James E. Faulconer
The question of the relation of reason to faith is an important one for us to consider. How we
answer it has everything to do with how we respond to some of the issues and questions that
presently confront us, especially as members of a university community that has dedicated itself to
the full exercise of both reason and faith. I do not propose to answer any of the questions that are
much talked about or to solve any of the issues, or even to offer us tools for easily solving the
issues or answering the questions. The task of discussing the relation of reason to faith is much
smaller than that, though without having worked at that task, I'm reasonably certain that we will
not be in a position to deal with the issues and problems at hand effectively. I also do not propose
a new idea about the relation of reason to faith or propose to discuss that relation so as to end any
further discussion. I offer only a recapitulation of some territory that I think is often overlooked,
and I offer it only as food for thought. A sign in our department offices quotes David Hume:
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; the errors in philosophy only
ridiculous." I hope today that my errors will be ridiculous rather than dangerous.
There are a wide variety of possible positions that one can take with regard to the relation
between reason and faith.(1)I think, however, that among Latter-day Saints two positions have
been most common.
On the first view, the truth of revelation is the truth of reason revealed to us before we have been
able to figure it out ourselves. However, eventually reason and faith will accord because the truths
known by faith will be validated by reason in an accord of truth with itself. The Averroists take
this position, giving the upper hand to reason but recognizing human, temporal limitations. There
is, however, a problem, a problem that we can call "the crisis of reason": what is the reason for
reason? If everything has an explanation, what explains explanation?
The Averroists and Descartes assume that reason has no reason, that--unlike any thing else--as the
principle of explanation, reason is self-grounding: According to such thinking, reason begins from
principles that are intuitively known to be true and proceeds logically from step to step, in
principle establishing knowledge as certain. However, nineteenth and twentieth century
philosophy, on both sides of the Atlantic, has argued that self-grounding reason is, at best, a
tautology. Contemporary discussions of the limits and foundations of science; the social, political,
and historical character of understanding; etc. are part of that argument. One explanation for this
rejection of the self-grounding character of reason is that there seem to be only two possible
outcomes to the Cartesian assumption, namely skepticism or totalitarianism.
Consider skepticism, and consider it using one of its most important proponents, David Hume: If
we reject the proof for God's existence, as we most certainly can when we confine our thinking to
what can be demonstrated by reason unaided, then 1) we are reduced to the tautologies of pure
logic, and 2) reporting of the facts of immediately present experience (though it is not clear that
such a report is meaningful since there is no reason to believe that there is anyone to take our
report). Even memory of very recent events cannot be trusted.
Or consider the alternative, what I am calling, "totalitarianism": If we find a rational way around
Hume's argument, a way of speaking about the world rationally, then we accept Descartes's
assumption that reason is adequate to the world. This means that it is in principle possible to make
a list of the true propositions that give a complete description of the world at any given point in
time and to relate those propositions to one another by logical implication alone. The
contemporary philosopher, Immanuel Levinas, argues that such an understanding of reason
amounts to totalitarianism, even political totalitarianism and the horror of Auschwitz. Though
there is insufficient space even to sketch out his argument here, perhaps this aphorism will do to
characterize it: Knowledge is power, so complete knowledge is complete power. I don't think the
first position regarding reason and faith, namely that, in the end, they are the same, will work.
Consider, therefore, the usually offered alternative, the assumption that reason and faith are
mutually exclusive. I find this position both religiously and philosophically unacceptable. I think it
is religiously unacceptable because I take the Restoration to be committed to both reason and
revelation. As is written on another sign in our department offices, in 1843 or 1844, the Prophet
Joseph said:
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way. Do you believe in Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation which he revealed? So do I. Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship in their midst; and they will do it before the millennium can be ushered in and Christ takes possession of His kingdom. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith313-314)
I take this to mean that the use of reason is essential to the ushering in of the Second Coming.
Let me explain why the second position on reason and faith is philosophically unacceptable by
criticizing it in the form of Romanticism. Romanticism of one sort or another is the most common
response to the "crisis of reason," the question about the origins of reason. According to
Romanticism, there are two ways of knowing, independent of one another--reason is the method
for knowing in one realm and faith or intuition or feeling (often lumped together) is the way of
knowing in the other realm. The Romantics see the problem of the realm of reason, and they try
to supplement reason with another realm, for our purposes, that of feeling. But having created
two realms, Romantics find that they have just doubled their problems. For a Romantic, not only
are humans caught in the clutches of Enlightenment reason, they are also hopelessly
schizophrenic. In addition, by moving everything that cannot be understood by Cartesian
reason--such as religion and art--to the realm of feeling, without intending to do so Romanticism
deprecates those things. Without intending to, Romantics make anytalk of knowing supposedly
nonrational things metaphorical, at best. In doing so, they create a dilemma: I can't know the truth
about the most important things rationally, and I can't know what the other way of knowing them
is unless I've already experienced it, in which case I wouldn't be asking. Though religious people
and artists today often use the language of Romanticism to talk about the relation of their
concerns to reason, Romanticism will not do.
Like rationalism, however, Romanticism assumes that knowledge ought to be able to give its own
ground. Rationalism argues that since reason cannot, little if anything can be known. In contrast,
Romanticism argues that since reason cannot, there is a different kind of knowledge: the
knowledge of God, etc. is necessarily of a different sort. In addition, either way of taking up this
position fails to recognize that faith and reason are not, in practice, opposed to one another in the
way they presume. Faith, for example, is not simply what one has in the face of a lack of reasons:
Paul is explicit about faith being a matter of evidence (Hebrews 11.1). Nephi and Lehi, the son of
Helaman, convert hundreds to faith by offering them "great evidence" (Helaman 5:50). Later
Nephi, the son of Helaman, tells the people that their unbelief is unreasonable, a rejection of
convincing evidence (Helaman 8:24). Faith has reasons and requires them.
As I said in the beginning, both of these positions are common among the Saints. The first (or
some variation of it) is probably most common presently, but the second seems to me to be
gaining popularity rapidly. I think, however, that these two positions are not the only one's
available to Latter-day Saints. Let me suggest a third, an alternative that I think is preferable.
This third alternative is hardly a recent development. Late ancient and early medieval Christian
philosophers identified this alternative with the phrase, fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking
understanding): In contemporary philosophical discussions, this phrase is often understood to
mean that religious knowledge is acquired by faith and then understood by reason. But a more
"radical" understanding of this phrase is possible: knowledge itself is based on faith; reason is the
means of seeking an understanding of what is already given by faith, whether religious or
otherwise. I will argue, sketchily, for this is the position, a variation of which is also sometimes
discussed among the Saints.
I believe the position I will describe is the position taken in the Lectures on Faith.(2) Consider this
list of points summarizing that position:
But what kind of argument can be made for this position that does not vitiate itself by its very
existence? After all, the position argues that faith is fundamental to reason, seeming to contradict
itself. In Metaphysics(994a1-20), Aristotle argues that without something outside a chain of
explanations, there can be no actual explanation. That is an argument whose power is often
overlooked. Aristotle calls this something the arche, the origin, a name I will use in this presentation.
It is tempting to think that the arche is the first in the series of efficient or other causes, the first of
all explanations in the series of linked explanations. But to think of it that way is to reduce it to an
explanation like any other explanation, the only difference being that it is, mysteriously, the first of
them. I think Aristotle is arguing something different, as I think we see in a careful but generous
reading of Thomas Aquinas's development of Aristotle's argument in his proofs for God's
existence (Summa Theologiae Q.2, A.3).(3) The point of Thomas's proofs for God's existence,
particularly of the cosmological proof, is that there must be something outside of or "beyond"
explanation to account for explanation or there will be no real explanations.(4)There must be what
Jacques Derrida calls "the supplement," though the name itself indicates that one speaks from
within reason rather than from any external point of view.(5)
The term supplement privileges the realm of reason at the same time that it marks its limits--and
there is no escaping this privilege by using another name, for every name occurs within the bounds
of reason if it is understood as a name at all. Unlike the Romanticists, I do not believe there is
another realm in which I can stand to have knowledge. The necessity of a supplement to reason
means that there must be, as Aristotle says, a stop to the chain of reasoning if there is to be an
explanation, but (as Thomas notices) the chain stops at the very thing that it does not include, at
what--from a point of view within Cartesian rationality--cannot itself be explained.
Thus, Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason shows us why we must give explanations. But it also
shows us, at the same time, that we will never be able to stop giving explanations: Every
explanation will require, in its turn, another explanation. That result, however, means that, in a
very real sense, there will be no explanations at all--unless there is something beyond or before
reason. Without a supplement, the desire for the last word results in garrulousness, but not in
knowledge or understanding. We run up against one of the antinomies of reason here: there can
be no first explanation and there must be something unexplained that explains the explanations.
But this is only a genuine antinomy if the unexplained has the same status as the explained, if it
falls within the realm of reason.
This observation that reason depends on something extra-rational is a matter of common-sense.
As always, philosophers argue for what ordinary people know without having to argue it. (From
the reports one sees in the news, one suspects that those in charge of deciding what kinds of
scientific research projects to fund with government money are all philosophers.) In addition,
more philosophers have known this than have not. Medieval Christians certainly knew that reason
requires something extra-rational. All of the various sorts of empiricists also knew it, as did the
Romantics. Marxism knows that reason has a "supplement" (namely, economy), and, like
Christianity, Marxism reminds us that those who ignore the necessity of a supplement seldom do
so innocently. Deconstruction is a contemporary attempt to show places in texts and philosophies
at which that dependance on what is beyond reason shows itself by the gaps, absences, and traces
that appear within those texts. Feminism allies itself with Marxism, though sometimes only
implicitly, in recognizing both that reason is not self-grounding and that the claim that it is is not
an innocent claim.
Every ordinary member of the Church knows that something more than reason is needed. But in
spite of the fact that "everyone" knows that reason requires a supplement, I think it is also true
that few people recognize that fact when they think about reason or faith and fewer still recognize
its implications or the questions it raises.
Two obvious questions result from recognizing the need for a supplement to reason: 1) What can
we say about the character of that supplement, if anything? 2) What is its relation to reason? Since
the first of these questions is also the question of how we can reasonably talk about what is before
reason (and, therefore also before the a priori), I think these questions are the same.
We have already seen that Romanticism will not answer these questions for us; whatever the
relation between reason and its other, that relation must be understood from within reason. We
have been given no alternative, and I do not believe there can be one. Neither should we desire
one. Søren Kierkegaard understood quite well that one cannot step outside reason to talk about it,
hence his use of pseudonyms and irony in philosophical texts at the same time that he was writing
quite straightforward religious sermons. For Kierkegaard, the paradox of Abraham is not that
revelation must contradict reason (as Kierkegaard's understanding is sometimes put), but that
Abraham cannot be understood by rationalist philosophers or those who follow the rationalists in
thinking that they have gone beyond Cartesian doubt to rational certainty. Abraham cannot speak,
says Johannes de Silentio (Fear and Trembling 115 [III.161]), and yet he does speak. What
Abraham says however is absurd, meaning that it cannot be heard by the Cartesian philosopher,
not that it has no meaning. Abraham's silence is to be found in the tone deafness of the
philosopher rather than in Abraham's refusal to speak. What Abraham says is rationallydiscordant
(the Latin meaning of absurd), not discordant in itself. Abraham speaks eloquently through the
scriptures and through religious life. As Silentio himself notes, though explanation may not be
possible for Abraham, witness or testimony is.
The absurdity to which the story of Abraham points is the jarring character and rational
unmelodiousness of what is prior to the rational economy of Cartesian doubt and certainty. As a
result, the absurdity that Silentio discovers is meaninglessness, it has the status of an impossible
proposition, only if we insist that meaning is a product of only "the system," in this case of only
Cartesian rationality even when expanded by Hegel's three-fold logic. To be sure, what is outside
of and prior to--other than--the system is paradoxical. In other words, it is strange and marvelous
(to depend, again, on the Latin meaning rather than ours), but that "other-than" is not
unreasonable or contrary to reason, except from the point of view of a reason that has been
artificially and narrowly defined, a reason that believes it has no origin except itself.
The other-than is not contrary to reason because it is, in fact, the archeof reason. As that arche,in
principle it cannot appear as what it is within the realm of reason, but that logical impossibility
does not mean that nothing can be said, known, or understood about the arche. Within the realm
of reason, the arche can be said. In fact, since reason itself is a trace, an effect of the arche, the
archeis always said. But it can only be said "ironically," for it always slips away the moment one
feels it has finally be grasped. One can be deaf to that arche. One can refuse it recognition. One
can refuse to hear what is said within rather than by reason, as a harmonic rather than a chord.
For, the arche does not give itself unambiguously--clearly and distinctly, in other words
theoretically. It cannot give itself that way or it would be one more of the things within the realm
of reason and not reason's arche.
However, that something cannot be said clearly and distinctly does not mean that it cannot be said
well or that it cannot be heard or that it cannot be understood without difficulty. The profundity
of the origin of reason is not necessarily the profundity of unnecessary complexity and
intellectualizing obscurity. In The Principle of Reason, Martin Heidegger writes of what he calls
"the second tonality" of the principle of sufficient reason, a tonality that does not deny that
everything has an explanation, but that alerts us to the fact of the arche of what can always be
heard "before" reason as well as always ignored (39-40). Kierkegaard helps us see the necessity of
such an arche by showing the impossibility of giving an explanation of Abraham--along with the
impossibility of simply writing Abraham off as a madman, as one who acts unreasonably.
Narratives and deconstructions of texts can help us catch sight of the arche the unavoidable, but
always unseen because already past "supplement" of reason. So can carefully listening to the tones
of propositions in otherwise logical discourse, hearing what those propositions also say. But
nothing can guarantee that we will hear what comes to us from what reason must call its supplement.
To hear the supplement, one must learn to read and hear with Kierkegaardian irony, which is not
to say one thing and to mean another, but always to say more than one says on the surface, always
also to say something about one's extra-rational foundations. But perhaps even that goes too far,
for, in fact, one cannot avoid writing ironically. One cannot avoid always saying more. We must
assume that we speak ironically whenever we speak reasonably, though we must also be quite
suspicious of taking up irony as a posture. In the first place, if Kierkegaard, Heidegger, the
Medievals, and others--such as Nephi--are right, then ordinary language, even the "clear and
distinct" and often not-so-ordinary language of rational philosophy is already ironic. The "plain
speaking" of the scriptures (to use the language of the Book of Mormon) seems especially ironic
in the sense in which I use that word here, in the sense that scriptural language always says more.
I need not add anything to a discourse or text for it to be ironic. In the second place, only the
character of the speaker can give a guarantee that what is said is said with the proper irony, and
no speaker can guarantee his or her own character. Moral bootstrapping is impossible.
Thus, to the question of how we are to understand the arche of reason from within reason, the
answer is that of Plato: We understand the origin of reason as we understand the sun, not by
looking at it directly with philosophical and theoretical eyes, but by seeing it indirectly, in other
things. When we try to see reason's arche in the way that we see any other object within the
world, we are either blinded by that archeor blind to it. Instead of seeing it directly (where seeing
directlymeans seeing philosophically and theoretically), we understand the origin of reason by the
light that it sheds on the things in the world, by the fact that we can see at all--by the traces of that
arche in everything we say and do, including in the fact that reason is possible.
We never see the arche itself at all, though it is never far from us and it is everywhere to be seen
and never to be pointed out directly even though if we point at anything we point at it. But why is
that archeto be thought in terms given by faith rather than, as for Marxists, in terms of material
history or, as for feminists, in terms of the history of exclusion and oppression? That question is
the hardest one I brook here, but I think I can say something about it. I can at least make what I
think is a reasonable suggestion. I think that it takes very little to recognize that reason and
explanation have their origin in our ethical obligation to another.
Why reason except to explain? Why explain if there is no one to whom we owe an explanation? In
a solipsistic universe, reason and explanation make no sense. What is outside of reason is another
person. (See my "Levinas: The Unconscious and the Obligation of Reason.") Thus, the principle
of non-contradiction is necessary to all reasoning, but its necessity comes not from itself, but from
the demand that I give an acceptable explanation to another. In Levinas's terms, the principles of
reason have their origin in the apologetic character of reason, which is the very basis for my
existence as a unique individual:(6) "[The singularity of my existence] is at the very level of its
reason; it is apology, that is, personal discourse, from me to the others" (Totality and Infinity253).
With an argument that I cannot duplicate here, Levinas argues that the other person is ultimately
God. In addition, though I also do not have time to make the argument here, let me say that,
given the re-thinking of the proof for God's existence implicit in this approach, I accept the
argument from first cause, which I take to be the same argument as the ontological argument
when thought as I have been describing. To Levinas's argument that obligation to God and trust in
him is the arche of reason, I would only add one thing, also a matter of faith.(7)Those who have
heard me talk about Heidegger know that I am much enamored of what has sometimes been
called Heidegger's paganism: the description of the appearing of the world he gives such that it
cannot be reduced either to our subjective wills or to the objects of rational research--the
excessive character of what is. Levinas worries that Heidegger's paganism opens the door to
idolatry, and well he should worry. But the door that opens to idolatry also opens to God. Levinas
is, I think, too afraid to allow irony in Heidegger's understanding of the world. I think we ought to
welcome that excess and irony. We ought to welcome Heidegger's "pagan" understanding of the
world as a world that gives itself to us and demands our reason in response.
As a result, I am willing to say that not only does reason itself point to the arche persons and,
ultimately, the divine Person--but the appearing of the world also points to the arche. With Alma
(Alma 30:44), I want to add that both reason and creation are evidences of God. Consequently, in
addition to the testimonies of the prophets and the scriptures, and in addition to the re-thought
philosophical proof from first cause and the ontological proof, I accept the proof from creation
(but also re-thought).(8)
My conclusion, then, is that, as I believe the Lectures on Faithargue, reason itself points to its
foundation in faith. I add that the foundation of reason can never itself be seen clearly and
distinctly from within reason. There it can never appear except as a trace, a shadow, a harmonic
tone: the position that everything will eventually turn out to be rational holds too much; the
position that reason and faith are incommensurable holds far too little. Like the third bowl of
porridge, I think that an understanding of the relation of faith and reason that grounds all reason
and knowledge in faith is "just right."
1. Almost sixty years ago, Etienne Gilson wrote an excellent book on the topic, Reason and
Revelation in the Middle Ages. Those with further interest in the complexities of the question
should consult that book.
2. What follows is but an outline of, a first attempt at, one of the contributions that I think
Latter-day Saint theology can make to philosophical discussions. Other LDS doctrines, such as
the embodiment of God and the eternal character of sexuality may offer even more important
beginnings for thought about philosophical issues. I deal with this one only because it is at hand,
not because I believe it is most significant.
3. I may be wrong about Aristotle. He may actually believe he has explained the first cause. But if
so, I think Thomas has a more interesting version of the argument.
4. I have elsewhere argued what seems to contradict my position here: that the belief in the
archeis at the root of the problem of philosophy and its view of reason (see my essay, "What is
Reason?"). I think that is also true, though there is not space enough here to lay out the difference
between the two conceptions of arche that are at work, both derived from Aristotle
philosophically. Suffice it to say that the difference is between the arche as absent from
philosophy and reason except as a trace and the arche as the foundation or first step of philosophy
and reason (and, therefore, as contained within them). The latter is the danger, and the former
necessarily tends to be understood in terms of the latter.
5. For an interesting discussion of Derrida's work and medieval mysticism, see Kevin Hart, The
Trespass of the Sign. I think Hart's work is interesting because it makes us rethink mysticism
much more favorably than we are usually wont and because it shows ways of thinking about the
limitations of philosophy--perhaps the theme of twentieth century philosophy--from a religious
perspective.
6. Totality and Infinity 252-253; see also 40, 219, 240-246, 284, 293, and 301.
7. I have argued elsewhere that, from a Christian understanding, Levinas's view is insufficient in
that it concentrates on relation but not on repentance. Using Levinas's quasi-metaphor, he sees
existence as having its foundation in human sexuality and the obligations that come about in that
sexuality, namely children. But he does not allow for the possibility not only of bearing children,
but of being reborn oneself. That too must be factored in to any Christian understanding of
Levinas, but it is not directly relevant to the concerns of this paper.
8. The necessary re-thinking of the proofs of God's existence comes in seeing that they are, in
fact, rational proofs, but they are only rational and only proofs once we understand what we
ought to mean by reasonand proof, once we understand that reason as it is usually conceived is
not only not inimical to faith, but that it is founded on faith (Lectures on Faith 1.11).