, a few things you may or may not want to explore for your class.

Jason

[Guest Starsky]

I liked the talk Oaks gave in conference (I think first session on Saturday) about the word 'abide'. He pointed out that abide means to 'stay'...or endure.

It was quite a profound insight for me. Abide in Christ. (John 15:4-7)

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Originally posted by Starsky@Apr 5 2004, 10:16 PM

I liked the talk Oaks gave in conference (I think first session on Saturday) about the word 'abide'. He pointed out that abide means to 'stay'...or endure.

It was quite a profound insight for me. Abide in Christ. (John 15:4-7)

I thought that was Elder Holland, referring to the Spanish translation of "abide" as "permanacer."

Snow -- Unfortunately, I didn't save my old posts either. I vaguely remember what you're talking about, and will try to dredge my old thoughts up from the memory vaults.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

I'm still trying to remember what I said earlier. As bad luck would have it, I just finished cleaning out most of my LDSTalk PM inbox, which was almost full, and I erased (drat!) some really good back-and-forth on this subject.

I think the gist of my idea was that faith and reason are both essential to understanding holy things. (ExMJ -- if you're still interested in Catholicism, you ought to read Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et ratio", which has some profound thoughts on the subject.) Again, more detailed stuff when I have more time.

[Snow]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Apr 6 2004, 07:51 PM

I'm still trying to remember what I said earlier. As bad luck would have it, I just finished cleaning out most of my LDSTalk PM inbox, which was almost full, and I erased (drat!) some really good back-and-forth on this subject.

I think the gist of my idea was that faith and reason are both essential to understanding holy things. (ExMJ -- if you're still interested in Catholicism, you ought to read Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et ratio", which has some profound thoughts on the subject.) Again, more detailed stuff when I have more time.

Well it was an extenuation of the quote I made of the LDS writer Thomas... in my last sacrament meeting talk on moral agency where the seperate spheres of faith and reason were explored and how faith could not replace reason or was not appropriate where reason or knowledge indicated something to the contrary (in dogma) but that in religious matters where reason could not provide a definitive answer - that was the proper realm for faith...

...and in my next life I hope to construct a cogent sentence.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Now I remember. I think you pretty much summed it up. My thinking was that some (perhaps even most) questions are capable of being resolved by weighing rational evidence (a process we can abbreviate as "reason"). If a conclusive answer is available through reason, it's probably not a proper subject for faith. Since faith (according to Joseph Smith's "Lectures on Faith" is the evidence of things not seen, that are true, it is not actually "faith" to believe in something that is demonstrably false. I should not rely on "faith" for evidence of the proposition that Chicago is only ten miles east of Los Angeles.

First, that would be lazy; I'd be deliberately neglecting to use some of the tools for gaining knowledge the Lord has provided (in this case, my mind and my feet -- I could easily resolve the question by marching over the ten miles to see for myself). We are created in the image of God. Some theologians, since they don't believe in an anthropomorphic God, consider this to mean that we are created with the ability, like God, to reason. I think the way we conform to God's image is much broader than this, but I agree with the theologians at least as far as God's capacity for thought is one of the ways we are created in his image.

Second, applying "faith" to something that was capable of rational proof or disproof would potentially create a conflict between faith and objective reality. Having faith in something that was clearly not true would make faith an absurdity -- or would require me to tie myself in knots trying to cram reality into the preconceived notions of my "faith" -- in this case, maybe by speculating that there is some kind of a space-time warp just east of Los Angeles that makes Chicago appear much farther away than it actually is. The Renaissance Catholic hierarchy got itself into a world of trouble with this when they made the Ptolemaic astronomical system a matter for faith; they were forced to assume a convoluted system of circles within circles to account for the irregular movements of the planets, when the observations and analysis of Brahe, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were providing a more accurate, and much simpler, explanation. At the extreme, proclaiming "faith" in something that is capable of resolution by reason can back one into the corner of asking "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Some things, on the other hand, are impossible by their nature of being discovered by reason. The existence of God and his attributes are such matters. True, revelation can provide some evidence for these things. A person can feel the proverbial "burning in the bosom." He could even hear voices, or see visions. But there remains a gap between the evidence these experiences provide, and a conviction that there exists a Supreme Being with all power, infinite love, and complete perfection, Whose existence is of such a nature that the finite human mind cannot fully comprehend. Ultimately, a person has to choose to believe that the spiritual promptings he feels come such a loving Father, and not from his brain chemistry. Even a person who witnessed the miracles of scripture would have to have faith that they were evidence of a loving, perfect Father in Heaven, as opposed to some kind of lesser magic. This kind of Ultimate Faith is essentially a choice, and a perfectly legitimate one -- so long as the person making it is aware that it is his individual choice, and that a person who makes a different choice is also choosing legitimately.

So faith operates in its sphere, and reason in its sphere. The problem with this analysis is like the problems with classical economic analysis or Newtonian physics, in that it explains how things operate in a vacuum, "all things being equal." Reality is muddier. Some things that are theoretically capable of resolution by reason may suffer from such scarcity of evidence at a given time, that an unambiguous resolution is impossible. For example, history is generally thought to be one of the areas where the tools of reason may properly be brought to bear. But history is filtered through the perceptions and biases of the fallible humans who record it. Even direct evidence, like archaological discoveries, are subject to misinterpretation. And in some cases, the historical record is just too thin to make any kind of informed decision.

That's not a problem with most historical questions. There is little practical effect to saying, "We don't know for sure" what, say, the purpose of Stonehenge was. But in other areas -- particularly the intersection of religion with history -- no decision is actually a decision. If we simply throw up our hands and say there's insufficient evidence to decide whether Jesus ever existed, that essentially constitutes a decision not to accept him as the Savior.

So there is another purpose to faith -- to fill in gaps in the evidentiary record, when there is insufficient evidence to decide questions that we believe need to be answered, and when it is likely that those gaps will not be filled with rational evidence, despite our best efforts, in time to do any good.. Since this kind of faith is potentially trespassing on the proper territory of reason, I like to distinguish it from faith in the things reason is constitutionally incapable of deciding -- call the one Ultimate Faith, and the other Supplementary Faith. (I'm sure someone could think of better labels.) Supplementary Faith should be humbler, and used more cautiously, so as to avoid putting ourselves in the position where we are forced to use "faith" to argue that Pasadena is really Chicago. We should be willing, if necessary, to allow reason to displace Supplementary Faith when sufficient rational evidence becomes available.

That said, people should recognize that "rational evidence" doesn't consist only of the discoveries and analysis of secular scholars. The scientific and peer-review process is rigorous, but it is also subject to human fallibility. People may be biased, mistaken, or underinformed. The global-warming field, for example, is one area where I believe biases are leading some scientists to make more definitive pronouncements than the objective data justify. Spiritual promptings are also a kind of rational evidence. When they are sensed, the person who receives them knows he has sensed something unusual -- maybe even completely unique. As it happens, I am not one of those people who has received a spiritual witness that is completely different from anything he's ever felt, so I can't provide any direct testimony here. (I did get teary-eyed watching the BYU combined choirs perform "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" a few years back, but I also got teary-eyed at the end of "The Sandlot" and a couple of other baseball movies. And when the Angels finally won the World Series two years ago. And when I sang my daughter to sleep with "Turn Around.") But other people do tell me of experiences that were completely unique and compelling. For them, those spiritual sensations can reasonably be considered to be rational evidence, no more likely to be mistaken than a scientist's study.

I have ultimate faith that there is a God in heaven, who is our Father and loves us, and is perfect (whatever that may mean), and that he has provided a plan to overcome the uglier aspects of our nature and to overcome our mortality. For the details of what God's perfection means, and what his plan involves, particularly with respect to the ultimate moral law, I rely on a combination of reason and supplementary faith. I have further ultimate faith that God's plan to overcome my mortal limitations, will also redeem me from the errors I will inevitably make in the process of exercising supplementary faith, applying mortal reason, and balancing the two, and so I can go forward with firmness in the right as God gives me to see the right.

[Jason]

"ExMJ -- if you're still interested in Catholicism, you ought to read Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et ratio", which has some profound thoughts on the subject."

I'll put it on my reading list. Currently Im dragging through Fox's "Pagans and Christians" which will be followed up by Augustine's "Confessions". (Though I can probably squeeze it in since encyclical's usually aren't that long.)

[Snow]

PD,

That's what I was talking about but I think you have made it a bit more profound this time. It's fairly dense material so I want to think about it some more after I come down off this high from the rack of lamb I cooked for dinner. Quick question though, if faith is the evidence of things not seen, then that implies that faith is not just a belief, but a tangible or an mentally processed something or some substance. What? If I simply accept Joseph Smith's prophetic calling through intellectual acquiescence, then that's not really faith. That's just blind acceptance and carries no spiritual value or at least little power of it's own.

There's the thought that faith is different than knowledge in that knowledge in and of itself has no power but faith it putting action behind knowledge or belief... even demons knew that Jesus was the Christ but that knowledge gave them not power.... So how is faith evidence?

Jason,

I don't know what kind of reading your into, I have a bit of everything on my shelves waiting for an excuse to read them. Right now I'm looking at The Faith, A History of Christianity by Brain Moynahan. It's supposed to be brilliant and beautifully written.

[Jason]

see next message

[Jason]

I've heard good and bad about Moynahan's book. Let me know what you think. As for history, I've purchased the first volume of Jaroslav Pelikan's multi-volumed history of Christian doctrine. It's supposed to be the best. Whenever I get around to it, I'll let you know.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Snow -- More detail on the rack of lamb, please. Every time I go to Costco, I mean to get some of those reasonably-priced New Zealand racks, but by that point I've usually already blown my budget on king-sized packs of paper towels and so forth. There's a recipe I want to try that uses a walnut-herb crust on the lamb.

"Faith is the evidence of things not seen." What is evidence? Does it have to be some kind of "tangible or ... mentally processed something or some substance"?

I'm sure it's possible to go too far in applying legal concepts to epistemology, especially in metaphysical or religious contexts, but the law of evidence is deeply involved with the study of how things are known. Tangible things and eyewitness testimony are evidence. Sometimes, even a person's opinion may be evidence (such as when expert testimony is offered).

Since I previously argued that the ultimate facts of God's existence are so far above the mortal capacity to perceive, that for practical purposes, they are impossible to know in mortality without the exercise of at least some faith, it follows that faith is the "best evidence" available for these things. I think a person's exercise of faith is similar to opinion testimony. It may not be direct evidence, and is subjective, but it's the only evidence that's available. When direct evidence is unavailable, and a question demands resolution, the best available evidence should be used.

I don't think "intellectual acquiescence" is necessarily something weak, or something less than true faith. While it is true that, according to scripture and widespread experience, additional spiritual evidence or confirmations often follow the exercise of faith that may be little more than intellectual acquiescence at first, even after receiving those spiritual promptings, the exercise of some faith is still required, as I argued earlier.

And a person's intellectual acquiescence to a true religious teaching may be significantly different from intellectual acquiescence in, say, a cutting-edge, imperfectly-proven scientific or religious theory, in this respect: that acquiescence in the religious teaching may be prompted by a desire to believe. The scriptures speak of exercising faith, but they also speak of faith as a gift from God. The desire that people may feel to acquiesce in a teaching, despite a lack of full proof, is this kind of a gift.

It could be argued, by nonbelievers, that they feel no such desire. If they are taken at their word, as they should be absent a reason to question their integrity, then we should consider that maybe the Lord customizes the gift of desire to believe according to the composition of their minds, and leads them carefully -- indirectly, if necessary -- towards the truth. A secularist's honorable concern for intellectual integrity may ultimately be motivated by a God-given desire to believe in the idea of Truth, and pursue it. It may be that because of the way life and biology has shaped that man's mind, the Lord reserves his introduction to the remainder of the John 14:6 triad -- the Way and the Life -- for the eternities. .333 is a pretty good batting average.

I don't think we should sell "intellectual acquiescence" short. Sometimes, we do things just because we have decided to do them. For example, an honorable man who has decided he is going to be faithful in his marriage will continue to be faithful, even if at some point in his life he may not be completely convinced that, on balance, being "match'd with an aged wife" is satisfying to him. If a person has determined to believe in God, and recognizes that his choice to do so is legitimate, then there is no reason why this determination shouldn't be capable of impelling him to resolute action.

[Guest lt]

Snow, thank you for asking proudduck... I remember the two of you talking about this awhile back and I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this guys....I've enjoyed reading this topic.

Laureltree

[Snow]

Hi LaurelTree, nice to hear from you again. I've missed you.

PD,

Not intending to parse this unnecessarily but if I have faith in God and I tell you of my faith, then that is evidence to you of God's existence, provided there is some credibilty to me. If I have faith in God, then my faith cannot be evidence of God to me myself, can it? That's cirular and I am dizzy anyway from my sexy red pumps - walking, walking walking. Then on the other hand, Alma tells us if we awake and arouse our faculties, even as an experiment and exercise even a particle of faith - that faith is a seed that swells in us and grows and perhaps feeds upon itself - or if not a true perpetual motion machine, creating its own energy (faith) at least when combined with our care and feeding of the faith, adding to itself synergystically, thus growing more and more and faith itself serving as it's own evidence to the believer.

Hmmm...

[Guest TheProudDuck]

If I have faith in God, then my faith cannot be evidence of God to me myself, can it?

Why not? Essentially, evidence is whatever a decision is based on. When you get to a point (like the Ultimate Questions) where all other evidence must fail by definition, what you have left is essentially a choice to believe, or not. That choice is your evidence.

It is very close to a circular argument. But I think one thing separates it from true circularity ("it is because it is"): the fact that you have exercised your sovereign will (that is, sovereign within your particular universe) one way or the other. Instead of "it is because it is," you have "it is because I say it is." Instead of a circular argument, what you have is an appeal to authority -- your own. Of course, the appeal to authority is generally considered a relatively weak argument (authorities can be wrong, after all), but keep in mind that when we're dealing with Ultimate Questions, there is no other argument available. What you're doing, when you're relying on your choice to believe, is relying on the possibility that whatever desire to believe led you to make the choice to believe, may come from a reliable source not immediately recognized -- perhaps even from God himself.

I still think that anything we can experience in mortality could conceivably be explained by something lesser than the infinite, total Reality that is God. Virtually any miracle or spiritual prompting could plausibly be explained by science, the workings of your mind and emotion, or even by some lesser Magic. So while it is true that God may give us more and more evidence, in the manner described in Alma 42, this evidence could never be enough to prove, absolutely and conclusively, the things of God that can only be comprehended by a celestial mind. In the world, we will always need to walk at least partially by faith.

Note: Honest -- I thought this up before reading a review of William James' "The Will to Believe." Once again, somebody's anticipated what I thought were my own brilliant original thoughts by about a century. Hmph.

[Snow]

Update:

I prepared what I felt was a heart-felt and thought provoking lesson on Personal Testimony using the Heber J. Grant manual lesson as the context. The lesson started talking about belief and faith, their interconnectedness and their differences, belief being intellectual assent while faith implies a confidence and conviction that impels to action. Then the lesson called for a discussion of knowledge (and that gave me some new thoughts that I wanted to test with Cal) and then, after some reviews of HJG's teachings, I wanted to discuss PD's approach to faith and reason, then segue (for Trident that's seg-way) into the how's and why's of personal testimony building.

...but during the Sacrament Meeting I kept thinking about Bruce R. Mckonkie's final testimony of Christ and the Atonement in Conference, April of 1985. He died 13 days later. So I checked with the library, they had the video tape and I played that instead.

It was the right choice.

I'm teaching again week after next on the atonement so maybe I can work the material into that lesson. But in the mean time, if anyone has some interesting, off the beaten track material on the atonement... let me know.

[Jason]

maybe you could show the trailer for "the Passion"?

[Snow]

An r-rated show in Priesthood?

[Jenda]

Originally posted by Snow@Apr 13 2004, 07:03 PM

An r-rated show in Priesthood?

Just the trailer for it, those are usually rated G.