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REASON AND
;
"Reason isn't everything."
WW3
51.1.31
mm;
That remark is
a
Karl
la
“Eh/ran.
“'7
very common one,
and when we hear it I think we all feel that there is smm thing in it.
On the other hand it may also suggest something which is contrary to
Judaish and dangerous to religious belief.
It all depends, in other
words, on what is meant by the remark.
what may he meant, and is often meant, though I hope not by
Jews, is that reason and faith are liable to conflict, and that when
this happens preference is to be given to faith.
Such an attitude is
peculiarly liable to arise in those authoritarian religions which
require from their adherents an unquestioning acceptance of
list of neatly defined theological doctrines.
a
whole
When one 0: these
doctrines appears impossible or improbable in the light of reason, so
the argument runs, it is the reason which Should be distrusted rather
than the authoritatively transmitted doctrine.
Judaism, however,
has never been an authoritarian religion in that sense.
always allowed
a
It has
large measure of latituae in matters of belief,
fig
and refrained from any rigid definition of its doctrines in the formE
of a creed
obligatory on all.
“A
Conseauently Jewish belief has been E357
k}:
able to evolve and progress, and £3 keep pace with the unfolding
E};
&“L
of human knowledge presented by reason, so that the conflict which E?“
Al.
begets other religions has been almost entirely avoidéd. And'“hen
we iniuire Why such has been the history of Judaism, we discover
a twofold
of the
reason.
On the one hand Judaism retained its awareness
limitatiéns of human knowledge.
know what it cannot know.
It has not pretended to
it has upheld the humility Which says,
"God is great beyond our flinaing out." Therefore there are few
E?
“a
é 2 _
b
funaémental beliefs incumbent on all Jews 4 that God exists, that
He is one, that the universe is basically good, that there is
a
moral law which man must obey, involving especially the duty to
practise neighbourly love, that all men shoula regard each other
as brotheIS, that human histmry is destined to lead up to a Messianic
Age, that the House of Israel has a religious mission in the world —
On the other hand Juaaism has maintained
throughout a high tbspect for human reason. The rational faculty
in man has been gegarded as God—given and indgea one of the foremost
these and few besides.
channels whereby it is possible for man to attain to the knowledge
of God.
Not only, therefore, does Judaism refuse
to
admit any
possibility of éqnflict between reason and religiousntruth, but
reason is itself looked upon as the chiéf guide to the acquisition
of religiousatiuth.
ReVelation itself is often said to choose human
reason as its medium.
.
Liberal Judaism especially has stressed this rational element
in JudéiSm. Orthodox Judaism may waver on this point, but the Liberal
Jewish View is clear: that when reason discreéits
a
belief for which
divine gevelation has been claimed, then the claim of revelation must
be abandoned as mistaken.
reason can err.
to follow itw
1
am aware of the objection that human
It can, but that does not dispense us from the duty
We cannot be expected to believe what reason shows
to be improbable.
To do so would be contrary to XXXXfiX intellectual
honesty? ahd infiellectual honesty is itself a religious obligation.
When honest reason tells us, or makes it probable that suéh and such
is the case, it would be wrong - mbrally wrong 4 to believe otherwise;
_ 3 _
even though in the light of further knowledge, which we do not yet
péssess, we may be force& to revise our opinion.
It is morally right
to believe what it is reasonable to believe; it is morally wrong to
believe what it is unreasonable to believe.
Though reason is not
infallible, it is our surest guide; and unless we regarded it as
in the main trustworthy, we should possess no basis for the honest
quest of truth.
Yet there remains a sting in the remark that reason is not
everything.
It harbours two truths of the greatest importance.
The first is that religious belief involves more than intellemtaal
assent.
It is not Simply like believing that Napoleon died in 182L,
or that 5 is the
square—root of 9, or that kitchen salt is made up
of sodium and chlorine.
We
believe these things because there is
good reason for doing so; but that is the end of the matter.
Yet
with religious belief there is something more, something of the greatest
importance.
the
Yet I believe that people are commonly mistaken as to
nature of that something more.
They sometimes put it in this
way: reason can carry you so far and no further.
When you have
reached the limit to which reason will carry you, you have to make
venture of faith, XX 8 jump into the unknown, and that is the
a
beginning of religion proper.
accept.
That is a view 05 faith which I cannot
If faith means to force yourself to believe what there is
no good reason to believe, or worse, what you cannot even understand,
then faith is not for me.
Yet there is "something more", and the
expression "an act of faith" may be used quite pppropriately to
describe it. And this is what I think it is; this is how I should
{
“(Vufitcd
llke the word 'falth' to be used. Rational arguments
.
.
can be
.
...4,_
(as we have seen) only to establish the probability of the God—idea.
That is to say, they can supply us with good reasons for belieiving
Yet the time comes when we must aavance beyond this point
in God.
of cool, intellectual assent, of merely favouming the God—belief
as a likely hypothesiS.
which can
be
‘The
belief #n God is nofi the kind of belief
stored up at the back of our minds, to be affirmed
when uuestions are asked about it.
a
It is a belief which reguires
particular kind of life, a life of prayer and meditation, 3 life
of self—sacrificing sbrvice.
It is a belief which gives meaning to
the whole of our existence, and purgose to éVery activity of life.
The time comes, and
Should come preferably in adblescence, when
it
we have to make up our min&s whether we are going to go through life
aimlessly, without a sense of purgose and direction, Spectators
merely of the ideologies to which others deflate their lives, or
whether we axe-going to embrace one idéology and make it on: own,
make it, that is to say, the touchstone and the driving force whiqh
shall determine in every phase the use We make of our earthly
existence.
Stagem
Many people, unfortunately, never reach this second
Theyuhalt, not between two opinions, as did Elijah's
audience, but between
a
multitude of Opinions.
But We cannot halt
for éver, or rather it we do, we are of little use to others or
ourselveS.
If they we make up our minds, and make it up in favour
‘
of the
religious view of reality and life, then our belief in Goa
undergoes a raaical transformation.
and intellectual.
It ceases to be merely acaaenic
It becomes a dynamic force.
it arouges our emotions, it Girects our actions.
It engages our will,
Psychologically
speaking, it ceases to be mexely a cognitive attitude, and becmnes
_ 5 _
also an emotive and a volitional one.
When this happens the
intellectual belief in God becomes the religious faith in God.
That is the meaning which I shoula like to give to the "venture
of faith".
It should be nbted, h0wever, that such a step does not
It means a decision
xeauire the abandonment of intellectual honesty.
of the will to act as if the belief in God were
knewn to be true.
Sum it does not preclude the continuance or recurrence of doubts as
to its truth.
a faith
0n the contrary, it has been said with aptness that
which has never dared to doubt is worth less than onewhich
continues to doubt but continues also to triumph over the doubt.
Yet it may be objected that this way of putting the matter
is still not adequate.
Can we be satisfied with
a
a
faith which
can never claim certainty for its ofiject, though it is treaéed as
certain for practical purgoses?
and is it not
religious people really do seem to have
their faith?
selveS?
a
a
fact that many
quality of certainty in
Must we assume that these people are deluding them—
And if not, have we not given an inadequate, or incomplete,
description of religious faith?
Now this is where the second truth comes in uhich,
I
suggested,
might be conveyed by the slogan that "reason isn't everything".
fihat, after all, is reascn?
It is the process of reasoning, or the
faculty which conducts the process.
and reasbning is simply inferenée:
drawing conclusions from premises, using the evidence at our disposal
to obtain such further knWWIedge as the eviaence may suggest.
'
Now when we realise in this way what we mean by reason, we
have to admit at once that reason isn't everything.
9; course
there are other means of obtaining kngwledge than inference from
have already said it: there are things which
the directly given.
&e
are directly given.
They are of two kinds.
directly given by the evidence of our senses.
There are the things
nh:t we see and hear
and touch gives us knowledge which is not degendant on, and does not
renuire, any process of reasoning wha?evex.
Ana what is more, it
is not even capable of proof by argument, for any such attemptéd proof
would itself have to take for granted the evidence of the senses.
Direct perception is prior to reasoning: it supilies the raw material
on which our reason can work.
But there is a second type of direct
knOWIedge, which does not depend an the phySical senses.
it is in
this way that we know jhat two plus two equals four, that of two-
contradicnory statemefits one must be false, that there is beauty in
flower or in §he masterpiece of a great paintex, that love is
preferable to hatred. nere too no proof by rational argument is
a
either
to the point or possible.
Philosophers use the term
"intuition" for such direct apprehension which does not make use
of the evidence of the senses. Now many religious people have
maintained With conviction that
it is
possible for fihem to have
such direct, intuitive knowledge of God, and that that is the source
of the certainty in their religious faith.
But, you may ask, how does that help me if I have not myself
had anXXX intuitive experience of the kind in iuestion?
do“ as I know
that geopie haVe not been deluded when they have claimed it?
_ 7 -
And indeed if is well—known that some modern psychologists have
attempted to exylain away all religious experience as self—delusion
due to wish—fulfilment.
But I think the attempt has been unsuccessful,
and inspired, in the main, by an unfounded prejudice against religion.
There is of course always
a
possibility With
a
pleasant belief that it
may be held because of its pleasantness and for no other reason.
But there
are many pleasant beliefs which we all hold, including the
followers of Freud, and it would be absura to reject them all as wish—
fulfilments.
To do that would be to rule out the possibility of a
pleasant belief being true.
Of course we must guard against the
danger of belieiving sunething merely because we want to believe it,
and that is by no means easy.
but that is
a
totally inadequate
reason £0: maintaining that where religious belief is concerned gii
the people havg been deceived
2;; the time.
Aoreovar, the belief in
God is by no means in all respects a pleasant one.
Those who gave
adopted it have often done so only after thebittexeét struggle, and
then With tfie full knuwledge that it would mean exposing themselves
to the most terrible persecutions, incurring an agmnéhing sense of sin,
and undertaking the most strenuous and self-sacrificing exertions
in its name.
Religion has its stern side, an& the mosfi deeply
religious have recognised and accepted with full consciousness
the sternness of the demands Which it made upon them.
and here
apparently
we might ada that those who have/possessea religious faith with
that certainty which springs from the intuitive apprehenSion of God,
have been in countless cases among the finest, noblest, wisest,
and greatest specimens of the human race — leaders of moral progress
and shining examples of righteousnx living.
gun-030.4 HM
we Cannot lightly
claims made by such as these.
Still, however, you may ask: Even if I admit that others have
had genuine religious infiuitions, h0w does that help my faith if I am
but let us not belittle ourselves unduly. Religious
experience is not the prerogative of a few great mystics. It has
not one of them?
been a most widespread phenomenon in history, and it exists to—day.
very limited and indistinct way,
in the ordinary person who says, "I gq not prove, but I feel there
is a God." The 'feeling' is the H£égégi¢ of a whole series of dimLy
felt and barely recollected intuitions. If yfiu have prayed one
prayer which was a real prayer and not just a collection of words,
It exists, though possibly in
you have had
a
a
religious experience.
It may, as I said, be very
indistinct, so indistinct that we cannot be sure that it is genuine.
But once we admit that it has been genuine é; others — and they
among the nsblest and wisest of mankind ~~we gain some reason which
we should otherwise lack for trusting our intuition, despite its
indistinctness,
We have
§Qgg ground for saying,
or at least hoping,
that what we have experienced is in a smaller dggree what others,
who were closer to God, hava experienced in a greater.
But there is still another observation to be made: the capacity
for religious experience is capable of cultivation and growth, and
th.rein lies our greatest hope.
I
have already said that one of the
things involved in embarking on the religious }i£e is to undertake
the practice of regular and concerted prayer and meditation.
It is
at this stage that we may expect the experience of religious intuition
to make itself felt, not suddenly and all at once but gradually and
ii:
y"
._9_
«a
.
progressively.
And side by side with these spiritual exercises,
there is the yractice of religion in the moral sense.
That too
can lead the individual to the apyrehension of God, so Judaism
at least asserts.
As we practise righteousness, so we come‘to
feel with increasing compulsion that we are indeed pleasing the
Lawgiver, that we are leading the world and ourselves into closer
harmony with Him.
§uch,then, is faith: the faith which we long to renew in
our heartS, the faith which converts an intellectual affirmation
into a life—shgping force; the XXXEXKKEKK faith which may begin
as a flickering flame but Which, if n'uxtuxea, will grow into
a‘blazing fire; the faith which demands exertion and sacrifice
but which can lead humanity, slowly but surely, to the promised
age of universal righteousness and lasting peace.
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