Facts, faith, and religion: a Response to T. David Marshall

RE:  Fact: Faith is not reasonable by T. David Marshall, The Spectator May 8^th, 2013

 

This is in response to an Op-Ed article published in the Hamilton Spectator on 8 May 2013.

 

 

While I generally agree with the conclusions of Mr. Marshall, the process by which he reaches those conclusions is full of error.

 

Mr. Marshall does not know what science is.  He does not understand the difference between rational science and empirical science.  He does not understand what reason is.  He does not understand the difference between faith and reason, or between faith and knowledge.  His definition of religious observance betrays a sense of contempt.  Yet he reaches the correct conclusion that a religion ought to be held accountable for what it professes.

 

Science is not, as Marshall says, a “mode of thinking and method of inquiry.”  Scientific method is a method of inquiry.  Science is an organized body of knowledge.

 

Prior to Sir Isaac Newton, all sciences were rational sciences - branches of philosophy like philosophical theology; or, like geometry, branches of mathematics.  Only since the 17^th century has empirical science, the kind of science Mr. Marshall actually means, been in existence.

 

Mr. Marshall, as a former lecturer in ethics, might be horrified to learn that ethics is a rational science, one founded upon a self-evident truth and which, like religion, offers propositions that are prescriptively true.  In contradistinction, chemistry is a both a rational and an empirical science that offers propositions that are descriptively true.

 

The difference between ethics and religion is that the prescriptively true propositions of ethics are those founded upon a self-evident truth, while those of religion are founded upon propositions dogmatically asserted to be true.  The difference between ethics and religion on one hand, and chemistry and physics on the other, is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive.

 

Reasoning is the process by which both ethics and religion create their bodies of doctrine, though they begin from differing basis sets of starting propositions.  Reasoning is also employed in the empirical sciences, and the conclusions of the reasoning process in empirical science can be confirmed by scientific experiment.

 

Religion is not unreasonable.  The Christian faith came to be what it is today because it passed through the filter of Greek philosophy during the early years of its existence, as the best minds of their time grappled with the meaning of Christ and God.

 

It is not unreasonable to assert the existence of God.  Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, first proposed the existence of a Prime Mover, an Uncaused Cause.  Today, the God of philosophical enquiry is understood to be the creator ex nihilo of the universe and the efficient cause of its continued existence.  One can understand this notwithstanding belief in any particular religion, or in no religion.  Religion adds understanding of God to the bare-bones understanding of the God philosophical enquiry.  This is where faith comes into play in religion – you either believe in the dogmatically asserted propositions of the faith or you do not.

 

Physics cannot touch this understanding of God, Stephen Hawking notwithstanding.  The laws of physics came into existence after the universe was born, and physics has no explanation for the continued existence of the universe.  The particular beliefs of this religion or that cannot impugn the existence of the God of philosophical inquiry.

 

Consequently, one can reach the conclusion Mr. Marshall reached - that a religion is accountable for what it professes to be true - without making all the errors Mr. Marshall made.  That some people shrink from the full conclusions of their professed religion is a statement about the condition of man not unknown to any religion.  It is as much a lack of rigor in reasoning – a failure to act on a philosophical imperative by the individual – that leads people to act in a manner inconsistent with religious beliefs.  It is not an act of reason, as Mr. Marshall asserts, to refrain from acting on religious beliefs, but a failure of reason.

 

Faith and reason are not at odds with each other; reason is a means by which the consequences of faith become known.  And if those consequences are discovered, empirically, to be in error, then fault lies in the propositions of the faith.

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