Faith and Reason Irreconcilable
Irreconcilable Faith and Reason
The challenge of reconciling reason to faith has been one that has dominated philosophy since thinking and oration became known as philosophy. The challenge is to address the idea that the thinking person can fundamentally believe that reason rules all production of truth and fact in combination with the fact that faith is not a sentiment of reason, i.e. one must simply believe that something (in the case of philosophy usually God) exists to define and defend faith. The challenge has been met by everyone from Augustine of Hippo during the medieval period of Western Philosophy to Friedrich Nietzsche, in modern times.[footnoteRef:1] This work will look at the varied arguments of the medieval philosophers in their attempt to reconcile faith with reason in an attempt to persuade the reader that no such reconciliation can be made, the concluding thesis being that regardless of the amount of thought and reason one puts into it faith cannot be reconciled with reason as reason dictates that one can see, touch, hear and conclude that something is as it is and faith dictates that one must begin with a universal, i.e. acceptance of that which one cannot see, touch, hear or reason into existence. Therefore this argument will be centered on the idea that reason and faith i.e. religion cannot coexist in a line of thought, regardless of the fact that they clearly coexist in the individual mind. [1: William T. Jones, 1969. A History of Western Philosophy: The Medieval Mind Volume II. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace & World. pgs. 196-197.]
The convention of the period demanded that individual philosophers who were ultimately the singular educators of the day demonstrate faith. They as a group were held to a standard, regardless of their official monastic positions, that demanded that God be a part not only of teaching but their philosophy. To do otherwise would risk not only position but death in some cases. The position of being an educator, with the primary and singular educational institution supported by the church, and its benefactors created a situation that demanded reconciliation of faith with reason, or at least the outward presentation of such. Challenging the existence of God was not only not acceptable those who did so at the least lost favor, lost their livelihoods, were banished from their homes and centers of education and at the very worst were put to death for heresy. The position of a philosopher was therefore a precarious one, hence the focus and favor for developing universals that accepted the standard bearer of the existence of god and warranted the reconciliation of faith to reason.[footnoteRef:2] The more empirical one began to be, with regard to faith and the existence of God the more likely one would be challenged and to some degree silenced. This is true of challenges that involved resurrections of classical philosophy, especially that of the Greeks and Romans in pre-Christian and early Christian periods as well as a whole host of other ideas.[footnoteRef:3] According to Wippel the challenges associated with this precarious position were universal and long lasting as the Bishop Stephen Tempier pronounces in Paris on March 1277 after denouncing a group of Arts faculty for testing the boundaries of the faith question through their teachings: [2: Edward Grant. God and Reason in the Middle Ages. Port Chester, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2001. p 100.] [3: Ibid. p. 100]
So as not to appear to be asserting what they thus insinuate, however, they conceal their answers in such a way that, while wishing to avoid Scylla, they fall into Charybdis. For they say that these things are true according to philosophy but not according to the Catholic Faith, as if there were two contrary truths, and as if the truth of Sacred Scripture is opposed to the truth in the sayings of the accursed pagans, of whom it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.' (I Corinthians 1:19).[footnoteRef:4] [4: John F. Wippel, Mediaeval Reactions to the Encounter Between Faith and Reason. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1995. pgs. 1-2]
The philosophers of the day, not unlike Socrates, were given a fundamentally foundational challenge, to utilize the ideas of the past, as well as to reconcile faith to reason and failing to do so, i.e. contending...
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Huntington's Clash Of Civilization confirm or refute Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis Huntington's clash of civilization Scholars, journalists, and policy makers have adopted and popularized the ideas of Samuel P. Huntington, who was a professor of government at Harvard University, to explain the emerging post-cold war world. According to Huntington, the world is divided into a number of distinct civilizations that are irreconcilable because they hold to entirely different value systems (Huntington, 1993,
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