Faith and Reason

This is an excerpt of my last reply to a group of theologically minded friends re an on-going conversation/dispute we have been engaged in. I post this here because I think it provides fair insight into just how I think about these kinds of questions:

OK here's the thing - I accept the notion that it is possible to believe a thing without proof, but I categorically reject the notion that it is possible to know a thing without proof.

There simply is no way to prove a proposition like the existence of God, or the physical resurrection of a dead man - these are supernatural faith assertions. The first words of our creed are "We believe" and not, "We know." What I call "dogmatism" is the insistence that people must accept as certain particular propositions that cannot be proved with evidence that any reasonable man can accept.

I left evangelicalism and joined the Episcopal Church (and resigned the professional ministry as a consequence of this decision) precisely because I no longer had any stomach for the sort of myopic and uncritical dogmatism that seems to characterize most popular American evangelical thinking. Yet at the same time I still wanted to remain a believing and practicing Christian of robust orthodox faith. However, I did not want to trade one form of fundamentalism for another. I did not want to substitute the provincialist biblical fundamentalism of the conservative-evangelicals that I had outgrown, for the more sophisticated "ecclesiological fundamentalism" increasinlgy prevalent in certain liturgical circles these days. If I had wanted to do that I would have - to use a phrase Frank Valdez likes - "swum the Tiber" and become a Roman Catholic.

I am attracted to the eucharistic and incarnational theology of Anglo-Catholicism and consider it far more spiritually mature and intellectually tenable than the culturally accommodationist folk-theology of the evangelicals - which is why I am an Anglican. But I refuse to absolutize any of it - I see this as a form of intellectual suicide that I am unwilling to commit. More importantly, like my friend Bruce Wright, I don't want to make the spiritual and moral mistake of closing myself off to the belief that God can and does work outside these presuppositional constructs of "truth" that human beings have erected.

One final thought - It is interesting to me that all you guys seem really into the whole "modernity vs. post-modernity" controversy that seems to have taken the theological world by storm these days. Participants in this controversy seem to equate "modernity" with entirely negative historical/cultural developments like market-capitalism and the nation-state and are therefore dismissive of it for these reasons (and the modern Market and State do seem to be good things for Christians to be somewhat dismissive about - I don't much like 'em either! lol!) however, when I think of "modernity" I am inclined only to connect it with the development of a way of thinking - specifically what Thomas Paine, writing at the end of the 18th century, called "The Age of Reason." Frankly I have a lot of respect for "Reason" as over against mere authority.

Personally I never gave much thought to the whole "modern vs. post-modern" thing until some of you guys started inundating me with it. Until very recently I just accepted the idea that faith and reason could be reconciled based on the fact that they asked and answered different questions. Faith addresses itself to questions that reason cannot answer and therefore does not ask. For me it's always been that simple - I have never felt compelled to create a whole new school of thought about a very old question!

JF