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Faith and/or Reason
- Metaphilosophy (7)
- Reason & Logic (29)
- Apologetics (67) : Making the Case for Faith
- Doubt (35) : Cognitive Dissonance
- Miracles (13) : Possibility of Miracles
- Confessions (16) : Why/What I believe
Reasoning Practically (Oxford University Press: 2000), p. 76.
Given my focus on practical rather than theoretical reasoning, I may at this point consider weakening the principle of total evidence and examining a presumption instead. The presumption to be examined establishes, for purposes of rational action, a generic bias in favor of more knowledge rather than on less. To defend the adoption of the presumption in favor of being maximally informed amounts to defending the belief that following it will lead, in the long run, to better overall results, in terms of goal fulfillment, than the results of following its antithesis (i.e., a presumption establishing a generic bias in favor of acting on the basis of less knowledge rather than on more), or indeed better than the results of a case-by-case balancing (i.e., of following no rule or presumption at all).
Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion's Cultured Despisers (Wiley-Blackwell: Dec. 3, 2008), pp. 10,11.
Can the fact that there are theists who seem to be intelligent and morally sensitive be explained on the assumption that these theists are exercising their intelligence and moral sensitivity in the formation of their theistic beliefs? For Dawkins to assume that the answer is no — and for him to declare, "It must be selective stupidity!" — just because he hasn't been able to figure out how the exercise of intelligence and moral sensitivity can generate religious belief... well, why isn't that intellectually responsible? ... For the sake of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Simone Weil and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as too many personal friends and inspirations to name, I hope that Dawkins and the other cultured despisers of religion are wrong. I hope, in other words, that theistic religion can be, and often is, a vital constituent of a life lived with compassion and intellectual integrity. ¶ To say that the religious faith of these rare individuals springs from their intelligence and moral sensitivity is not to say they all have carefully worked out philosophical arguments demonstrating the reasonableness of theistic faith. Their intellects and compassion may operate on a more intuitive level. It's the job of philosophers to trace out carefully the rational pathways that intuitive insight often surges through too quickly for plodding intellects to follow.
Eugene Thomas Long and Patrick Horn, eds. (Springer-Verlag New York: February 2008), 156 pages.
This volume is presented as a tribute to D.Z. Phillips and the introduction by Eugene Long includes a brief discussion of Phillips' life and work. The first six articles were originally written at the invitation of Phillips for a conference on the ethics of belief held at Claremont Graduate University. Unfortunately Phillips died unexpectedly July 25, 2006 and was unable to participate in the conference. Two additional essays were invited by the editors to help add Phillips' voice to the discussion. Essays by Allen Wood, Richard Amesbury and Van Harvey discuss the question of the ethics of belief in the context of the evidentialist principle most frequently associated with W. K. Clifford. Essays by Ronney Mourad, Jennifer Faust and Robert Audi are concerned with the voluntariness of belief, the persuasive power of arguments and differing conceptions of faith, belief and acceptance. The final two essays by John Whittaker and Anselm Min focus on Phillips' understanding of the logic and rationality of religious belief. The book concludes with a tribute to Phillips written by Patrick Horn. ~ Product Description
Alexander Leitch, "Summary of the Argument" in Ethics of Theism (Harvard: 1868), pp. 15-46.
It has been said by a great mind, that confusion is worse than error.1
Erroneous statements and opinions, in their naked deformity, are
generally too hideous to win the regard and confidence of men even in
their present depraved condition; while the manifestation of what is
true, in its simple grandeur and pure light, is often too bright and
fair to be agreeable to the eye and the heart of man. The great work
which a lover of truth finds to do, is to separate the
conglomerate mass of knowledge, or what men call knowledge, into its
two component parts, the true and the false. What is false owes all its
plausibility and power to its being associated and mingled with what is
true. What is true, is rendered dim and uncertain and weak by being
blended and confounded with the erroneous. The human mind is like a
thrashing-floor. The honest inquirer will be constantly using the fan,
to separate the chaff from the wheat.
Charles Taliaferro (Cambridge University Press : February 28, 2005), 470 pages.
Emphasizing shifting views of faith and the nature of evidence, Taliaferro has written a dynamic narrative history of philosophical reflection on religion from the 17th century to the present, with an emphasis on shifting views of faith and the nature of evidence. The book begins with the movement called Cambridge Platonism, which formed a bridge between the ancient and medieval worlds and early modern philosophy. While the book provides an overview of different movements in philosophy, it also offers a detailed exposition and reflection on key arguments, and the scope is broad from Descartes to contemporary feminist philosophy of religion.