Some clarifications

A. Fideism in Reason

To some extent I had my tongue planted in cheek when I wrote that Catholics are called on to be fideistic about reason.

Of course, that is not the gist of Catholic teaching on the subject. Rather, Catholicism affirms that natural reason is efficacious and necessary for a proper understanding of God and revealed truth. This attitude encourages reasoning about God and discourages the notion that authentic faith has to involve – as Mark Twain put it – believing in things that we know aren’t true.

A few points:

First, Vatican 1, De Filius, affirmed in Canon 1 on “Revelation”:

1. If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.

So, if one denies that God cannot be known through “the natural light of human reason” “with certainty from the things that have been made,” then that person is “anathema.”

But consider the limited proposition involved in this canon. The canon does not say how it is that a person has to know God through the natural light of human reason. It offers no specific proof as the way that the person must reason from “the things that have been made” to God. Moreover, it doesn’t even require that any person be able to say that they have done that reasoning himself. All the canon demands is that the faithful not deny that God can be known from “the things that have been made” through the light of natural human reason.

Hence, my point was that all a faithful Catholic had to do to remain faithful was to affirm that it could be done, by someone else, somewhere else, at some other time.

There is ambiguity in the canon. For example, does the canon say that we must affirm that knowledge of God through reason is something that has already happened?

Or can we say that sometime in the future, it will happen?

I think the former is a more proper understanding of the canon. The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this interpretation of the canon:

It will be observed that neither the Scriptural texts we have quoted nor the conciliar decrees say that God's existence can be proved or demonstrated; they merely affirm that it can be known with certainty. Now one may, if one wishes, insist on the distinction between what is knowable and what is demonstrable, but in the present connection this distinction has little real import. It has never been claimed that God's existence can be proved mathematically, as a proposition in geometry is proved, and most Theists reject every form of the ontological or deductive proof. But if the term proof or demonstration may be, as it often is, applied to a posteriori or inductive inference, by means of which knowledge that is not innate or intuitive is acquired by the exercise of reason, then it cannot fairly be denied that Catholic teaching virtually asserts that God's existence can be proved. Certain knowledge of God is declared to be attainable "by the light of reason", i.e. of the reasoning faculty as such from or through "the things that are made"; and this clearly implies an inferential process such as in other connections men do not hesitate to call proof.

I take it that this is in line with Literatus' and my earlier position that our reason can impel us reasonably to accept God based on the “weight of the evidence,” i.e., as a matter of probabilities. After all, that kind of reasoning – and proof – is what we do every day, and we accept the conclusions of reasoning as “proof” with “certainty” on a host of subjects, even though we lack mathematical or ontological certainty.

The canon also does not require any one of us to affirm that we have that “certainty” of God from “the things that God has made” by an exercise of reason. Frankly, that kind of individual requirement would be inconsistent with the traditions of Catholicism, which have always permitted a latent or incipient faith. As evidence in favor of my historical assertion, let me offer St. Thomas in ST Q. 2. 2:

Objection 1. It seems that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated. For it is an article of faith that God exists. But what is of faith cannot be demonstrated, because a demonstration produces scientific knowledge; whereas faith is of the unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Therefore it cannot be demonstrated that God exists.

And:

Reply to Objection 1. The existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated.

Hence, my sort of tongue and cheek assertion that we can be fideistic about reason.
Obviously, that wasn’t St. Thomas’ point; rather, it was a recognition that we can believe a lot of things that we don’t personally understand. I believe in computers, for example, but I have no idea about how they work. I rather doubt that I would ever be able to understand how they work, but I’m certain that there are people who do understand. I take their explanations on faith. In that sense, I am a fideist about technology, but the position I am taking is not fideistic.

Of course, this kind of thinking runs counter to the modern mantra that we should not believe in things for which we do not ourselves possess evidence – a mantra that is applied only to orthodox religious belief, it seems, and not to things like the benevolence of government or global warming or the inner mechanics of the internet.

Also, note that St. Thomas does not speak about the existence of God as being an article of faith. He views that issue as a “preamble to faith” that is susceptible to human reason. What he would describe as being a matter of pure faith are those things which we cannot see in the “things that He has made,” such as the doctrine of the Trinity.

The difference between God’s existence and the Trinity has a lot to do with the ability to see things. St. Paul did say that faith was the “evidence of things not seen” but we see the world, which is a handiwork of God. Since God leaves traces of Himself in His creation, and because there is a connection between God and His creation, it is possible to compare God and creation and to speak of God through analogies with his creation. The things of the world are not “things not seen.”

On the other hand, the inner relationships of God are not seen by us, except through revelation. When God creates, He acts as one being rather than individually through His persons. So, we can’t point to this bit of creation and say that this is a sign of the Son, etc.

B. Why do we believe in the ability of human reason to know God?

The simple answer – to quote Tevye - is “Tradition!”

I mentioned Robert Louis Wilkens’ point that one of the traits of Christianity has been its “unapologetic intellectualism.” Wilkens cites 1 Peter (be ready to give a “reason for the hope that is within you”) as the basis for this tradition.
The tradition goes back before that, however. Vatican 1 cited two texts in support of the canon I quoted earlier – Romans 1 and Wisdom 13.

In Romans, Paul writes:

Romans 1
19 For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them.
20 Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse;
21 for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.
22 While claiming to be wise, they became fools…

The Vatican 1 Council (1870) took this as support for the proposition that God can be known to thinking men “in what he has made.”

Wisdom 13 says this:

1 For all men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan;
2 But either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods.
3 Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods, let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original source of beauty fashioned them.
4 Or if they were struck by their might and energy, let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them.
5 For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen.
6 But yet, for these the blame is less; For they indeed have gone astray perhaps, though they seek God and wish to find him.
7 For they search busily among his works, but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
8 But again, not even these are pardonable.
9 For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world, how did they not more quickly find its LORD?

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains this passage:

Here it is clearly taught
- that the phenomenal or contingent world -- the things that are seen -- requires a cause distinct from and greater than itself or any of its elements;
- that this cause who is God is not unknowable, but is known with certainty not only to exist but to possess in Himself, in a higher degree, whatever beauty, strength, or other perfections are realized in His works,
- that this conclusion is attainable by the right exercise of human reason, without reference to supernatural revelation, and that philosophers, therefore, who are able to interpret the world philosophically, are inexcusable for their ignorance of the true God, their failure, it is implied, being due rather to lack of good will than to the incapacity of the human mind.

My take on where the “authority” for asserting that man can know God through natural reason is that there has always been a tradition that such a thing is true. (See also, Proverbs (“The fool in his heart has said that there is no God.”) We can certainly point to bible passages as evidence of this tradition, but those passages are simply part of the larger tradition passed on “orally” and as the background against which the particular bible passages were written and are understood. So, Catholics don’t say that man can understand God through the natural light of human reason because of “bible authority,” but we don’t say it in the absence of “bible” authority either. We say it because that has been part of the tradition from the beginning.

I think that offers some understanding of how the Church got to that particular canon. There is also the further tradition of ancient and medieval Christian philosophers using philosophy to reason about philosophical truths. Most of that was offered in the early portions of Prof. Carey’s lecture series.

Here’s another good one.