[lit-ideas] Re: Faith
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 10:20:19 -0400
Reason for human beings is just another theoretical plaything to be bandied
about by philosophers. In application, humanity doesn't know the meaning
of the word.
Amago
> [Original Message]
> From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/16/2005 10:11:05 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Faith
>
> Eric Yost wrote:
>
> "These developments led some thinkers, like Kierkegaard, to maintain that
> faith was essentially an irrational existential act, incompatible with
> reason...hence K's famous "leap of faith" phrase."
>
> Except that for Kierkegaard, faith is not irrational and is most certainly
> compatible with reason. K. does argue that the decision of faith is not a
> rational one, and may in fact appear irrational, but as Wittgenstein will
> later argue, just because something is other than reason does not make it
> irrational. Furthermore, it is possible to show that the great
pseudonymous
> works of K., Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Fragments,
> Stages, Sickness Unto Death, are long reflections on how faith and reason
> must be compatible. This is particularly true of SUD where K.'s
> understanding of a self requires the integration of faith and reason.
>
> I understand why the existentialists would want to appropriate K. as one
of
> their own but a close reading shows that K. is no existentialist and is in
> fact quite hostile to its main tenets.
>
>
> Eric again:
>
> "Yet I think the "reason and faith are allies" view hasn't made much
> headway, unless you count CS Lewis as headway."
>
> It has made tremendous headway. What is Christian fundamentalism except
> perhaps the most rationalistic and modern of faiths? As always, the issue
> is not whether one is being rational or not but where one starts from.
And,
> as Kierkegaard most thoroughly demonstrates, where one starts from is not
> itself determined by an act of reason.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
> Toronto, ON
>
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