by Grace Golds

Created on: June 17, 2009   Last Updated: June 18, 2009

Scholasticism, the combining of reason with faith, has always seemed rather paradoxical to me. The reason being that faith and reason appear to rest on totally different premises. Reason, relies on proof, analytical, objective evidence that has been well-thought out and rationally decided on. It is the view favoured by science, and often, progress. It often leads to concrete knowledge. For example we know that all men are mortal - that is part of the definition of being a man. To say that Socrates is a man then we must necessarily accept that he is also mortal. Our process of reasoning cannot deny this fact. However faith is personal, not necessarily rational and can only ever lead to a probable conclusion. Many claims of religious experience have been argued through faith and inner conviction of 'just knowing' with no evidence to back up their claims. For example we have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow just as it did yesterday and all the days before. However we cannot necessarily deduce from this that the sun will rise tomorrow. Although one can argue that it is highly probable, it cannot be proven. The statement is not analytically true in itself and thus we need empirical evidence of tomorrow to count in its favour.

How can two seemingly opposing ideas come together in a search for a supposed universal truth? It is rather like science solving the problems of religion and religion solving the problems of science. However it was Albert Einstein who so famously argued that "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". Perhaps both have the same ends just a different means as to how they plan on getting there?

It must be recognised that although usually based on nothing more than inner conviction or a feeling of 'just knowing' faith does not always mean truth can never be achieved. Many times I have been proven right when I have had an intuitive feeling about something or another. For example when I 'just know' that someone is walking behind me and indeed, yes, they are. All manner of reason would be telling me that although possible, it could never been entirely true that someone was indeed behind me without assessing some kind of empirical evidence - seeing the man, hearing his footsteps. However my reason was not needed in such a situation. Why then should reason be needed in all situations? Faith can often be that first tentative step needed into an unknown realm undiscovered by our limited and time-consuming process of reason.

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