I recently ran into someone using that phrase in a discussion I was involved in. In about half a second this jumped into my brain:
Because the truth is there is no such thing as "balancing" faith with reason, at least not the kind of "faith" we are talking about in the context of religion which is where this phrase is inevitably utilized. Faith is UNreason. Faith is what is resorted to when you realize reason isn't going to support you believing in that thing you really want to believe in. But people don't want to look at it that way, so they instead try to make this silly argument that if they mix in enough reason over here then that it somehow mysteriously offsets the areas where they're not being reasonable over there.
Sorry folks, doesn't work that way.
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The verdicts still out on this one for me. For example, there are lots of situations where it is unreasonable to sacrifice your self for others. But if one understands the true reality of life, energy, spirituality, then it is not unreasonable at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat's unreasonable to the science community one day, is reasonable the next when more is understood.
I believe reason is a gift from the Creator that needs the balance of the heart. They work together. I say this but continue to investigate.
"For example, there are lots of situations where it is unreasonable to sacrifice your self for others. But if one understands the true reality of life, energy, spirituality, then it is not unreasonable at all."
ReplyDeleteYou're contradicting yourself. It's either reasonable or unreasonable. It can't be both simultaneously.
"What's unreasonable to the science community one day, is reasonable the next when more is understood."
Which is not a justification for embracing the unreasonable now in the absence of any new information that changes the basis for making that evaluation. What you were describing here is re-evaluating your conclusions based on new information... a completely sane and rational thing to do. Science does it constantly, it's designed to do it. It is always looking for additional information to use to revise its conclusions to higher levels of accuracy, it's why science is so phenomenally successful at expanding knowledge.
Invoking faith to declare something reasonable on the other hand is essentially skipping the "new information" step and leaping directly to a conclusion based on nothing but your personal desire for that to be the answer.
This cannot, in any meaningful sense of the word, be claimed to be a "balance" to reason.