Are Faith and Reason Compatible?

B. Kyle Keltz

Keltz, earned a PhD in Philosophy of Religion and a MA in Apologetics. He also has ties to the C.S. Lewis Institute, whose mission is to develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life.

“It is in the nature of faith that one is capable of holding a belief without adequate reason to do so.” Richard Dawkins

“Religious faith is not adjustable. It remains strong in spite of a lack of evidence, or in spite of contrary evidence” Dan Barker

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Like the lonely heart who keeps waiting for the phone to ring, I kept trusting that God would someday come through. He never did. The only proposed answer was faith, and I gradually grew to dislike the smell of that word. I finally realized that faith is a cop-out, a defeat—an admission that the truths of religion are unknowable through evidence and reason. – Dan Barker

“What theists lack in logic they make up for in length.”

Dan Barker’s statement about faith contains 66 words. Keltz’s reply, on the other hand, reached a whopping 6,900 words. Once again Keltz’s reply, like Ferrer’s, is not only unnecessarily lengthy but also lacking any evidence for the existence of God.

One would think that the best way for a theist to discredit an atheist would be to logically prove beyond all doubt that their god actually does exist, but that’s not what Keltz does. Instead, he spends the bulk of his article arguing against Barker’s definition of the word “faith”, which according to Keltz, is not how christians define it.

Needless to say, I cannot critique all of Keltz’s 6,900-word reply, so I will summarize most of it and focus only on certain highlights that seem most important. Keltz spent nearly 5,000 words attempting to explain the philosophical connection between faith and reason and then preceded to explain why the combination of faith and reason can actually prove the existence of God… at least for christians. Let’s see how valid his argument really is.

Keltz begins his critique like this… (underlining is mine)

OF ALL THE CONCEPTS associated with Christianity, faith is probably the one that is most abused by atheist proselytizers. Often it is claimed that “faith” is “believing something without evidence or despite evidence to the contrary,” and faith and reason are incompatible. Atheists are abusing the definition of “faith” because, “faith” is defined without any mention of how Christians define “faith.” These comments are misleading because they can lead people to think they represent the only definition of “faith” or that they are referring to what Christians believe.

There’s another definition of “faith”? Isn’t that kind of like, “alternative facts”? It was a revelation to me that (according to Geltz) christians define faith differently than everyone else. Okay, this is interesting already. We’ll take a deeper dive into how christians define “faith” later, but for now, let’s see how the dictionary and the bible define “faith”.

Faith

Dictionary: noun, “a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”

Bible: Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (KJV)

The bible says that faith is… evidence of things not seen. So, having faith in something is evidence that it exists?  How can that be? We’ll get back to that but first let’s look at the dictionary definition.

If you’re like me, you’re not quite sure what is meant by the term “spiritual apprehension”. I googled it and found an enlightening article which explained what that term means. The article goes like this…

• Science is a way of finding truth. The Latin root of this word, scientia, means “knowledge.” We formulate hypotheses, perform experiments, gather and analyze data, and make conclusions based on statistical tests.
• Faith is another way of finding truth. In this case, a “spiritual apprehension” is an awareness or understanding that comes through the Spirit, not through the scientific method.

Okay, that makes a little bit of sense, the author continues…

• In a revelation given through Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery, who was seeking knowledge, the Lord said, “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart” (Doctrine and Covenants 8:2). I might add that the promptings of the Spirit come after we have done our part to study things out, and that faith is not to have a perfect knowledge. We don’t have meters that can measure these promptings, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get promptings and learn to trust them.

So according to the author of this article published by BYU the teachings of Joseph Smith can be realized as truth only when the Holy Ghost dwells in a person’s heart. (What would evangelicals think about that?) If the doctrines of Mormonism can be believed as true on the basis of an understanding that “comes through the spirit rather than proof” couldn’t all other religious doctrines be believed by the same measurement? Do Muslims have faith? Do Hindus? Do Buddhists? Does their faith prove that their religion is true?

Truth is truth, right?

So, if all religions are using the same measuring stick (i.e. faith) to validate their beliefs why do they end up coming to different conclusions? If that’s the case, is faith really an accurate way to find “truth”? Every religion would affirm that for their religion and their religion alone the answer to that question is an unequivocal “yes”. Let’s see what an atheist might say.

Barker writes…

If faith is valid, then anything goes. Muslims believe in Allah by faith, so they must be right. The Hindus are right. The Greeks and Romans were right. More people claim to have seen or been healed by Elvis Presley than ever claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. With faith, everybody is right.

Keltz seems to agree:

If it is okay to believe something without any evidence, this means that it is okay to believe in anything and suggests that all religions are right, although most religions make opposing claims regarding the nature of reality and the purpose of humanity. Barker mentions that even atheism could be taken on faith according to this definition.

It’s interesting that Keltz makes this last claim that (according to Barker) atheism can be taken on faith. He (not surprisingly) failed to include the rest of Barker’s quote in his article, but we were able to find it in Barker’s book, godless. If you actually read Barker’s own words you will realize that he is being facetious. See for yourself.

Barker writes…

“With faith, everybody is right. Suppose an atheist, refusing to look at any religious claims, were to say, “You must have faith that there is no God. If you believe in your heart that nothing transcends nature and that humanity is the highest judge of morality, then you will know that atheism is true. That will make you a better person.”

Any atheist or secularist would read this and chuckle at the satirical humor. The idea that an atheist would use faith to reinforce their non-belief in gods, is a rather silly idea, which was Barker’s intent. However, this level of satire seems to be lost on the likes of Keltz.

Keltz continues by laying out his plan to discredit Barker.

Next, I will explain the classical Christian position regarding faith and reason as presented by Thomas Aquinas (born 1225 CE). After this, I will contrast Barker’s understanding of faith with Aquinas’s understanding. I will conclude that Barker is defining “faith” as he experienced it during his days as a Christian evangelist and not as it is understood by Christian theologians in the classical Christian tradition.

So, let’s take a quick look at how Barker views faith as it relates to belief in gods and then next week, we’ll take a deeper dive into how “christian theologians” define faith. Hmm, that should be interesting!

Dan Barker on Faith and Reason

“Do I want God, or do I want truth? You can’t have both.”

Barker says,

“Faith would be unnecessary, they remind us, if God’s existence were proved to be a blunt fact of reality. But this is a huge cop out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are admitting that the assertion can’t be taken on its own merits. If something is true, we don’t invoke faith.”

As a secularist this certainly makes sense to me. I wonder if Keltz has ever asked any of his atheistic friends what they think of Barker’s statement. Oh, wait, Keltz spent his entire educational career in the protective bubble of evangelical institutions. I seriously doubt he has ever actually spoken face to face with anyone who identifies as an atheist, except perhaps in a debate. What he would find, is that many atheists actually spent years practicing christianity before they abandoned their faith. They therefore have a better understanding of the inner workings of christianity. Theists, on the other hand, seem to have very little understanding of the nature of atheism. This is not surprising, and we will explore this idea more in future blogs.

I lost faith in faith.

Barker writes,

“Finally, at the far end of my theological migration, I was forced to admit that there is no basis for believing that a god exists, except faith, and faith was not satisfactory to me. I did not lose my faith—I gave it up purposely. The motivation that drove me into the ministry—to know and speak the truth—is the same that drove me out. I lost faith in faith. When I learned that Christianity is not true, I had to decide: ‘Do I want God, or do I want truth?’ You can’t have both.”

Coming next:

A Classical Christian Understanding of Faith and Reason

Keltz employs the writings of Thomas Aquinas in an attempt to demonstrate that the combination of faith and reason actually can prove the existence of God. We’ll see how successful he is.

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum