Science is not religion’s natural enemy, but scientific thought is clearly the chief enemy to any religious faith that rejects the moderating role of human reason in every area of life—including religion. In long term if Christianity is to survive in the modern world it must begin its many confessions with the dictum: “Faith may not require me to believe what I find to be patently false.” The struggle in the first century between competing factions tracing their origins in various ways to Jesus of Nazareth has remained typical of Christian faith through the intervening centuries: each first-century group was searching for what made sense from their inherited traditions.
In spite of the orthodox creeds that have largely typified modern Christianity since the fourth and fifth centuries of the Common Era, that situation has not changed. In every generation it has been necessary for people of faith to search for new ways to make sense of their faith. The standard creeds of the church are not a once and for all time statement of faith, but merely one ancient attempt to clarify faith at a particular point in time. The problem has always been how to keep faith with the ancient traditions while keeping pace with the acquisition of human knowledge.
Today the Bible is a major obstacle to resolving the tensions between faith and reason. In American religion the Bible has become for many a religious icon—a sacred object of veneration. Icons are not considered a fit subject for criticism, although up to a point they may be gently analyzed. In the popular conservative mind the Bible constitutes the ultimate revelation of God to humankind: that is to say, it is meant to be studied and its moral teaching and religious principles implemented in life throughout society. Reason on the other hand is naturally curious about all things. In the spirit of the Renaissance, reason’s scientific spirit considers everything subject to criticism, analysis, and challenge; nothing is exempt—and particularly not the Bible.
Since the Enlightenment (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) human reason has applied itself to the Bible. This period began the modern critical study of the Bible, and the results of more than three hundred years of biblical criticism have demonstrated beyond question that the Bible is a human product with a past. The Bible’s rediscovery as a text subject to the vicissitudes of human history has clearly undermined faith in the Bible as an iconic object.
The Bible was the one anchor of certainty left to the church after the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. No longer did the protesting churches have a Pope speaking truth from God in the areas of faith and morals. The watchword of the Protestant Reformation was sola scriptura. “Scripture alone” was the guide for religious faith and practice among the reformers. The Roman Catholic Church subordinated the Bible to the church, noting that the church had produced the Bible, and thus the church has sole authority to interpret it. The protestant reformers, on the other hand, subordinated the church to the Bible and made “Scripture alone” the authority for the church. The spirit of the Enlightenment, however, subordinated the church, the Bible, and religion in general to human reason and in so doing discredited both church and Bible as the authoritative source of the voice of God in the modern world. Human beings were left to face God and the world alone without the security net of either church or Bible. Since the enlightenment, reason has increasingly trumped revelation.
With only human reason and ancient tradition as general guides, followers of Jesus today are left to work out their salvation “with fear and trembling” (as Paul put it in Phil 2:12). At some point those who think for themselves will be confronted by the clash between reason and traditional Christian faith. At that point will begin the restructuring of their faith, because reason is a bully and will not allow a rational person mindlessly to repeat ancient confessions that make little sense in the modern world.
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
Revised from the final “Postscript” in Charles W. Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest? American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009), 80-81. This book is a compilation of Hedrick’s revised newspaper articles that were published 1986-2006. For more information and to read an excerpt from the book, go to: http://wipfandstock.com/house-of-faith-or-enchanted-forest.html.
12 comments:
Hi Charlie,
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the either/or set-up of Faith versus Reason. I'm more inclined to want to see everything as a continuum with the extremes at either end.
For example, the resurrection:
Jesus raised up physically and ascended to the side of the Father.
Jesus was raised in the human unconscious.
Jesus was raised in the mind's cognitive dissonance.
Jesus was not raised from the dead in any sense of the word.
Gene
Hi Gene,
You say you see "everything as a continuum with extremes at either end"? Would that include something like gravity?
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
That's a great question. I would be lying if I said that I understood how gravity works. If it's true to say that it's strongest at ground level and weaker as one ascends through the atomosphere I guess that would be a continuum, but perhaps it works differently given the size of a star, planet, asteroid, etc. And gravity must still be functioning as one completely leaves the atmosphere, as I think that it holds all celestial bodies in a fixed relationship with each other, a relationship which must constantly be changing due to the constant explosive destruction of various celestial bodies. Sounds far to complicated to be described with a simple continuum statement.
Maybe Jim or another group member can provide some education on this matter.
Gene
Charlie, your post resonates with my own thinking, as did your book When Faith Meets Reason, that I’ve cited with approval. That book is an incidental part of my complete working library that my age and stage, and family approval, prompted me to give to my publisher in late 2016 to arrange a permanent home for it—as you know.
Matter cannot capture spirit. Writing is done on matter. It is highly appropriate to use writing in human thinking and reasoning, but blasphemy to worship the writing as reflecting spirit. To do so is to worship a graven image, a violation of the second commandment attributed to Moses. Paul, reflective of Moses spirit, indicated the same thing in 2nd Corinthians 3:2.
While I’m in full accord with you on what you write on this, I see the limitations on academic thinking which limits itself to graven images, having, as it does, no methodology to go beyond them in pursuit of spiritual reality. If I’m right, your writings and committed personal journey say the same thing to me.
Warmly—Edward Reaugh Smith
“Faith” is trust. It needn’t rely on logical proof. A sizable proportion of Christians I have known – primarily evangelicals – in my life do not care to think much about science, though they do use it. (They visit doctors and use the tools of technology.) Likewise, other than a few passages, knowledge or use of the Bible is sketchy. Faith grows as a matter of operant conditioning from their youth, curiously steeped in both self-guilt (all are sinners, they say) and a sense of entitlement (we are blessed with God’s grace, they beam). What seems to keep them in a denomination is probably not faith or the Bible, however, as much as it is communion with people like them. The contents of the Bible or of what science entails don’t seem that important, from what I’ve observed, though the dusty Bibles are indeed “graven images,” also known as “the word of God,” word meaning the text. Very little scripture is necessary, though certain verses and stories are vital. Science is an abstraction to be used, not analyzed. Though I realize this is stereotypical, some sociologists have noticed that affiliation with friends is more important than the religious tenets, when one first “converts” to a religion. I assume the same would be true of those christened into a religion or indoctrinated in the same faith community from birth until baptism. I call this “inherited Christianity.” I think the primary obstacles to resolving church and science tensions often are the pastor and the leaders of the church. Depending upon what one emphasizes, the group accepts.
Dennis Dean Carpenter
Dahlonega, Ga.
Good Evening Charlie,
I got a lot of ideas from Dennis's comments. I agree with so much of what he says. Particularly that "faith grows as a matter of operant conditioning from their youth." That is the absolute truth in my case and most of my peers. Which begs the question- then why do we even need faith? What is the use of it when every single man woman child I knew was an evangelical Christian? It's easy to go along with the crowd and it is far, far more dangerous to buck the current. (especially in the south where I was raised) As far as I'm concerned, it takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian when you grow up in a community of like-minded, non-questioning Christians. You would have to defend yourself on every level and perhaps even be shunned from the group. It takes way more faith to go against the crowd than it does to conform to their demands.
Dennis also mentioned how some sociologists have noticed that affiliation with friends is more important than the religious tenets when one first coverts to a religion. That is very accurate. Also what he stated about being indoctrinated in the same faith community from birth to baptism. When I turned 40 or so, one day I asked myself "Do I believe what the Bible says because that's what I really believe- or do I believe it because that's what I was taught to believe?"
I guess that question led me here to your blog.
Charlie, in your opinion is it possible to have both faith and reason at the same time? Can you have faith and still retain the ability to think for yourself? I heard a commentator on the news say "Unless you have faith, you can't have the ability to reason." Not an exact quote. Have you heard that phrase before? Many thanks!! Elizabeth
The answer to your first two questions in my opinion is yes. Talk to any intelligent person in the church who is a believer in God, and it will be evident that they have the ability to reason. It is just at some point such people are willing to trust an item of faith over against reason.
I have never heard or read anyone say: without faith one cannot have the ability to reason. I personally find the statement patently false.
Cordially,
Charlie
Charlie,
Re: Another thoughtful and scholarly essay on science and religion.
Thanks again for sharing your experience, knowledge, and reason on these subjects! I agree with you that science is not religion's natural enemy. Science rather may be thought of as an enemy of superstition, ignorance, intolerance, error, and a number of other human faults. Science is simply a tool used for unraveling the "mysteries" of the universe. Science has certainly discovered numerous human errors made on the basic of faith, beliefs, religion, and in many cases of science itself as the understanding of the universe continues to evolve.
I like to consider the benefits that science has provided to human well being-especially over the past 200 years. Also considering the various other areas of human thought and endeavors that have benefited human well being. I cannot think of any other human endeavor that has contributed so much to human well being as has Science, technology, and engineering!
With regards to your and Gene's comments about continuum within the universe and with gravity in specific: Much of the universe exists in a continuum. In an important respect gravity exists in a continuum as a function of distance and mass. Other notable continuum in the universe are human characteristics; e.g. intelligent, size, strength, gender, sexuality, talent, beauty, etc.
Jim
Charlie,
When reading my former comments another striking continuum in the universe came to my mind: Evolution.
Jim
Sorry about that- I didn't word the question correctly at all and it made no sense whatsoever! Let's try this again...
Take two: Do you agree that it takes more "faith" to go against the prevailing religious beliefs of one's family and community at large than it does to conform to tradition? In other words- if your faith isn't challenged by a different point of view, then why is it necessary?
Good afternoon Elizabeth,
I would not even speculate about your question with an answer that meant anything at all. How much faith or how little faith a person may have is a very personal question and there exists no mechanism for getting at a reliable answer. Hence I would have to say in response: it depends on the individual.
Cordially,
Charlie
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