FAITH AND THE LIFE OF REASON FAITH AND THE LIFE OF REASON by JOHN KING-FARLOW Professor of Philosophy, University of Alberta and University of Ottawa and WILLIAM NIELS CHRISTENSEN Instructor in Philosophy, Douglas College D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANyjDORDRECHT-HOLLAND Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-83376 ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2912-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2910-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-2910-0 All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1972 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 18t edition 1972 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher For Sylvia, Nick and Ann For Ruby, Robin and Erik and for all who pursue the riddles of religion in a spirit of open-ness, brotherhood, affection and desire for truth PREFACE This book brings together ideas and materials which we have discussed together over the years as friends and colleagues. We draw on four papers published by us both as co-authors and on several more papers published by King-Farlow alone. We wish to thank the editors and publishers of the following journals for permission to make use of matter or points which have appeared in their pages in the years indicated: The Philosophical Quarterly (1957, 1962, 1971); The Thomist (1958, 1971, 1972); The Inter national Philosophical Quarterly (1962); Theoria (1963); The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1963); Sophia (1965, 1967, 1969,1971); Philosoph ical Studies of Eire (1968, 1970, 1971); Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1968); Analysis (1970); Religious Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1971; we acknowledge a debt to H. D. Lewis, Editor, on page 20). This book is not, however, a collection of reprinted articles. It is a continuous work which deals with a vital cluster of problems in the philosophy of religion. In this work we attempt to utilize both our earlier thoughts, often considerably revised, and our very recent ones in order to argue for the good sense and rationality of making certain strong forms of commitment to some basic elements of primary wisdom in the Judaeo Christian tradition. While pursuing the investigations which have led to the writing of this book we have found ourselves becoming indebted to many individuals and institutions. We are indebted to many Catholics, Protestants and fellow-Anglicans for their tolerant stimulation, as well as to a number of strong religious sceptics for their even more tolerant willingness to argue with us as friends. We are deeply indebted to Sylvia Kostyk King-Farlow and Robina Ogilvy Christensen for their splendid personal, intellectual and religious encouragement. King-Farlow is much obliged to the bene factors of Christ Church, Oxford and of Duke and Stanford Universities who made possible his initial studies in philosophy - and to such inspiring teachers as Michael Foster, J. o. Urmson, Charles Baylis, Romane Clarke, N. L. Wilson, John Goheen and Patrick Suppes. He is no less VIII PREFACE thankful for post-doctoral research awards from the A. W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Pittsburgh (1960-61); from the Faculty Summer Research Awards Committee of the University of California; and from the Leverhulme Foundation and the University of Liverpool (1966-68). Christensen is indebted to Derwin Owen and Eugene Fair weather of Trinity College, the University of Toronto for their encourage ment and insights, and to Donald Kuspit of the University of Windsor. Having served under him together, we are both indebted to the astute administration and fine Cartesian scholarship of Professor P. A. Schouls, Head in Philosophy at the University of Alberta, and also to another friend in philosophy Senor Juan Espinaco-Virseda. As philosophers, we are in the business of providing arguments and criticism. It is part of the British and the historically associated Canadian Parliamentary tradition wherein arguments and criticisms are desired to be made vigorous and hard-hitting for the sake of the lively exercise and protection of freedom, that one may speak out quite roughly in debate against one's fellows without being taken not to esteem them and without being taken to believe that one has a monopoly of wisdom on one's own side. To debate politically or philosophically in that parliamentary spirit, provided one first makes clear what one is about, seems to us compatible with principles of Christian charity and democratic tolerance. We ask then that we be read as criticizing others in that parliamentary spirit, occasionally with a touch of tongue in cheek. Faith and the Life of Reason begins with an account of 'hypothetical' theism and of the crucial role of religious beliefs as offering Justifying Explanations of human history. We believe that this account should serve to banish the spectre of incompatibility between the best aims of Science and Religion, of Empiricism and Faith. A family of criteria for Rationality is similarly considered to show just how insubstantial that spectre really is. Chapter II distinguishes two basic kinds of descriptions accorded to God, kinds whose intellectual distinction and actual asso ciation seem crucial for understanding God's role as the Justifying Explanation of history in a coherent Judaeo-Christian conceptual scheme. We also attempt to vindicate the wisdom of Aquinas against Anselm on the question of whether we can manipulate these descriptions to give an a priori proof of the existence of God. In Chapter III we are centrally concerned to expound a coherent concept of miracles that can serve our PREFACE IX later concerns with the objectivity of value judgments, the consequent possibility of tolerant but intellectually sound reasoning for the existence of God, and the relations between probability, utility, rationality, commitment and religious faith. Chapters IV and V are concerned with the nature of such reasonable inference of God's existence and with the related residual wisdom of both Aquinas and Anselm in believing that "God exists" is in some sense a necessary truth. Current shibboleths about rigid dichotomies between facts and values, between asserting existence and describing existents, etc., are weighed and found wanting: the shibboleths show the naivete of philosophers, but show nothing inconsistent or incoherent about the Judaeo-Christian scheme. In Chapters VI and VII we examine the notions of objective probability and maximizing expected utility so as to argue that Aquinas' intellectualist tradition may properly be linked with William James' reasonable concern for man's passional nature in "The Will to Believe". Fresh light, we hope, is thereby shed on our contention that in certain ordinary settings clear, objectively rea sonable arguments for God's existence and for commitment to a religious form of life can be given. In Chapter VIII we turn from the previous areas of relevance which the Judaeo-Christian tradition can have for reasonable people today, to show the great relevance of Thomist contributions to that tradition for modern concerns about war, punishment and human survival. In the context of modern intellectuals' present avowals of admiration for fideism, relativism and scepticism it is not entirely paradoxical to say: We reach the novel conclusion that traditional intellectualist approaches to the reconciliation of Faith with the Life of Reason were basically very wise. The novel truth is that many much mocked forms of old-fashioned thought about religion and natural theology are far sounder than most of their modernist successors. JOHN KING-FARLOW WILLIAM NIELS CHRISTENSEN TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE VII CHAPTER I. FAITH- AND FAITH IN HYPOTHESES 1 I. Falsifiable Theism: Sketch of a Position 3 II. Hypothetical Faith: Criteria of Rationality 15 CHAPTER II. TWO SIDES TO A THEIST'S COIN 21 I. The Two Sides Distinguished 23 1.1. Sartre 23 1.2. Norman Malcolm and Peter Geach 27 II. The Two Sides and the PROSLOGION 34 CHAPTER III. MIRACLES: NOWELL-SMITH'S ANALYSIS AND TILLICH'S PHENOMENOLOGY 45 I. The Matter Briskly Introduced 45 II. The Matter Reintroduced 47 11.1. Hume's Critique 48 11.2. Nowell-Smith's Critique 53 11.3. Possible Criteria for Miracles 58 11.4. Tillich's Phenomenology of Miracles 64 11.5. Comments on Tillich's Account 67 11.6. Towards a Philosophically Respectable Belief in Miracles 68 CHAPTERIV.FROM"GOD"TO "IS" AND FROM "IS" TO "OUGHT" 78 I. Convention and Wisdom About "Meaning" and "Necessity" 78 II. Looking Back Without Anger: A Cry from the Fifties 81 XII TABLE OF CONTENTS III. From "God" to "Is": Good Reasons and Justifying Explana- tions 89 IV. From "God" to "Is" - Some Fallacies about Being A Being 92 V. From "God" to "Is": The Muddled Fear of Calling God A W ~~ VI. From "God" to "Is" - Current Confusions about Existence as Necessary and Existence as Predicate 99 Vn Existence as Necessary and Existence as Predicate: the Con- fusions Probed 106 VII.1. Existence and Tautologies 106 VII.2. Existence CAN be a Property 109 VIII. Does "X is a Necessary Being" Entail "X is Timeless"? 112 VIII.1. Omniscience 113 VIII.2. God as Supreme Purposer 114 VIII. 3. God as Omnipotent Purposer 117 CHAPTER V. FROM "IS" TO "OUGHT" AND FROM "OUGHT" TO "GOD" 123 I. Some Steps Retraced: "God Exists" as a Necessary Truth 123 II. The Necessary Truth Contested: Persons Without Bodies 126 III. The Necessary Truth Contested: Appeals to Evil 131 111.1. Must Gods Madden Madden? 131 111.2. Evil and Other Worlds 135 IV. The Necessary Truth Reaffirmed: "No 'IS' Without 'OUGHT' in the Offing" 141 V. The Necessary Truth Reaffirmed: "For an 'OUGHT' is as Hard as an 'IS'" 143 CHAPTER VI. PROBABILITY AND 'THE WILL TO BELIEVE' 154 Introduction 154 I. Metaphysics and Probability 154 1.1. Probability and Father Dwyer's Blending of Aquinas with Wittgenstein 154 1.2. Some Possible Objections on Metaphysics and Prob- ability 160 TABLE OF CONTENTS XIII II. 'Probability' and Semantic Theories 163 11.1. "Probability", "Meaning" and Semantic Theories 165 II.2. Some Golden Eggs Among Toulmin's Obiter Dicta 169 II.3. Some Lexicographical and Etymological Factors 171 11.4. Some Senses of "Probability"? 175 II.S. The Contexts of Many Subjective Theories of Prob- ability 180 III. Rational Commitment and 'The Will to Believe' 184 III.1. Some Assumptions About James Redivivus 185 II1.2. James' Crucial Section I 188 III.3. Beard's Pessimism About 'The Will to Believe' 190 IlIA. Some Neo-Jamesian Tools to Clarify Rational Com- mitment 191 CHAPTER VII. GAMBLING ON OTHER MINDS- HUMAN AND DIVINE 200 I. "Evil", "Ought" and "Can" as Springboards for the Will to Believe 200 1.1. Madhare Back on the March 202 1.2. Madhare's Premises and Bare Presuppositions 206 1.3. Possible Consequences from a 'Normatively Logical Point of View' 208 II. 'Theodicy and Rational Commitment' or 'Uber Formal ent scheidbare Satzenkonjunktionen der Principia Theologica und verwandter Systeme' 211 III. Gambling on Deity and Fraternity 215 IV. Gambling on Reference and Sense 219 CHAPTER VIII. RATIONAL ACTION, AQUINAS AND WAR 227 I. An Introduction to Some Confused Modern Thinking About War 229 II. 'A Just War is One Declared by the Duly Constituted Authority' 231 III. 'A Just War Uses Means Proportional to the Ends' 237 IV. Farewell to Anti-Martial Muddles? 241 INDEX 244