Fideism
Encyclopedia
Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith
is independent of reason
, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truth
s (see natural theology
). The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith
, and literally means "faith-ism."
Theologians
and philosophers
have responded in various ways to the place of faith and reason in determining the truth of metaphysical
idea
s, morality
, and religious belief
s. The term fideist, one who argues for fideism, is very rarely self-applied. Support of fideism is most commonly ascribed to five philosophers: Montaigne
, Pascal
, Kierkegaard, William James
, and Wittgenstein; with fideism being a label applied in a negative sense by their opponents, but which is not supported by their own ideas and works or followers. There are a number of different forms of fideism.
defines "fideism" as "the exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical or religious truth." The fideist therefore "urges reliance on faith rather than reason, in matters philosophical and religious," and therefore may go on to disparage the claims of reason. The fideist seeks truth
, above all: and affirms that reason cannot achieve certain kinds of truth, which must instead be accepted only by faith. Plantinga's definition might be revised to say that what the fideist objects to is not so much "reason" per se — it seems excessive to call Blaise Pascal
anti-rational — but evidentialism
: the notion that no belief should be held unless it is supported by evidence.
Some forms of fideism outright reject the correspondence theory of truth, which has major philosophical implications. Some only claim a few religious details to be axiom
atic.
" ("I believe because it is absurd"), often attributed to Tertullian
, is sometimes cited as an example of such a view in the Church Fathers
, but this appears to be a misquotation from Tertullian's De Carne Christi (On the Flesh of Christ]). What he actually says in DCC 5 is "... the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd
."
This, however, is not a statement of a fideist position; rather, it is rendered somewhat plausible by the context—that Tertullian was simply engaging in ironic overstatement. As a matter of fact, this work used an argument from Aristotle
's rhetoric saying that if a man in whom you have trust tells you about a miraculous event he witnessed, you can allow yourself to consider that he may be saying the truth despite the fact that the event is very unlikely.
. Blaise Pascal invites the atheist
considering faith
to see faith in God as a cost-free choice that carries a potential reward. He does not attempt to argue that God indeed exists, only that it might be valuable to assume that it is true. In his Pensées
, Pascal writes:
Pascal moreover contests the various proposed proofs of the existence of God as irrelevant. Even if the proofs were valid, the beings they propose to demonstrate are not congruent with the deity worshiped by historical faiths, and can easily lead to deism
instead of revealed religion: "The God of Abraham
, Isaac
, and Jacob
— not the god of the philosophers!"
promoted a view that elevated faith alone was the only guide to human conduct. Using the work of David Hume
he argued that everything people do is ultimately based on faith. Without faith (for it can never be proven) in the existence of an external world, human affairs could not continue; therefore, he argued, all reasoning comes from this faith: it is fundamental to the human condition. Thus all attempts to base belief in God using Reason are in vain. He virulently attacks systems like Spinozism
that try to confine what he feels is the infinite majesty of God into a finite human creation. There is only one path to God, that of a childlike faith not Reason.
and his followers in Christian existentialism
. Many of Kierkegaard's works, including Fear and Trembling
, are under pseudonym
s; they may represent the work of fictional authors whose views correspond to hypothetical positions, not necessarily those held by Kierkegaard himself.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard focused on Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The New Testament apostles repeatedly argued that Abraham's act was an admirable display of faith. To the eyes of a non-believer, however, it must necessarily have appeared to be an unjustifiable attempted murder
, perhaps the fruit of an insane delusion. Kierkegaard used this example to focus attention on the problem of faith in general. He ultimately affirmed that to believe in the incarnation of Christ, in God made flesh, was to believe in the "absolute paradox", since it implies that an eternal, perfect being would become a simple human. Reason cannot possibly comprehend such a phenomenon; therefore, one can only believe in it by taking a "leap of faith
".
did not write systematically about religion, though he did lecture on the topic. Some of his students' notes have been collected and published. On the other hand, it has been asserted that religion as a "form of life" is something that intrigued Wittgenstein to a great degree. In his 1967 article, entitled "Wittgensteinian Fideism," Kai Nielsen argues that certain aspects of Wittgenstein's thought have been interpreted by Wittgensteinians in a "fideistic" manner. According to this position, religion is a self-contained—and primarily expressive—enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or “grammar
.” This view—commonly called Wittgensteinian Fideism—states: (1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that religious concepts and discourse are essentially self-referential; and (3) that religion cannot be criticized from an external (i.e., non-religious) point of view.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/#2.2 Although there are other aspects that are often associated with the phenomena of Wittgensteinian Fideism, Kai Nielsen has argued that such interpretations are implausible misrepresentations of the position. It is worth noting, however, that no self-proclaimed Wittgensteinian actually takes Nielsen's analysis to be at all representative of either Wittgenstein's view, or their own. This is especially true of the most well-known Wittgensteinian philosopher of religion, D. Z. Phillips, who is also the most well known "Wittgensteinan Fideist." In their co-written book, "Wittgensteinian Fideism?" (SCM Press, 2005) D. Z. Phillips and Kai Nielsen debate the status of Wittgensteinian Fideism. Both agree that the position "collapses," though they think it fails for different reasons. For Nielsen, the position is socially and politically irresponsible since it ignores prudential, practical, and pragmatic considerations as a basis for criticizing different language games. For Phillips, the position fails because it is not Wittgensteinian, and thus is a caricature of his position. Amongst other charges, Nielsen argues, most forcefully in an article entitled "On Obstacles of the Will," that Phillips' Wittgensteinian view is relevantly fideistic and that it, therefore, fails on the grounds that it cannot account for the possibility of external, cultural criticism. Phillips, in turn, in the last article in the book, entitled "Wittgenstein: Contemplation and Cultural Criticism," argues that the position is not Wittgensteinian at all, and that Wittgenstein's considered view not only allows for the possibility of external, cultural criticism, but also "advances" philosophical discussion concerning it.
is a Christian system of apologetics
associated mainly with Calvinist
Protestantism
; it attempts to distinguish itself from fideism. It holds that all human thought must begin with the proposition that the revelation
contained in the Bible
is axiom
atic, rather than transcendentally
necessary, else one would not be able to make sense of any human experience (see also epistemic foundationalism
). To a non-believer who rejects the notion that the truth about God, the world and themselves can be found within the Bible, the presuppositional apologist attempts to demonstrate the incoherence of the epistemic foundations of the logical alternative by the use of what has come to be known as the "Transcendental Argument for God's existence" or (TAG). On the other hand, some presuppositional apologists believe that such a condition of true unbelief is impossible, claiming that all people actually believe in God (even if only on a subconscious level), whether they admit or deny it.
Presuppositional apologetics
could be seen as being more closely allied with foundationalism
than fideism, though it has sometimes been critical of both.
taught that faith informs the Christian's use of reason. Regarding the mysteries of Christian faith, he wrote, "All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false." And "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has." However, Luther conceded that, grounded upon faith in Christ, reason can be used in its proper realm, as he wrote, "Before faith and the knowledge of God reason is darkness in divine matters, but through faith it is turned into a light in the believer and serves piety as a excellent instrument. For just as all natural endowments serve to further impiety in the godless, so they serve to further salvation in the godly. An eloquent tongue promotes faith; reason makes speech clear, and everything helps faith forward. Reason receives life from faith; it is killed by it and brought back to life."
Luther's perspective did not last long, though, as the scholasticism
Protestant theology assumed in the 16th century debates to fight Catholicism overwhelmed the original existential import of Luther's insight, such as the hardening of the doctrine of justification by faith into harsh theories of moral depravity. Calvinists, for their part, rejected Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
in favor of a more monist conception of God's sovereignty, and thus constructed metaphysical-like dogmas about subjects like double predestination, buttressing them with elaborate systems of logic. Apologetics thus became the main intellectual activity of orthodox Lutherans and Reformed, a situation that caused grave crises for those churches with the arrival of the Enlightenment
. Reactions to notions that authority and tradition need not necessarily guide human activity split Protestantism into numerous groups, some of which accepted the secularist program concerning reason and human capabilities.
Meanwhile, some of the liberal strands within Protestantism developed affinities with Kantian and Hegelian theories about religion, with their respective dispositions against the Biblical rendering of God as simultaneously transcendent and immanent. With the collapse of this tension, philosophical idealism moved into the vacuum, making claims that the human mind could somehow appropriate the divine nature. Logic and determinism would, in time, calcify this movement also, which, unlike the orthodox, abandoned much of its Christian trappings in favor of an outright human-centered cosmology and ethics.
On the other hand, Calvinist scholasticism, possibly encouraged by the prestige of science, developed an ever-more elaborate systematic theology that sought to make a rational, and thus, invulnerable, account of all God's dealings with humanity. These constructions would provide the intellectual foundation for the eventual fundamentalist movement in the U.S., and have remained influential to the present time within those circles. One might sum up those theologians' attitudes by the concise observation of a modern-day Calvinist thinker, Robert L. Reymond, when he claims: "Biblical faith is not a leap in the dark; it is not fideism." The 19th-century Princeton
theologian Benjamin B. Warfield says, "We cannot be said to believe or to trust in a thing or person of which we have no knowledge; 'implicit faith' in this sense is an absurdity." Reformed Protestants hold that Biblical faith is based upon the revelation of divine knowledge. Faith devoid of knowledge is "believing the lie" that "leads to condemnation" (2 Thessalonians 2:11–12). To him, Biblical faith wants nothing to do with a mindless Christianity. Compared to other religions, Christianity is "preeminently the reasoning religion" — the Bible commands people to know what they must believe in.
However, other schools within Protestantism are more inclined to base their theology upon fideist premises, especially those descending from thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Karl Barth
. Both men confronted the increasing crisis within Western Civilization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and concluded that the various kinds of philosophical theology, whether liberal or conservative, were handmaidens in the cultural captivity of the faith, and that the faith had to be liberated from such shackles. Kierkegaard's espousal of non-rational methods of communicating the Gospel such as indirect communication and irony and Barth's complete repudiation of natural theology
signaled a return to Luther's concept of the faith as fiducia (trust) in God's grace through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, instead of primarily assentia to human ideas about the ontologically prior acts of God. Understandings of God and truth were increasingly defined in dialectical terms, as opposed to strict logic and metaphysical speculation. Neo-orthodoxy
became the main school oriented around this new fideist perspective, although several movements descending from it such as liberation theology
and postliberalism continue to bear the fideist stamp, in that they have little or no interest in seeking philosophical or scientific prestige for their claims. They are content to retain Christianity's sense of mystery and paradox and regard attempts to relate those qualities to unaided human reason as inherently compromising.
, representing Catholicism's great regard for Thomism
, the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas
, affirms that it is a Catholic doctrine that God's existence can indeed be demonstrated by reason. Aquinas' rationalism has deep roots in Western Christianity; it goes back to St. Anselm of Canterbury
's observation that the role of reason was to explain faith more fully: fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding," is his formula.
The official position of the Catholic Church is that while the existence of the one God can in fact be demonstrated by reason, men can nevertheless be deluded by their sinful natures to deny the claims of reason that demonstrate God's existence. The Anti-Modernist oath promulgated by Pope Pius X
required Catholics to affirm that:
Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that:
Pope John Paul II
's encyclical
Fides et Ratio
also affirms that God's existence is in fact demonstrable by reason, and that attempts to reason otherwise are the results of sin. In the encyclical, John Paul II warned against "a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God."
, emphasized faith in tradition
as the means of divine revelation. The claims of reason are multiple, and various people have argued rationally for several contradictory things: in this environment, the safest course is to hold true to the faith that has been preserved through tradition, and to resolve to accept what the Church has historically taught. In his essay Du pape ("On the Pope
"), de Maistre argued that it was historically inevitable that all of the Protestant churches would eventually seek reunification and refuge in the Catholic Church: science
was the greater threat, it threatened all religious faith, and "no religion can resist science, except one."
Another refuge of fideist thinking within the Catholic Church is the concept of "signs of contradiction
". According to this belief, the holiness of certain people and institutions is confirmed by the fact that other people contest their claims: this opposition is held to be worthy of comparison to the opposition met by Jesus Christ himself. The fact that the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin
is widely disbelieved, for example, is thought to confirm its authenticity under this belief; the same has been claimed for the doctrine of the real presence
of the Eucharist, or the spiritual merits of the Opus Dei
organization and its discipline. However, opposition and contradiction does not inherently prove something is true in Catholic thought, but only acts an additional sign of a truth.
and Catholics alike argues that respect for Jesus as a teacher and a wise man is logically contradictory if one does not accept him as God as well, also known as the 'Lord, Liar, or Lunatic' argument: either He was insane, or a charlatan
, or he was in fact the Messiah
and Son of God. Cf. Christological argument
. This argument was popularised by the Christian apologist C. S. Lewis
in his book Mere Christianity
(p. 52).
Critics of this argument assert that it presents a false trichotomy
. Jesus may well have important things to teach and have wisdom to give even if he is wrong, ironic, misunderstood, or misquoted about his own relation to God. One need not be right about everything to be right about something. In this line of thinking, the teaching can be true independently of the conduct of the teacher. However, proponents of this argument deny that it is a false trichotomy by appealing to personhood, claiming that Christ as a person could not have died for teachings he knew to be false. Furthermore, he would not have made ridiculous claims of his own divinity alongside otherwise sound teachings if these claims (cf. Mark 14:61-62) were not true. He would not have died for all these things if he had not himself truly believed them, as the argument goes. But if he was so sincerely self-deceived on such a grand level, then he would be among the most lunatic, unworthy of the label of "Rabbi". These arguments assume a level of consistency in Christ that is not found in most human beings, who frequently do both lie and tell the truth, and speak both profundities and falsehoods with the same mouth. They also fail to note founders of other religions who also died for their claims.
Another argument against the 'Lord, Liar, or Lunatic' argument is that fideism simply applies to those who never met Jesus (i.e. all of his subsequent followers). We have no proof of his actions, only accounts of them (in the same way we only have accounts of God's actions from the Old Testament). As such, followers must take what God has shown them (the bringing of his son, Jesus, into our mortal sphere) as enough to inspire them to believe, even if they feel they have no personal proof for themselves. The Christian counter-argument is that there is a great weight of evidence to support the historical authenticity of the Gospels. Higher Criticism would dispute this assertion.
The point of fideism is to pull followers away from asking God to prove his existence (which would be laying the burden of proof on God). This is based on the faith that God knows best, regardless of the evidence which God could provide.
Another potential problem with the "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord" argument is that it can be applied equally to any religious leader who claims divine inspiration, origin, or powers, and also occasionally articulates sound moral principles. If David Koresh
occasionally said something worthwhile, that does not necessarily mean he was divine.
is the position where two opposing positions are both true. The existence of other religions puts a fundamental question to fideists—if faith is the only way to know the truth of God, how are we to know which God to have faith in? Fideism alone is not considered an adequate guide to distinguish true or morally valuable revelations from false ones. An apparent consequence of fideism is that all religious thinking becomes equal. The major monotheistic religions become on par with obscure fringe religions, as neither can be advocated or disputed. As articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche
, "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".
On the other hand, according to these critics, there is no evidence that a religious faith that rejects reason would also serve us while seeking truth. In situations in which our reason is not sufficient to find the truth (for example, when trying to answer a difficult mathematical question) fideism also fails.
, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
, uses his Babel fish to demonstrate a rationalist/fideist paradox:
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
is independent of reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
s (see natural theology
Natural theology
Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...
). The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
, and literally means "faith-ism."
Theologians
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and philosophers
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
have responded in various ways to the place of faith and reason in determining the truth of metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
idea
Idea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
s, morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, and religious belief
Religious belief
Religious belief is a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. Such a state may relate to the existence, characteristics and worship of a deity or deities, divine intervention in the universe and human life, or values and practices centered on the teachings of a...
s. The term fideist, one who argues for fideism, is very rarely self-applied. Support of fideism is most commonly ascribed to five philosophers: Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
, Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
, Kierkegaard, William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
, and Wittgenstein; with fideism being a label applied in a negative sense by their opponents, but which is not supported by their own ideas and works or followers. There are a number of different forms of fideism.
Overview
Alvin PlantingaAlvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...
defines "fideism" as "the exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical or religious truth." The fideist therefore "urges reliance on faith rather than reason, in matters philosophical and religious," and therefore may go on to disparage the claims of reason. The fideist seeks truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
, above all: and affirms that reason cannot achieve certain kinds of truth, which must instead be accepted only by faith. Plantinga's definition might be revised to say that what the fideist objects to is not so much "reason" per se — it seems excessive to call Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
anti-rational — but evidentialism
Evidentialism
Evidentialism is a theory of justification according to which the justification of a belief depends solely on the evidence for it. Technically, though belief is typically the primary object of concern, evidentialism can be applied to doxastic attitudes generally...
: the notion that no belief should be held unless it is supported by evidence.
Theories of truth
The doctrine of fideism is consistent with some, and radically contrary to other theories of truth:- Correspondence theory of truthCorrespondence theory of truthThe correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes that world...
- Pragmatic theory of truthPragmatic theory of truthPragmatic theory of truth refers to those accounts, definitions, and theories of the concept truth that distinguish the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism...
- Constructivist epistemologyConstructivist epistemologyConstructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental...
- Consensus theory of truthConsensus theory of truthA consensus theory of truth is any theory of truth that refers to a concept of consensus as a part of its concept of truth.-Consensus gentium:...
- Coherence theory of truthCoherence theory of truthCoherence theory of truth regards truth as coherence with some specified set of sentences, propositions or beliefs. There is no single coherence theory of truth, but rather an assortment of perspectives that are commonly collected under this title...
- SubjectivismSubjectivismSubjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it...
Some forms of fideism outright reject the correspondence theory of truth, which has major philosophical implications. Some only claim a few religious details to be axiom
Axiom
In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...
atic.
Tertullian - "I believe because it is absurd"
The statement "Credo quia absurdumCredo quia absurdum
Credo quia absurdum is a Latin phrase of uncertain origin. It means "I believe because it is absurd"It is derived from a poorly remembered or misquoted passage in Tertullian's De Carne Christi defending the tenets of orthodox Christianity against docetism, which reads in the original Latin:It has...
" ("I believe because it is absurd"), often attributed to Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
, is sometimes cited as an example of such a view in the Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
, but this appears to be a misquotation from Tertullian's De Carne Christi (On the Flesh of Christ]). What he actually says in DCC 5 is "... the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd
Absurdity
An absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., “this encyclopedia article is absurd”. It derives from the Latin absurdusm meaning "out of tune", hence...
."
This, however, is not a statement of a fideist position; rather, it is rendered somewhat plausible by the context—that Tertullian was simply engaging in ironic overstatement. As a matter of fact, this work used an argument from Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's rhetoric saying that if a man in whom you have trust tells you about a miraculous event he witnessed, you can allow yourself to consider that he may be saying the truth despite the fact that the event is very unlikely.
Blaise Pascal and fideism
A more sophisticated form of fideism is assumed by Pascal's WagerPascal's Wager
Pascal's Wager, also known as Pascal's Gambit, is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal that even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because one living life...
. Blaise Pascal invites the atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
considering faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
to see faith in God as a cost-free choice that carries a potential reward. He does not attempt to argue that God indeed exists, only that it might be valuable to assume that it is true. In his Pensées
Pensées
The Pensées represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. "Pascal's Wager" is found here...
, Pascal writes:
- Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs, since they profess belief in a religion which they cannot explain? They declare, when they expound it to the world, that it is foolishness, stultitiam; and then you complain because they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is through their lack of proofs that they show they are not lacking in sense.
(Pensées, no, 233).
Pascal moreover contests the various proposed proofs of the existence of God as irrelevant. Even if the proofs were valid, the beings they propose to demonstrate are not congruent with the deity worshiped by historical faiths, and can easily lead to deism
Deism
Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...
instead of revealed religion: "The God of Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, Isaac
Isaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
, and Jacob
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
— not the god of the philosophers!"
Hamann and fideism
Considered to be the father of modern irrationalism, Johann Georg HamannJohann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
promoted a view that elevated faith alone was the only guide to human conduct. Using the work of David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
he argued that everything people do is ultimately based on faith. Without faith (for it can never be proven) in the existence of an external world, human affairs could not continue; therefore, he argued, all reasoning comes from this faith: it is fundamental to the human condition. Thus all attempts to base belief in God using Reason are in vain. He virulently attacks systems like Spinozism
Spinozism
Spinozism is the monist philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza which defines "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, and both matter and thought as attributes of such...
that try to confine what he feels is the infinite majesty of God into a finite human creation. There is only one path to God, that of a childlike faith not Reason.
Kierkegaard
A fideist position of this general sort — that God's existence cannot be certainly known, and that the decision to accept faith is neither founded on, nor needs, rational justification — may be found in the writings of Søren KierkegaardSøren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
and his followers in Christian existentialism
Christian existentialism
Christian existentialism describes a group of writings that take a philosophically existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian considered the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard...
. Many of Kierkegaard's works, including Fear and Trembling
Fear and Trembling
Fear and Trembling is an influential philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio...
, are under pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s; they may represent the work of fictional authors whose views correspond to hypothetical positions, not necessarily those held by Kierkegaard himself.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard focused on Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The New Testament apostles repeatedly argued that Abraham's act was an admirable display of faith. To the eyes of a non-believer, however, it must necessarily have appeared to be an unjustifiable attempted murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, perhaps the fruit of an insane delusion. Kierkegaard used this example to focus attention on the problem of faith in general. He ultimately affirmed that to believe in the incarnation of Christ, in God made flesh, was to believe in the "absolute paradox", since it implies that an eternal, perfect being would become a simple human. Reason cannot possibly comprehend such a phenomenon; therefore, one can only believe in it by taking a "leap of faith
Leap of faith
A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence...
".
Wittgenstein and Fideism
The philosopher Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
did not write systematically about religion, though he did lecture on the topic. Some of his students' notes have been collected and published. On the other hand, it has been asserted that religion as a "form of life" is something that intrigued Wittgenstein to a great degree. In his 1967 article, entitled "Wittgensteinian Fideism," Kai Nielsen argues that certain aspects of Wittgenstein's thought have been interpreted by Wittgensteinians in a "fideistic" manner. According to this position, religion is a self-contained—and primarily expressive—enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or “grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
.” This view—commonly called Wittgensteinian Fideism—states: (1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that religious concepts and discourse are essentially self-referential; and (3) that religion cannot be criticized from an external (i.e., non-religious) point of view.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/#2.2 Although there are other aspects that are often associated with the phenomena of Wittgensteinian Fideism, Kai Nielsen has argued that such interpretations are implausible misrepresentations of the position. It is worth noting, however, that no self-proclaimed Wittgensteinian actually takes Nielsen's analysis to be at all representative of either Wittgenstein's view, or their own. This is especially true of the most well-known Wittgensteinian philosopher of religion, D. Z. Phillips, who is also the most well known "Wittgensteinan Fideist." In their co-written book, "Wittgensteinian Fideism?" (SCM Press, 2005) D. Z. Phillips and Kai Nielsen debate the status of Wittgensteinian Fideism. Both agree that the position "collapses," though they think it fails for different reasons. For Nielsen, the position is socially and politically irresponsible since it ignores prudential, practical, and pragmatic considerations as a basis for criticizing different language games. For Phillips, the position fails because it is not Wittgensteinian, and thus is a caricature of his position. Amongst other charges, Nielsen argues, most forcefully in an article entitled "On Obstacles of the Will," that Phillips' Wittgensteinian view is relevantly fideistic and that it, therefore, fails on the grounds that it cannot account for the possibility of external, cultural criticism. Phillips, in turn, in the last article in the book, entitled "Wittgenstein: Contemplation and Cultural Criticism," argues that the position is not Wittgensteinian at all, and that Wittgenstein's considered view not only allows for the possibility of external, cultural criticism, but also "advances" philosophical discussion concerning it.
Fideism and presuppositional apologetics
Presuppositional apologeticsPresuppositional apologetics
In Christian theology, presuppositionalism is a school of apologetics that presumes Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and claims to expose flaws in other worldviews...
is a Christian system of apologetics
Apologetics
Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
associated mainly with Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
; it attempts to distinguish itself from fideism. It holds that all human thought must begin with the proposition that the revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
contained in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
is axiom
Axiom
In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...
atic, rather than transcendentally
Transcendence (philosophy)
In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...
necessary, else one would not be able to make sense of any human experience (see also epistemic foundationalism
Foundationalism
Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...
). To a non-believer who rejects the notion that the truth about God, the world and themselves can be found within the Bible, the presuppositional apologist attempts to demonstrate the incoherence of the epistemic foundations of the logical alternative by the use of what has come to be known as the "Transcendental Argument for God's existence" or (TAG). On the other hand, some presuppositional apologists believe that such a condition of true unbelief is impossible, claiming that all people actually believe in God (even if only on a subconscious level), whether they admit or deny it.
Presuppositional apologetics
Presuppositional apologetics
In Christian theology, presuppositionalism is a school of apologetics that presumes Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and claims to expose flaws in other worldviews...
could be seen as being more closely allied with foundationalism
Foundationalism
Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...
than fideism, though it has sometimes been critical of both.
Protestantism
Martin LutherMartin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
taught that faith informs the Christian's use of reason. Regarding the mysteries of Christian faith, he wrote, "All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false." And "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has." However, Luther conceded that, grounded upon faith in Christ, reason can be used in its proper realm, as he wrote, "Before faith and the knowledge of God reason is darkness in divine matters, but through faith it is turned into a light in the believer and serves piety as a excellent instrument. For just as all natural endowments serve to further impiety in the godless, so they serve to further salvation in the godly. An eloquent tongue promotes faith; reason makes speech clear, and everything helps faith forward. Reason receives life from faith; it is killed by it and brought back to life."
Luther's perspective did not last long, though, as the scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
Protestant theology assumed in the 16th century debates to fight Catholicism overwhelmed the original existential import of Luther's insight, such as the hardening of the doctrine of justification by faith into harsh theories of moral depravity. Calvinists, for their part, rejected Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
Doctrine of the two kingdoms
Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms of God teaches that God is the ruler of the whole world and that he rules in two ways....
in favor of a more monist conception of God's sovereignty, and thus constructed metaphysical-like dogmas about subjects like double predestination, buttressing them with elaborate systems of logic. Apologetics thus became the main intellectual activity of orthodox Lutherans and Reformed, a situation that caused grave crises for those churches with the arrival of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. Reactions to notions that authority and tradition need not necessarily guide human activity split Protestantism into numerous groups, some of which accepted the secularist program concerning reason and human capabilities.
Meanwhile, some of the liberal strands within Protestantism developed affinities with Kantian and Hegelian theories about religion, with their respective dispositions against the Biblical rendering of God as simultaneously transcendent and immanent. With the collapse of this tension, philosophical idealism moved into the vacuum, making claims that the human mind could somehow appropriate the divine nature. Logic and determinism would, in time, calcify this movement also, which, unlike the orthodox, abandoned much of its Christian trappings in favor of an outright human-centered cosmology and ethics.
On the other hand, Calvinist scholasticism, possibly encouraged by the prestige of science, developed an ever-more elaborate systematic theology that sought to make a rational, and thus, invulnerable, account of all God's dealings with humanity. These constructions would provide the intellectual foundation for the eventual fundamentalist movement in the U.S., and have remained influential to the present time within those circles. One might sum up those theologians' attitudes by the concise observation of a modern-day Calvinist thinker, Robert L. Reymond, when he claims: "Biblical faith is not a leap in the dark; it is not fideism." The 19th-century Princeton
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
theologian Benjamin B. Warfield says, "We cannot be said to believe or to trust in a thing or person of which we have no knowledge; 'implicit faith' in this sense is an absurdity." Reformed Protestants hold that Biblical faith is based upon the revelation of divine knowledge. Faith devoid of knowledge is "believing the lie" that "leads to condemnation" (2 Thessalonians 2:11–12). To him, Biblical faith wants nothing to do with a mindless Christianity. Compared to other religions, Christianity is "preeminently the reasoning religion" — the Bible commands people to know what they must believe in.
However, other schools within Protestantism are more inclined to base their theology upon fideist premises, especially those descending from thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Karl Barth
Karl Barth
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
. Both men confronted the increasing crisis within Western Civilization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and concluded that the various kinds of philosophical theology, whether liberal or conservative, were handmaidens in the cultural captivity of the faith, and that the faith had to be liberated from such shackles. Kierkegaard's espousal of non-rational methods of communicating the Gospel such as indirect communication and irony and Barth's complete repudiation of natural theology
Natural theology
Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...
signaled a return to Luther's concept of the faith as fiducia (trust) in God's grace through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, instead of primarily assentia to human ideas about the ontologically prior acts of God. Understandings of God and truth were increasingly defined in dialectical terms, as opposed to strict logic and metaphysical speculation. Neo-orthodoxy
Neo-orthodoxy
Neo-orthodoxy, in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology,is an approach to theology in Protestantism that was developed in the aftermath of the First World War...
became the main school oriented around this new fideist perspective, although several movements descending from it such as liberation theology
Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...
and postliberalism continue to bear the fideist stamp, in that they have little or no interest in seeking philosophical or scientific prestige for their claims. They are content to retain Christianity's sense of mystery and paradox and regard attempts to relate those qualities to unaided human reason as inherently compromising.
Fideism rejected by the Catholic Church
Some theologies strongly reject fideism. The Catechism of the Catholic ChurchCatechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official text of the teachings of the Catholic Church. A provisional, "reference text" was issued by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1992 — "the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council" — with his apostolic...
, representing Catholicism's great regard for Thomism
Thomism
Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...
, the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
, affirms that it is a Catholic doctrine that God's existence can indeed be demonstrated by reason. Aquinas' rationalism has deep roots in Western Christianity; it goes back to St. Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...
's observation that the role of reason was to explain faith more fully: fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding," is his formula.
The official position of the Catholic Church is that while the existence of the one God can in fact be demonstrated by reason, men can nevertheless be deluded by their sinful natures to deny the claims of reason that demonstrate God's existence. The Anti-Modernist oath promulgated by Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X
Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...
required Catholics to affirm that:
- ... God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (cf. Rom. 1:20), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, his existence can also be demonstrated...
Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that:
- Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.
— Catechism of the Catholic Church, ss. 37.
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
's encyclical
Encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...
Fides et Ratio
Fides et Ratio
Fides et Ratio is an encyclical promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 14 September 1998. It deals primarily with the relationship between faith and reason....
also affirms that God's existence is in fact demonstrable by reason, and that attempts to reason otherwise are the results of sin. In the encyclical, John Paul II warned against "a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God."
Fideist currents in Catholic thought
Historically, there have been a number of fideist strains within the Catholic orbit. Catholic traditionalism, exemplified in the nineteenth century by Joseph de MaistreJoseph de Maistre
Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre was a French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution...
, emphasized faith in tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
as the means of divine revelation. The claims of reason are multiple, and various people have argued rationally for several contradictory things: in this environment, the safest course is to hold true to the faith that has been preserved through tradition, and to resolve to accept what the Church has historically taught. In his essay Du pape ("On the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
"), de Maistre argued that it was historically inevitable that all of the Protestant churches would eventually seek reunification and refuge in the Catholic Church: science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
was the greater threat, it threatened all religious faith, and "no religion can resist science, except one."
Another refuge of fideist thinking within the Catholic Church is the concept of "signs of contradiction
Sign of contradiction
A sign of contradiction, in Catholic theology, is someone who, upon manifesting holiness, is subject to extreme opposition. The term is from the biblical phrase "sign that is spoken against", found in and in , which refer to Jesus Christ and the early Christians...
". According to this belief, the holiness of certain people and institutions is confirmed by the fact that other people contest their claims: this opposition is held to be worthy of comparison to the opposition met by Jesus Christ himself. The fact that the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is...
is widely disbelieved, for example, is thought to confirm its authenticity under this belief; the same has been claimed for the doctrine of the real presence
Real Presence
Real Presence is a term used in various Christian traditions to express belief that in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ is really present in what was previously just bread and wine, and not merely present in symbol, a figure of speech , or by his power .Not all Christian traditions accept this dogma...
of the Eucharist, or the spiritual merits of the Opus Dei
Opus Dei
Opus Dei, formally known as The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei , is an organization of the Catholic Church that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. The majority of its membership are lay people, with secular priests under the...
organization and its discipline. However, opposition and contradiction does not inherently prove something is true in Catholic thought, but only acts an additional sign of a truth.
The Christological argument
Likewise, a tradition of argument found among some ProtestantsProtestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
and Catholics alike argues that respect for Jesus as a teacher and a wise man is logically contradictory if one does not accept him as God as well, also known as the 'Lord, Liar, or Lunatic' argument: either He was insane, or a charlatan
Charlatan
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....
, or he was in fact the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
and Son of God. Cf. Christological argument
Christological argument
The Christological argument for the existence of God is based on certain claims about Jesus. The argument, which exists in several forms, holds that if these claims are valid, one should accept God exists...
. This argument was popularised by the Christian apologist C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
in his book Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...
(p. 52).
Critics of this argument assert that it presents a false trichotomy
False dilemma
A false dilemma is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options...
. Jesus may well have important things to teach and have wisdom to give even if he is wrong, ironic, misunderstood, or misquoted about his own relation to God. One need not be right about everything to be right about something. In this line of thinking, the teaching can be true independently of the conduct of the teacher. However, proponents of this argument deny that it is a false trichotomy by appealing to personhood, claiming that Christ as a person could not have died for teachings he knew to be false. Furthermore, he would not have made ridiculous claims of his own divinity alongside otherwise sound teachings if these claims (cf. Mark 14:61-62) were not true. He would not have died for all these things if he had not himself truly believed them, as the argument goes. But if he was so sincerely self-deceived on such a grand level, then he would be among the most lunatic, unworthy of the label of "Rabbi". These arguments assume a level of consistency in Christ that is not found in most human beings, who frequently do both lie and tell the truth, and speak both profundities and falsehoods with the same mouth. They also fail to note founders of other religions who also died for their claims.
Another argument against the 'Lord, Liar, or Lunatic' argument is that fideism simply applies to those who never met Jesus (i.e. all of his subsequent followers). We have no proof of his actions, only accounts of them (in the same way we only have accounts of God's actions from the Old Testament). As such, followers must take what God has shown them (the bringing of his son, Jesus, into our mortal sphere) as enough to inspire them to believe, even if they feel they have no personal proof for themselves. The Christian counter-argument is that there is a great weight of evidence to support the historical authenticity of the Gospels. Higher Criticism would dispute this assertion.
The point of fideism is to pull followers away from asking God to prove his existence (which would be laying the burden of proof on God). This is based on the faith that God knows best, regardless of the evidence which God could provide.
Another potential problem with the "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord" argument is that it can be applied equally to any religious leader who claims divine inspiration, origin, or powers, and also occasionally articulates sound moral principles. If David Koresh
David Koresh
David Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S...
occasionally said something worthwhile, that does not necessarily mean he was divine.
As sin
Fideism has received criticism not just from atheists, but also from theologians who argue that fideism is not a proper way to worship God. According to this position, if one does not attempt to understand what one believes, one is not really believing. “Blind faith” is not true faith. Notable articulations of this position include:- Peter AbelardPeter AbelardPeter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary...
- Sic et NonSic et NonSic et Non, an early scholastic text whose title translates from Medieval Latin as "Yes and No," was written by Pierre Abélard. In the work, Abélard juxtaposes apparently contradictory quotations from the Church Fathers on many of the traditional topics of Christian theology... - Lord Herbert - De Veritate
As relativism
RelativismRelativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
is the position where two opposing positions are both true. The existence of other religions puts a fundamental question to fideists—if faith is the only way to know the truth of God, how are we to know which God to have faith in? Fideism alone is not considered an adequate guide to distinguish true or morally valuable revelations from false ones. An apparent consequence of fideism is that all religious thinking becomes equal. The major monotheistic religions become on par with obscure fringe religions, as neither can be advocated or disputed. As articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".
A case for reason
These critics note that people successfully use reason in their daily lives to solve problems and that reason has led to progressive increase of knowledge in the sphere of science. This gives credibility to reason and argumentative thinking as a proper method for seeking truth.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
On the other hand, according to these critics, there is no evidence that a religious faith that rejects reason would also serve us while seeking truth. In situations in which our reason is not sufficient to find the truth (for example, when trying to answer a difficult mathematical question) fideism also fails.
In culture
Douglas AdamsDouglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
, uses his Babel fish to demonstrate a rationalist/fideist paradox:
- "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
- "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don't. Q.E.D."
- "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
- "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
See also
- Existence of GodExistence of GodArguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...
- Agnostic theismAgnostic theismAgnostic theism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes the proposition at least one deity exists is true, but regards the truth or falsehood of this proposition as unknown or inherently unknowable...
- Christian existentialismChristian existentialismChristian existentialism describes a group of writings that take a philosophically existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian considered the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard...
- (contrast) Liberal ChristianityLiberal ChristianityLiberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
- (contrast) ScholasticismScholasticismScholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
- Sola fideSola fideSola fide , also historically known as the doctrine of justification by faith alone, is a Christian theological doctrine that distinguishes most Protestant denominations from Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, and some in the Restoration Movement.The doctrine of sola fide or "by faith alone"...
, the ProtestantProtestantismProtestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
belief that Christians are saved by faithFaithFaith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
in Christ alone
External links
- "Fideism" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide...
- "Fideism" in The Catholic Encyclopedia
- A critique of Fideism