Listening to: Blue Roses on Myspace
Dave Bish and Tom Price have both posted brief thoughts on reason/logic. The reasonable and logical thing for me to be doing right now is to be studying law, so I'll have to be brief myself, but while agreeing that there is an important place for reason and logic I think there are two reasons (flowing from my faith which has priority) we should be a little suspicious of them:
1. Our old heart (the source of our reason) invents, borrows and distorts logic and concepts to make reality seem to fit our desires. You cannot reshape that distorted reason with more reason. It requires a changing of the heart from which our reason flows. We need to put to death our old hearts and at the same time break with our reason which grew from it. All of Christian life is killing the independent self-serving person and making alive the dependant and self-giving person. That includes reason.
2. Our old world (the data of our reason) is what we know by our senses. But we are caught between the times. Things are not what they appear. What we think is alive is dead, what looks weak is strong and what we reason to be bad is good. If reason is working with the wrong data, it can be the enemy of truth. If I am using 1997 polling results to predict the upcoming general election, thinking they are up-to-date, then I will hinder rather than help understanding of the true situation. Most people when they think of reason are thinking of reasoning-from-the-old-world. If that is what they think reason is then we have to talk about the limits of reason, or even of going against reason. But if we are able to redefine reason to take into account how we are caught between two worlds then we would not have to talk that way - but that requires a paradigm shift.
Following from those two thoughts, it is clear that 'reason' can be positive or negative; it depends on the source shaping it, and the data it is working with. But we should be suspicious and let it be judged by the written, spoken and sacramental word (i.e. the Bible, our church, and the sacraments). We are in no place to evaluate our reason, because we'll be using our reason to do so. It would be letting the accused bank robber be prosecutor, witness, and judge in his own case.
Sorry, those are not very coherent thoughts, but I must get back to the cold hard reality of the Sale of Goods Act 1979. I think its a particularly difficult topic because everyone means something different by 'faith' and 'reason'. Perhaps every bit of writing on the subject should start by defining terms.
Love it. Putting reason in its place - flowing from the heart and judged by the Word.
ReplyDeleteI like this discussion, though found Dave Bish's (or Mike Reeves'?) characterisation of Aquinas odd.
ReplyDeleteYour point 1 reminds me of the distinction between 'motives', 'causes' and 'reasons' for belief.
Motives and causes cannot be argued about, but reasons can be. If we can sensibly argue that someone gives a good or a bad reason for belief, doesn't that suggest there is an underlying logic to reasoning? If so, reasoning does have the capacity to be self-correcting in a way that you do not seem to allow in your statement: "You cannot reshape that distorted reason with more reason."
P.s. I don't like 'reason' as an abstract noun. I'd use 'rationality' instead.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI had a good chat about your points with my housemate last night.
Here is a super short response:
I think that there is a bit of a circular argument going on with your central paragraph.
I agree rationality may be a better word, although I think there is a problem with all the words you pick, and they are very difficult to define usefully.
I think you're right that my statement wasn't quite right. I think I'd want to re-write it something like: "you cannot put distorted reason back into the right shape with more reason" because obviously correction of reason does go on. But its only a correcting it to be more in line with the plan it is built on - the underlying logic if you will. But this underlying logic is not the same for everyone. Everyone has a different underlying logic which has enough overlap with others that we can have conversation. However, unless this underlying logic is the Logos who is Christ, then the corrections will only make people fit the false gods at the bottom of all their reason. A god who will be incoherent and irrational even according to its own terms - but which does not show the way to coherence and true rationality.
Sorry that is way too short. Its a bit of a big subject to get your head round.
Forgive my presumption, Dave, but it seems like you don't believe there is one true 'underlying logic'. I know no where near enough philosophy to say that there is a true logic, but trusting in an ordering Creator I assume there must be. Just as there is a true morality. I trust this logic (and morality for that matter) is accessible to people through v. hard intellectual labour.
ReplyDeleteHow this fits with the theological revelation of Christ - the logos - I do not know.
I think your last sentence hits on the point Steve.
ReplyDeleteI really do believe in some kind of one, true 'underlying logic'. But I believe that logic is God, or at least so tightly tied up with God that you can't think of it apart from him. OT wisdom is a case in point here. Me and Glen have had some arguments about whether Lady Wisdom is Jesus Christ, or a type of Christ, or whatever. I'm not 100% sure. But I think that Jesus is our wisdom, and wisdom is (at the least) inaccessible apart from him and bound up with his person.
There are other kinds of wisdom out there (of the 'world' as the Bible would say). But while there may be some similarities, they are not the same or even overlapping. Substitute the word wisdom for rationality then I think you're getting somewhere.
I think Colin Gunton talks about how the church has in the past made logic or forms, a mediator between us and God in the doctrine of creation. He argues that we should think Trinitarianly in our doctrine of creation, and see Christ as the mediator of creation. I think that has something to say here too.
I still think I'm being really unclear though. But this is good iron-sharpening-iron work. Thank you.
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ReplyDeleteThought I'd draw your attention to this post (from another of my favourite blogs) which has a sympathetic portrayal of Thomas Aquinas.
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve. Found the bit about the importance of the Eucharist to his life and legacy particularly interesting.
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