© Michael Lacewing Faith without reason? Michael Lacewing

Approaches Pope John Paul II: rational knowledge and philosophical discourse are important for ‘the very possibility of belief in God’. Richard Swinburne: The Coherence of Theism: God’s existence is probable, considering all the evidence. Extreme ‘fideism’: sin has damaged our ability to reason, so ignore reason. Moderate ‘fideism’: faith goes ‘beyond’ reason, but doesn’t oppose it.

W K Clifford It is ‘wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything on insufficient evidence’. Forming beliefs on insufficient evidence makes us credulous, and weakens our cognitive powers.

William James It can be right and reasonable to believe something without sufficient evidence for its truth when we face a ‘genuine option’ that cannot be decided on the basis of evidence.

Genuine options The alternatives for what to believe, e.g. ‘God exists’ and ‘God does not exist’, are ‘live’ – the person feels they really could believe either. The alternatives exclude each other (not more than one of them can be true) and there are no other alternatives – the choice between them is ‘forced’. The alternatives are ‘momentous’ rather than trivial, e.g. this is your only opportunity to get it right or the stakes are high.

Securing the truth We often need to form beliefs with some risk of error, e.g. friendships. In the case of genuine options, if our intellect can’t decide, then our emotions and will must. To not form a belief, e.g. for fear of getting it wrong, is itself a decision made on the basis of an emotion. James is not arguing that faith is more rational than agnoticism or atheism. He is arguing that it is not less rational.

Objections Religious faith is not forced: there are many religious beliefs to choose from. Religious faith is not momentous: must you believe in God to secure eternal life? If neither forced nor momentous, religious faith is not a genuine option, so it is not right to believe in God without sufficient evidence.

Søren Kierkegaard Religious faith is not a philosophical system or set of beliefs; it is held passionately. To believe that God exists, but to treat this as just another fact, about which we feel nothing, is not to have faith. Faith isn’t (just) a matter of what, but of how, we believe.

Objective uncertainty The commitment that characterizes faith requires a decision, a ‘leap’. This leap requires objective uncertainty. Objective certainty will not have the same impact on one’s life as faith in the face of uncertainty - perhaps God prevents certainty for this reason. But why leap into faith rather than reject it? For now, our question is only ‘may we leap, reasonably?’

Leaping and reason We ‘cannot believe nonsense against the understanding… because the understanding will penetratingly perceive that it is nonsense and hinder [us] in believing it’. Religious faith in its trust and commitment is ‘incomprehensible’ in that it lies outside the limits that reason can reach for itself. Both James and Kierkegaard argue that reason has and can recognise that it has limits, and that faith might legitimately lie outside these limits.

Objection Many religious believers think that they do have some reason to believe in God. But they are willing to accept that the evidence for God’s existence is not very strong, so they say it is a matter of faith. This seems inconsistent: it accepts belief in God is a matter of evidence and argument, but that we don’t need to justify our conclusion by the balance of evidence.

Reply However, we can combine this with the arguments of James and Kierkegaard: –Either we cannot tell what the balance of evidence is, so faith may ‘leap’; –And/or our belief needs to be more certain than the evidence (either way) allows. So while reason cannot settle the question of belief in God, this does not mean we have no reason at all for such belief.