The Uncertainty of Christian Philosophy
Timothy Blaine
Abstract
“Is Christian Philosophy Possible...Is the Anglo-analytic tradition correct in asserting that faith is essentially reducible to assertions (propositions), so that, in order for faith to be philosophically relevant, it must be stripped of its experiential contents and presented propositionally?”[1] Is Christian Philosophy Possible, in light of its dependence on faith? Are faith and reason two separate camps, singled by their allegiance to the service of either philosophy or Christian philosophy? If so, then one of them may tip the scales of truth. Though, perhaps this is not the case, and faith is as dear to reason as notes to a singer. If this is true, then the philosophical spoil of Christian philosophy will end in the philosophical ruin of philosophy itself. In light of the later it seems the more optimistic, if not more meaningful, motion to inquire not of the possibility of Christian philosophy, but of its potential.
Faith is commonly accepted to be a belief that cannot be proven. Reason is the practice that demonstrates logic. Incidentally, it is from this faculty, or process, that proofs are expected to be extracted. The pair, like a pair of premises in a difficult syllogism, may suggest something that only the squinting eye might catch a glimpse of. Faith and reason might appear to be opposed, but perhaps this is because they are the two ends of the same stick. In the case of the path to truth, it is a walking stick. Are faith and reason alternative approaches to the same end? Are they the two faces of a two-headed Athena? It may be that she has only one face, and it is the face of wisdom. Perhaps, the road to truth, passing through the majestic, is paved with stones of faith, which bear the reflection of reasoning.
Does philosophy have any remaining recollection of love for wisdom? Or has it invested completely in pursuit of an abstract parallel to scientific proof?
Enlightenment rationalism cut the top off of Greek ideals and kept the bottom, cut off wisdom and kept logic, transformed reason into reasoning. With this new, streamlined tool, the world could be conquered.[2]
If this tool is the resident whole of philosophy, then such questions may be found arbitrary as; “Is Christian philosophy possible?” in light of the more relevant question: “Is philosophy possible?”
If the only value in philosophy is realized through the harvesting of theories from seeds of proof, then, truly, reason is the fortune hunter. For, it is reason that should recognize such a prize as proof. Though, will it consider if it ought to seek such magical seeds as these? For, “if they cannot succeed, yet try anyway, they are guilty of error and are blameworthy.”[3] In the words of common sense:
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.[4]
Do human thoughts, and senses, accurately relate to reality? Countless words have whirled around the question, and none have come to rest on anything bridging reason to resolve. There is no reasonable answer to the question, only a practical one. Trusting in the mind or the senses because there is no reason not to, may be no more reasonable than distrusting them because there is no reason to trust them. Either trust, however, is faith, and one faith is the beginning while the other is the end.
“Knowledge accordingly is belief: belief in a world of events…and precedes all deliberate use of intuitions as signs or descriptions of things; as I turn my head to see who is there, before I see who it is.”[5] And, “all alleged knowledge of matters of fact is faith only, and that an existing world, whatever form it may choose to wear, is intrinsically a questionable…thing.”[6]
Having faith, or accepting something that cannot be proven, does not always imply a lack of argument or reason. That is only the wrong end of fideism, believing for the sake of belief, and one may be faulted for it, even when the belief is reasonable. Faith is commonly a reference to a body of reasoning, which is built on an assent to a practical bias bridging a gap between a logical impasse. In the event of such a stalemate, though philosophy should ignore this faith for its lack of proof, it may not employ reason to defeat it. For, the battlefield lies across the rational void, and while faith has crossed, leaps of logic are entirely bad form.
The paradoxical nature of reasoning lies in the ambition to ground reason in itself. Thus, the reasonable futility of presenting propositions without first having reason to believe them. The backward spiral that swallows the deliberator is manifest in persistent reasoning unaided by the sense that is called common. For, “if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on ad infinitum.”[7]
But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it…It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.[8]
This is the recurrent state of philosophy, seeking to ground itself in first principles, avoiding any conference with wisdom, blinded, and wailing in deathly thirst for the self-evident. Though, “No fact is self-evident; and [in response to cogito ergo sum] what sort of fact is this ‘I,’ and in what sense do I ‘exist’?”[9] It is at such a point that the only way to stand is to stand on faith. It is surely not the beginning, but it is the only way to begin. What is to be done when the only soil there is, is not fertile for the roots of philosophy? “There is an ethical problem at the root of our philosophical difficulties; for men are most anxious to find truth, but very reluctant to accept it.”[10] Must philosophy be “the mathematical knowledge of the necessary order there is between the so-called simple natures, or fundamental ideas of the human mind”[11]; is there no strength in the edifice of reasoning that offers value by first having faith in things that are not inescapably necessary? “Suppose, for example, that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number…Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a sum…But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided”?[12] The answer is inevitably that; there are many. If philosophy is to be the knowledge of the necessary order of the self-evident, then its value, if realized, is a universal extension of Plato’s arithmetic. If, however, this realization always proves to be as elusive as it always has been, then philosophy must remember its love for wisdom. For, wisdom is needed to face the armies of the unknown. Truly, “we call men Wise in this or that, when they calculate well with a view to some good end in a case where there is no definite rule.”[13] The fact that there is a point where reason eludes its pursuers is much more interesting than the alternative. It is as interesting as a human being. For, “What can a human being do that a god, a computer, or an animal never does? Wonder.”[14]
In the end, though the objects of faith may be found as reasonable as matters of fact are questionable, it is precisely its uncertainty that really interests the Christian.
Our duty as Christians lies in making ventures for eternal life without the absolute certainty of success…This, indeed, is the very meaning of the word “venture”; for that is a strange venture which has nothing in it of fear, risk, danger, anxiety, uncertainty. Yes, so it certainly is; and in this consists the excellence and nobleness of faith; this is the very reason why faith is singled out from other graces, and honored as the especial means of our justification, because its presence implies that we have the heart to make a venture.[15]
If philosophy is the “love of wisdom”, then much confidence must go with any affirmation that the Christian is a philosopher. For not only does the Christian philosopher love the wisdom in all things, but more precisely the wisdom of the One from Whom all things come. Yet, in loving wisdom, the Christian philosopher should hope that certainty will never find its way into Christian philosophy. For, it is in uncertainty that the potential of Christian philosophy is realized, and it is the potential for glory. They are the most glorious victories whose victors overcome the certainty of defeat with the uncertainty of their faith.
Notes:
[1] The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal. (n.d.) Retrieved March 1, 2005, from
http://examinedlifejournal.com/current/schedule.shtml
[2] Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue (Ignatius Press, 1986), 55.
[3] Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (Bantam Books, 1966), 23.
[4] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Image Books, 1990), 33.
[5] George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith (Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), 179.
[6] Ibid, 49.
[7] Aristotle, The Ethics of Aristotle, eds. D.P. Chase (E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1950), 56.
[8] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (HarperCollins, 2001), 81.
[9] Santayana, 290.
[10] Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (Ignatius Press, 1999), 49.
[11] Gilson, 115.
[12] Plato, Euthyphro, in “The Works of Plato”, eds. Irwin Edman
(Simon and Sehuster, Inc., 1928), 42.
[13] Aristotle, 143.
[14] Peter Kreeft, A Turn of the Clock: A Book of Modern Proverbs (Ignatius Press, 1987), 10.
[15] John Henry Newman, Realizations, eds. Vincent Ferrer Blehl
(London, Darton, Longman & Dodd, 1964), 46-47.
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