RATIONALITY OF FAITH
An Academic Approach to Religion
IT IS THROUGH reason that man justifies his faith. Rational justification strengthens his convictions. Rational argument is thus an intellectual need of every believer. Without this, he would not be able to stand firmly by his faith. It is reason which transforms blind faith into a matter of intellectual choice.
History shows that man has employed four kinds of argument to find rational grounds for his faith. Each of these reflects different stages in his intellectual development.
Natural Argument
The first kind of argument is one based on nature, i.e. simple facts or
common experiences. This has been the most commonly used since
ancient times. Some examples of this kind are found in the Quran, one
of which relates to the Prophet Abraham. It is stated as follows in the
Quran:
Have you not heard of him (Nimrod) who argued with Abraham about his Lord, because God had bestowed the kingdom upon him? Abraham said: ‘My Lord is the one who gives life and brings death.’ He answered, ‘I [too] give life and bring death!’ Abraham said, ‘God brings up the sun from the east, so bring it up yourself from the west.’ Then the disbeliever was confounded. God does not guide the wrongdoers. (2: 258)
We find another example of the argument based on natural reasoning in the Quran:
In this way We showed Abraham Our kingdom of the heavens and the earth, so that he might have certainty of faith. When night descended on him, he saw a star. He said: ‘This is my Lord!’ Then when it set, he said: ‘I do not love things that set.’ When he saw the moon rise and spread its light, he said: ‘This is my Lord.’ But when it set, he said: ‘If my Lord does not guide me, I will be one of the misguided people.’ Then when he saw the sun shining, he said: ‘This is my Lord. This is the greatest of all!’ Then when it set, he said: ‘My people, I disown all that you worship besides with God.’ (6: 75-78)
Argument of this kind may appear to be simple, but they are invested with deeper meaning. For this reason, they have been relied upon as much in the past as today.
Philosophical Argument
The second kind of argument is that first propounded by Greek
philosophers. Based on pure logic, it was so popular in the medieval
ages that Jews, Christians and Muslims all incorporated it into their
theological system. Commonly known as the First Cause, it may be
summed up as follows:
The world man observes with his senses must have been brought into being by God as the First Cause. Philosophers have argued that the observable order of causation is not self-explanatory. It can only be accounted for by the existence of a First Cause. This First Cause, however, must not be considered simply as the first in a series of successive causes, but rather as the First Cause in the sense of being the cause for the whole series of observable causes.
The Prime Mover or First Cause theory, although obviously very sound, has constantly been under attack from secular circles, and critics have raised a variety of objections. To begin with, they say that it is only guesswork, and not an undeniable fact. Some critics also object that the actions or free will of subatomic particles are uncaused; so, why not also the world as a whole? Moreover, even if all things in the world are caused, this may not be true of the world itself, because no one knows whether the whole is sufficiently like its parts to warrant such a generalization.
The truth is that, without a belief in God, the universe remains as unexplainable as the entire mechanism of light is, without a belief in electromagnetic waves.
Spiritual Argument
Yet another argument is that which is based on spiritual experience.
Some people who engage in spiritual exercises and have spiritual
experiences say that when they reach the deeper levels of the human
consciousness, they find an unlimited world which cannot be described
in limited language. They insist that this limitless, unexplainable
phenomenon is nothing but God Almighty Himself.
Critics say that even if this spiritual state is as real as is claimed by those who enter it, it is still a subjective experience; that it conveys nothing to those who have not experienced the same spiritual state.
All the above arguments are in one way or another inferential in nature and not of the direct kind. In view of this fact, critics hold that all faiths, including Islam, have no scientific basis. They contend that Islamic theology is not based on primary rationalism, but on secondary rationalism.
However, these contentions appeared to be valid only till the end of the nineteenth century. The previous century closed the chapter on all such debates. Now, according to modern developments in science, one can safely say that religious tenets can be proved on the same logical plane as the concepts of science. There is now no difference between the two in terms of scientific reasoning. Let us, then, see what modern scientific reasoning is all about.
Scientific Argument
Religion, or faith, relates to issues such as the existence of God,
something intangible and unobservable, unlike non-religious things
like the sun, which has a tangible and observable existence. Therefore,
it came to be held that only non-religious matters might be established
by direct argument, while it is only indirect or inferential argument
which can be used to prove religious propositions.
It was believed, therefore, that rational argument was possible only in non-religious matters, and as far as religious matters were concerned, rational argument was not applicable at all. That is to say, it was only in non-religious areas that primary rationalism was possible, while in religion, only secondary rationalism could be applied.
In the past, arguments based on Aristotelean logic used to be applied to faith. By its very nature, it was an indirect argument. Modern critics, therefore, labelled such arguments as unworthy of consideration. That is why religion was not thought worthy of being paid any attention to by rational people. This state of affairs presented a challenge not only to other religions but to Islam as well.
The existence of God, as a designer (cause) was presumed because His design (effect) could be seen to exist.
About five hundred years ago, with the emergence of science, this state of affairs did not change. Scientists in the wake of the Renaissance, believed that matter, in fact, the entire material world, was something solid which could be observed. Newton had even formed a theory that light consisted of tiny corpuscles. As such, it was possible to apply direct argument as an explanation of material things. It continued to be believed that the kind of argument which is applied to apparently tangible things could not be applied in the case of religion.
But by the early twentieth century, specifically after the First World War, this mental climate changed completely. The ancient Greek philosophers believed that matter, in the last analysis, was composed of atoms. And the atom, though very tiny, was a piece of solid matter. But with the breaking of the atom in the twentieth century, all the popular scientific concepts underwent a sea change. The theories about faith and reason seemed relevant only while science was confined to the macrocosmic level. Later, when science advanced to the microcosmic level, it underwent a revolution, and along with it, the method of argument also changed.
Till then, science had been based on the proposition that all the things it believed in, like the atom, could be directly explained. But when the atom, the smallest part of an element, was smashed, it was revealed that it was not a material entity, but just another name for unobservable waves of electrons.
Reason and faith are now standing on the same ground. No one can legitimately reject faith as something irrational, unless one is ready to reject the rationality of scientific theories as well.
This discovery demonstrated how a scientist could see only the effect of a thing and not the thing itself. For instance, the atom, after being split, produces energy which can be converted into electricity. This runs along a wire in the form of a current, yet this event is not observable even by a scientist. But when such an event produces an effect, for instance, it lights up a bulb or sets a motor in motion, this effect comes under a scientist’s observation. Similarly, the waves from an X-ray machine are not observable by a scientist, but when they produce the image of a human body on a plate, then it becomes observable.
Now the question arose as to what stand a scientist must take. Should he believe only in a tangible effect, or the intangible thing as well which produced that effect? Since the scientist was bound to believe in the tangible effect, he had no choice but to believe in its intangible cause. Here the scientist felt that direct argument could be applied to the tangible effect, but that it was not at all possible to apply direct argument to the intangible cause. The most important of all the changes brought about by this new development in the world of science was that it was admitted in scientific circles that inferential argument was as valid as direct argument. That is, if a cause consistently gives rise to an effect, the existence of the intangible cause will be accepted as a proven fact, just as the existence of the tangible effect is accepted because it is observable. In modern times, all the concepts of science held to be established have been proven by this very logic.
After reaching this stage of rational argument, the difference between religious argument and scientific argument ceases to exist. The problem faced earlier was that religious realities, such as the existence of God, could be proved only by inference or indirect argument. For instance, the existence of God as the Designer (First Cause) was presumed because His design (effect) could be seen to exist. But now the same method of indirect argument has been generally held to be valid in the world of science. Bertrand Russel, famed for his atheistic views, also accepted the veracity of inferential argument. He wrote:
I commit myself to the view that there are valid processes of inference from events to other events….more particularly, from events from which I am aware without reference to events of which I have no such awareness. (Human Knowledge)
There are numerous meaningful things in the universe which are brought to the knowledge of human beings for which no explanation is possible. It has simply to be accepted that there is a meaningful cause, that is God. The truth is that without belief in God, the universe remains inexplicable just as the entire mechanism of light and motion is inexplicable without a belief in electromagnetic waves.
Thus, the option one has to take is not between the universe without God and the universe with God. Rather, the option actually is between the universe with God and no universe at all. Since we cannot, for obvious reasons, opt for the latter proposition, we are, in fact, left with no other option except the former, that is, the universe with God.
In view of the recent advancements in scientific reasoning, a true faith has proved to be as rational as any other scientific theory. Reason and faith are now standing on the same ground. In fact, no one can legitimately reject faith as something irrational unless one is ready to reject the rationality of scientific theories as well. For, all the modern scientific theories are accepted as proven on the basis of the same rational criterion by which a matter of faith would be equally proven true. After the river of knowledge has reached this advanced stage, there remains no logical difference between the two.