Au contraire, the argument has two premises inconsistent with doctrine (see the Catechism above).

all of you who do require reason-based thought, have a severe lack of faith in God. (true/consistent with doctrine)

Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought. (false/inconsistent with doctrine)

A logical argument for God is an attempt to provide reason-based thought. (true/consistent with doctrine)

Therefore using reason-based thought for God is necessarily a showing of a lack of faith in God. (false/inconsistent with doctrine)

Faith does not require belief without reason-based thought. One can have both. Indeed, if "reason-based thought" is taken to mean "understanding" then it is a fruit of illumination, not contrary to it.

"Using reason-based thought for God" is consistent with both faith and a lack of faith. It does not necessarily demonstrate a lack of faith, else St. Augustine, St. Thomas, etc. would all be examples of a lack of faith.

"The assent of faith is 'by no means a blind impulse of the mind'"

faith is not achieved through reason." However, it involves the intellect and understanding — Count Timothy von Icarus

Believing is an act of the intellect — Count Timothy von Icarus

Believing, not knowing...

that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason — Count Timothy von Icarus

Submission to faith... a faith that happens to run parallel to reason, just as male and female are parallel antagonist...

Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge

You realize all your quotes are about the difference between Faith and Knowledge/Reason...

Faith seeks understanding

No it doesn't.

Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.

The above sentence is great because the author obviously forgot that paradox "this sentence is a lie." Because his faith was stronger than his knowledge about Truth and its paradoxes... Also a showing that Faith doesn't seek understanding... otherwise author would understand Truth is Enmeshed in Deception... via Paradox.

Believing, not knowing...

And knowing is not an act of the intellect?

Consider I Corinthians 2:

Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

The above sentence is great because the author obviously forgot that paradox "this sentence is a lie." Because his faith was stronger than his knowledge about Truth and its paradoxes...

Did they "obviously forget it?" Most philosophers throughout history did not think the Liar's Paradox demonstrates that truth can contradict truth (i.e. that LNC does not obtain).

No it doesn't.

Apparently, you know more about how to instruct Christians on their own faith than St. Anselm.

Au contraire, the argument has two premises inconsistent with doctrine (see the Catechism above — Count Timothy von Icarus

You've got to be kidding me. He's clearly saying that if you require argumentation for belief in God, you lack faith.

The Pauline doctrine and the official Church teaching is that faith is a gift of God. It is not obtained through reason.

Read what he wrote. His view is traditional.

Apparently, you know more about how to instruct Christians on their own faith than St. Anselm. — Count Timothy von Icarus

St Anselm was very well aware that faith is not based on reason.

So, St. Thomas's Five Ways demonstrate a lack of faith and are contrary to Church doctrine?

Faith not being obtained through reason does not imply: "Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought," nor that " using reason-based thought for God is necessarily a showing of a lack of faith in God."

You've got to be kidding me. He's clearly saying that if you require argumentation for belief in God, you lack faith.

Yes, that's the first premise, which I labeled "true/consistent with doctrine." Others follow that are false/inconsistent.

I feel like you're not even reading my posts since you have interpreted me as dissenting to a premise I specifically affirmed and also interpreted a post containing: "faith is not achieved through reason" as somehow claiming that "reason is the source of faith." You also seem to be asserting "reason is the source of faith," as my position over and over, despite my specifically clarifying with: " I certainly didn't assert that "reason is the source of faith."'

St Anselm was very well aware that faith is not based on reason.

Indeed, what's the point? Anselm is quoted in the Catechism: "faith seeks understanding," to which replied "no it doesn't."

You're returning to a point that, as far as I can see, no one has made in this thread.

And knowing is not an act of the intellect? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Just because two things are an act of another doesn't mean you can equivocate them... unless you do so under the umbrella term, which is a hybrid of a multiplicity...

Like Pooping and Thinking... both an act of the body.

So, St. Thomas's Five Ways demonstrate a lack of faith and are contrary to Church doctrine? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not exactly, a quantum of force cannot actually be weaker than it is... you and T Clark have made me consider my perspective a bit more, and what I'm coming to is that ... but say St. Thomas's Quantum of Force in faith is already this grand mountain... we can say his Faith is still as strong... but say instead of St. Thomas being 100% faith-based, he's 60% Faith and 40% logic and perhaps a lack of clarifying here has caused all sorts of equivocations, perhaps of myself even... due to the quantum of force not actually being lesser... just because a persons intellect may be divided in a 60/40 split doesn't necessarily mean that because a persons thought moves to 55/45 split that the quantum of force behind faith grew less... but that the quantum of force behind reason grew more...
there IS a nuance to it... so for some people a quantum of force of faith may not be phased by reason...

Not a blanket quality for all or even most though...

So, St. Thomas's Five Ways demonstrate a lack of faith and are contrary to Church doctrine? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If he required any of that for belief, yes, it would show a lack of faith.

I'll tell you a secret about mysticism. As soon as you stop trying to be right, you'll feel God's presence. It's pretty cool.

Exactly the human spirit is the rope between two opposites faith and reason... - DiffEgg

The more I know/understand that my wife won't cheat on me the less faith I have in her? This seems bizarre to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Me too.

It’s because faith isn’t the opposite of reason.

If you made the two opposites Reason and No-reason or Irrationality, then faith or belief would represent the judgment of where one was standing in relation to those two poles.

Faith is not opposite reason; faith/believing is opposite having no opinion or not judging, or not yet ready to act - if we have to create a continuum to understand the concept of faith.

If we do a long complicated math problem, spanning several pages of calculations, and check our work twice, all along trying our best to use only reason and logic as only they can ensure the math problem is addressed, we can now separately adjudge “the problem is complete, correct, and the answer is valid and sound.” We now KNOW the answer, because we now BELIEVE we have already checked our work and know how to use reason, etc. Belief is an act, at the moment of judgment.

It takes knowledge, or some knowable object, and consents to that object’s existence.

This is how one could make sense out of faith alone bringing justification, while faith without works is dead. Having faith is the work of knowing - it is an act of judgment not the mere result of the process before it (be that process a reasoning through an argument, or experiencing the transfiguration). So sola fide points to the act of consenting to the conclusion of the argument - by grace we only need the conclusion and don’t need the premises and the reasoning processing among them. But the nature of the conclusion here, that Christ is God, and Christ gave his life for his friends. So if you say you have faith but would not give your life, then you do not know faith, you do not have faith, faith is dead. The key epistemological point being, you do not KNOW faith if what you know isn’t an act, an acting, a believing, like walking on a path takes judgment, not the science that might be behind it that judgment.

Faith is not opposite reason — Fire Ologist

Yall in that Dialectical thought of antithesis of values...

Also

The more I know/understand that my wife won't cheat on me the less faith I have in her? This seems bizarre to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems Bizarre to you that the more you know your wife won't cheat on you the less faith you have in believing that she wont? You don't even comprehend what I'm saying with that example.

So everything you believe in is a known fact? If I know my wife won't cheat on me then it's no longer a question about faith... because it's known.

It's bizarre to me that you equivocate beliefs with knowing...

Just because I believe I have the biggest penis in the world doesn't mean plenty of others don't dwarf me in reality.

Knowing I have the biggest penis in the world entails something completely different than just believing I do...

I can make shit up about you right here on the fly and believe it...

Just because you fall into the trap that Christians are like "your belief is your personal relationship with God" doesn't mean you know God...

Do you collect Faith or Intelligence in war? For the purpose of knowing the plans of your adversary?

After a scientist has faith in his work and makes a discovery... and can recreate said experiment...sorry but... it's no longer faith but repeatable knowledge...

He no longer needs faith it will work... he knows it does work...

The reason a Christian feels faith is knowing is because they attempt to relay every perspective through the "womb of being"... "faith in God is knowing cause God is everything."

"NO I KNOW MY WIFE WOULD NEVER CHEAT!" *He shrieked in despair after hearing the news that she did just that* Well obviously there was a gap in the knowledge... that gap was faith... that the man lied to himself about there being a gap in knowledge...

A large dose of knowledge makes the certainty of faith FEEL and APPEAR like knowledge...Hence St. Thomas thinks "nor can truth ever contradict truth." His gap in knowledge (faith) appears to him as knowledge... sadly the truth of Paradox were far before his time, and something he willingly ignored, probably to maintain his faith that truth never contradicts itself... I don't know, I can't ask him, so I suppose I will just have to have faith in my opinion that he willingly ignored the truth of paradox so he could say "truth never contradicts truth"

Hume's Guillotine

The more I know/understand that my wife won't cheat on me the less faith I have in her? — Count Timothy von Icarus

So to tell a person who believes in God they might be jeopardizing their faith-based belief by seeking logical proof, or that logical proof replaces and usurps this belief, is like telling me the fact that I trust my wife must mean I don’t really know her (or. I know her “without reason based thought” or something), and if I really knew my wife, there would be no place or need for trust anymore. — Fire Ologist

Diff - you haven’t addressed the above on your scale of faith versus “reason based thought.”

So when you are believing, knowledge and reason are absent? And when you are knowing, belief is absent? Is that how it all works in your view?

"NO I KNOW MY WIFE WOULD NEVER CHEAT!" *He shrieked in despair after hearing the news that she did just that* Well obviously there was a gap in the knowledge... that gap was faith... that the man lied to himself about there being a gap in knowledge...

A large dose of knowledge makes the certainty of faith FEEL and APPEAR like knowledge...Hence St. Thomas thinks "nor can truth ever contradict truth." His gap in knowledge (faith) appears to him as knowledge... sadly the truth of Paradox were far before his time, and something he willingly ignored, probably to maintain his faith that truth never contradicts itself... I don't know, I can't ask him, so I suppose I will just have to have faith in my opinion that he willingly ignored the truth of paradox so he could say "truth never contradicts truth"

[But if I say I knew for sure ... that's] Hume's Guillotine — DifferentiatingEgg

So basically we end up with knowledge on Paradoxes and Knowledge on St. Thomas, to make an "educated guess."

But if I got to ask him, and fill that gap... well, I would know then wouldn't I?

I don't know, I can't ask him, so I suppose I will just have to have faith in my opinion — DifferentiatingEgg

All the moving parts of my analysis are right there.

I know.
I don’t know.
I have faith.
And I act - namely, express an opinion.

So since you have faith in your opinion are you saying you didn’t use reason here? There is no reason for your opinion?

The more knowledge I have the less faith I have in the statement yet.

Know how counting cards works?

Even a 5% margin of error is requires great faith in a machine that RPMS 10000 times a minute...

The more knowledge I have the less faith — DifferentiatingEgg

So you have some knowledge all along the process, more or less cards counted.

And so you are saying that faith (maybe in an extreme blind form) includes zero knowledge (zero cards), whereas knowledge (like certainty or truth) is based on all the cards.

And so I take it you think that everything you know and say is part knowledge, and part faith, unless you think you have all the cards?

I am just trying to understand your response to what I am saying about believing aligning with judgment and action (will), and knowledge aligning with math, reason, step one, two three, like counting cards. I need two scales if we are looking for sliding scales. You keep referring to one scale to account for all the moving parts.

Basically I'm saying you either have absolute faith in something everything less than absolute faith brings some knowledge with it.

Having absolute faith in God requires nothing more than belief. Having faith doesn't even require routine or doctrine...

Basically I'm saying you either have absolute faith in something everything less than absolute faith brings some knowledge with it. — DifferentiatingEgg

But does that also mean you either have absolute knowledge of something and everything less than absolute knowledge brings some faith with it?

So all of us scientists who admit we do not have absolute knowledge but have to live our lives and make our theorems anyway MUST mix in faith to do so. Is that right also?

Yes. Even in science, man places much faith.

Though, to be fair, the mischievousness in me wanted to say "No" to create absurdity...

The OP claims that making religious arguments based on reason is inconsistent with making them based on faith - as he wrote "...all of you who do require reason-based thought, have a severe lack of faith in God." — T Clark

One thing that occurs to me is that very few believers come to a position on faith.

People invariably have reasons for their faith in a particular version of a particular god. When I’ve spoken to Catholics, evangelicals, or other faith-focused Christians about this, their reasons for believing are often articulated as: “It’s the religion of my family, friends and community.” or “It’s the religion of my culture.” In these cases, faith is more of a post hoc justification rather than the primary driving force. If a person’s religion is the only expression of meaning and the numinous they have known since birth, their belief is shaped more by enculturation than by an independent leap of faith.

For those who come to a religion later in life - it's usually through a critical experience or through meeting new friends who aid in a conversion experience. Then too, the faith comes later.

I’m doubtful that faith functions the way many suggest. It often seems like a post hoc claim used to end discussion. My grandmother, a fundamentalist from the Dutch Reformed Church, put it this way: “I came from a Godly house and cherish the belief of my ancestors. I have faith.” To me, this translates to: “I was taught to believe something, and I have faith that the beliefs I’ve held since birth are correct because I was taught they are correct.”

:sweat: Really? Okay. Pax tibi. (John 20:21)

Good to see the local Christians all getting on so well.

People invariably have reasons for their faith in a particular version of a particular god. When I’ve spoken to Catholics, evangelicals, or other faith-focused Christians about this, their reasons for believing are often articulated as: “It’s the religion of my family, friends and community.” or “It’s the religion of my culture.” In these cases, faith is more of a post hoc justification rather than the primary driving force. If a person’s religion is the only expression of meaning and the numinous they have known since birth, their belief is shaped more by enculturation than by an independent leap of faith. — Tom Storm

But you can say that about just about everything, in particular language. Indonesian children don't generally speak English as their first language because they are encultured to speak Indonesian. Is it surprising that most religious Indonesians worship Allah? If what you call an expression of meaning and the numinous is a common human experience, which I think it is, I would expect it to vary from culture to culture just like everything else.

My grandmother, a fundamentalist from the Dutch Reformed Church, put it this way: “I came from a Godly house and cherish the belief of my ancestors. I have faith.” To me, this translates to: “I was taught to believe something, and I have faith that the beliefs I’ve held since birth are correct because I was taught they are correct.” — Tom Storm

As I noted, that's true of everything. Does that undermine the value and validity of the cultural expression of a common human experience?

The answer to this is not that Anselm’s proof is a logical perfection of God as syllogism - it is that we need faith no matter which object we pick up to fashion proofs about. Faith (will) is essential not only to finding God, but to following a reasonable argument, whatever objects that argument is about. We don’t prove things exist; we prove things about existing things we already chose to believe in, or as the more empirically bent put it, we already posit as an object of knowledge. — Fire Ologist

First off, I'm sorry it took me so long to respond. Your post slipped between the cracks.

If I understand what you've written correctly, it makes a lot of sense and I find it very helpful in dealing with this kind of issue. I hadn't thought of it this way before. I think you're saying that what we call faith when it comes to religion is a way of knowing we use in all aspects of our lives. You call it "will." I would probably call it "intuition."

Let me know if I've missed your point.

True, but my main point is that faith is never entirely independent of reasoning: it's embedded in a web of interdependent values and justifications from the very beginning. Some people seem to believe that faith exists in a separate domain, as if it were a sacred thread connecting them directly to the truth, untouched by external influences. But in reality, faith is as contingent and fallible as any other belief we hold, shaped by history, culture, and personal experience rather than standing apart as an infallible or 'different' source of knowledge. That's all.

Yes. Even in science, man places much faith. — DifferentiatingEgg

This sounds like knowledge (science/reason) has to be on a different scale than a faith would. Otherwise you couldn't "place faith IN science"; some faith is already in there. If faith/belief and reason/knowledge are all on opposite ends of the same scale then you don't place faith in science, you reduce science and increase faith, or you reduce faith and increase science.

So this is just a muddled way of equating faith with not-knowing, and a muddled way of equating reason with knowledge. Your using faith as the antithesis of reason, but talking about faith like it's the antithesis of knowledge.

I get the scale of reason versus faith - but maybe this is imprecise, and they aren't on the same scale.

If reason, faith and knowledge are more complicated and just different, one may be able to place faith in science (your phrase now) or faith in God, as the distinctions would allow one to be reasonable about objects of faith or objects of science or any posited things. We can wonder if reason itself is reasonable for instance.

If you want scales, I see the scales are:
knowledge/knowing ---- ignorance/questioning,
reason ----- absurdity/irrationality
believing/faith ----- denying/no faith
(minding intention ---- mindless passivity, should probably be here, but we aren't wondering how reasonable or religious a rock can be, nor what someone who is intoxicated makes of a math problem or tree elves - mind can be everywhere on all scales).

If you don't know something as you know the conclusion of a syllogism, you can still believe or deny it. That's where the objects of faith come in - believing something you don't know. But you can use reason to shape your belief just the same as using reason to shape your knowledge - or absurdity to shape either. There is such a thing as bad science, as using reason to argue for an object of knowledge and just being wrong. Reason might stay reasonable despite erroneous facts causing the wrong conclusion.

In order for you to keep faith and reason apart on opposite ends of the scale, you could never tell whether your knowledge was reasonable, or it was not-knowledge, and you could never tell your faith was absurd. And the "scientist" would just be another word for "the person who says what they think", like a religious person, or an ignoramus. Maybe that is what you are saying - we are all priests and scientists and ignoramuses' bouncing between knowing reasons and un-knowing irrationality (you call faith). But then we are all as guilty of the same bad faith you accuse of Anselm and Aquinas, sound logic or not.

Or maybe you are saying the only thing worth saying is absolute knowledge and given our predicament (utterly blind to absolute knowledge) we are all liars, some version of a mad priest, lying to the extent we ever say "I know". Again, why pick on the "faithful" then - as they are the same as you, somewhere in the middle of the same scale.

faith is never entirely independent of reasoning — Tom Storm

That's what I was pointing to when I said we have faith in our senses when we follow them to cross the street. I put it the other way and said reasoning is never entirely independent of believing. Reasons and the logical connections we make between them, the reasoning, is either a blessing or a curse that our mental activity is never entirely independent of, including the activity of believing something regardless of how well we might know it.

what we call faith when it comes to religion is a way of knowing we use in all aspects of our lives. You call it "will." I would probably call it "intuition." — T Clark

Yes - it's all hard to say so maybe I'm making sense and maybe I understand you. But yes, knowing anything involves believing something, and it involves reason. It's one package. Faith allows us to know things our sense experiences may resist, or faith may allow us to assign meaning to things that may mean other things to others as well, but we are still using reason, and concepts, in minds, like any act of knowing does.

And no worries on the response time. I cannot case a stone on that one either.

:up: :up:

I read once, on a long-vanished blog, that the various arguments for God by the scholastics were never intended to convert non-believers. They were practiced as intellectual exercises for the faithful. With my limited understanding of Thomas Aquinas, I think it is said of him that he would never expect that reason would provide sufficient grounds for faith, although he also said that these weren't in conflict.

The real friction between reason and faith manifests later with Protestantism, where salvation by faith alone and the absolute authority of the Bible were stressed, over the kind of rationalist spirituality that characterised the Scholastics.

I think you (and others here) confuse "faith" (i.e. unconditional trust in / hope for (ergo worship of) unseen, magical agency) with working assumptions (i.e. stipulations); the latter are reasonable, therefore indispensible for discursive practices, whereas the former is psychological (e.g. an atavistic bias). "Without assumptions, we cannot proceed ..." is evidently true, MoK, in a way that your "faith" claim is not. — 180 Proof

I think people have the right to have faith in whatever they want provided that the faith is the subject of constant criticism by reason.

I think if anyone takes faith and converts it as "a known truth" then they're guilty of Hume's Guillotine.

This sounds like knowledge (science/reason) has to be on a different scale than a faith would — Fire Ologist

Perhaps for some, but not me. I can understand why the religious type lie to themselves about faith. It's a prominent feature of their thought so they want it to count for something more. Faith in faith.

The real friction between reason and faith manifests later with Protestantism, where salvation by faith alone — Wayfarer

Could be the case a few influenced my decision, but I never care to ask someone their religion because it's something that matters 0 to me. But I feel like a lot of people think because they have faith in faith they think it's knowledge. They find it some form of reasoned knowledge... the more knowledge you have of something the less faith you have in it because the more you know...

A scientist doesn't need to have faith in his model after showing it works...he knows it does.

Bet most the religious here serve themselves not their God...

Brcause their knowledge of themselves is greater than their faith in their God.

"God thinks and I obey?" More like "I think and it obeys," after the death of God...