Faith and reason

How the books answer

Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.

1. 1 AD 396–426

   Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine

   Faith and reason work together

   Augustine encourages Christians to learn logic, history and science, since all truth belongs to God. His motto is often summed up as 'believe in order to understand': faith comes first, and then reason explores what is believed.

   “Let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master.”

   Go to the rung: Augustine: On Christian Doctrine →

2. 2 1265–1274 (unfinished)

   Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part

   Faith and reason work together

   Aquinas argues that faith and reason can't truly conflict, because both come from God. Reason can prove some things, like God's existence, while faith teaches others, like the Trinity, that are above reason but not against it. He used Aristotle's philosophy to explain Christian teaching.

   Go to the rung: Aquinas: God and Creation →

3. 3 1511

   Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly

   Faith reaches beyond reason

   Erasmus has Folly mock theologians who split hairs over questions no one can answer. He praises a simple faith and a life like Christ's over clever debate. A scholar himself, he wanted learning to serve plain goodness.

   Go to the rung: Erasmus: The Praise of Folly →

4. 4 1536; final edition 1559

   John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (selections)

   Faith reaches beyond reason

   Calvin holds that human reason, damaged by sin, can't find its way to true knowledge of God alone. Scripture, he says, is like glasses that let weak eyes see clearly. Reason is a gift for earthly matters, but faith rests on God's word.

   “On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.”

   Go to the rung: Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion →

5. 5 1670 (published after his death)

   Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Thoughts)

   Faith reaches beyond reason

   Pascal respects reason but says its last step is to see that many things are beyond it. The heart, he says, knows first principles and knows God in a way reason cannot prove. Faith is not against reason but goes beyond it.

   “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”

   Go to the rung: Pascal: Pensées →

6. 6 1748

   David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

   Reason as the test of belief

   Hume argues that a wise person matches belief to evidence. In his essay on miracles, he says that the evidence of experience against a miracle will usually outweigh any report of one. Believers replied that his argument assumes what it sets out to prove.

   Go to the rung: Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding →

7. 7 1843

   Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

   Faith reaches beyond reason

   Kierkegaard argues that faith is not a conclusion reason reaches but a leap a person makes. Using Abraham's story, he says faith goes further than anything ethics or philosophy can explain. He thought his age had made faith too easy by treating it as a matter of argument.

   Go to the rung: Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling →

8. 8 1924 (English 1928)

   Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man

   Faith reaches beyond reason

   Barth argues that people do not climb up to God by reasoning; God speaks to them through the Bible. He was reacting against theologians who made faith fit the ideas of the day. For him, faith answers God's word rather than human arguments.

   “As ministers we ought to speak of God.”

   Go to the rung: Barth: The Word of God and the Word of Man →

9. 9 1925

   Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World

   Faith and reason work together

   Whitehead, a mathematician and philosopher, argues that modern science grew from a belief, partly inherited from medieval theology, that nature is orderly and understandable. Religion and science, he says, have both changed over time, and their clashes can be a chance for each to deepen.

   “My explanation is that the faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.”

   Go to the rung: Whitehead: Science and the Modern World →