Faith and Reason

Paper Summary:

The following paper discusses the distinction between faith and reason and questions whether it is possible to live with both of them at the same time. The writer contends that the path of reason requires that there be a rational explanation to everything, and any lack of human understanding along this path is a sign of ignorance only, an ignorance that can be erased by further knowledge. The paper contends that the path of faith demands that one believe in forces and entities unseen, and that one believes that human understanding is incomplete not only now but for always. This paper examines how these paths are so far distant from each other that there is no possible way for a person to travel both for the course of an entire life. The philosophies of Aristotle, Kant and Plato are used as references in this paper.

From the Paper:

"We are not angels domiciled in heaven, and if faith promises us a place after death amongst such exalted creatures, then it does little to explain our experiences in our physical bodies on earth. To understand hunger, pleasure, cold, pain all the sensations of our body, we must turn to reason and rational explanations. And having turned to reason to explain the particulars of daily experience, we are necessarily confronted with a contradiction if we then try to rely upon faith in other areas of our lives, for faith " that belief in things unseen " asks us to abandon the evidence and witness of our own senses.\"

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• Term Paper # 144218 : "Reason, Faith and Imagination"
• Book Review # 67387 : "God and Reason"

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