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ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON*

Father Anthony A. Akinwale, O.P.Professor of Theology/President

Dominican InstituteIbadan

Imagine you walked into a large auditorium in which people aregathered, and you find that they are talking and addressingtheir words to someone who is physically absent from theauditorium. You would most likely consider the peoplegathered to be insane. Yet that is what we do when we go toChurch to pray. We are addressing our words to someone who isnot visibly present in the Church. Yet, we talk to him as ifhe were there with us. How are we different from those otherpeople in the hall? Are we not as crazy as they are? Thedifference lies in our faith. Our faith provides ajustification for our religious observances. Yet, faith isitself a problematic concept.

I have been invited to speak to this gathering on faithand reason. It is an issue that has preoccupied and continuesto preoccupy philosophers, scientists and theologians. I takeit that the audience before me consists of intelligent men andwomen who are not all trained in philosophy, the sciences ortheology. For this reason, I will try to avoid getting boggeddown by technical questions. In this paper, I intend toapproach the question I have formulated the topic as aquestion: are faith and reason reconcilable? Or, to put it inanother way, is it possible for an intelligent person toadhere to any article of faith? Is it possible for any onewho puts reason to good use to subscribe to the Christianfaith? To some people, the answer is unambiguously in thenegative. For such people, either you are a man or woman ofreason, and for that reason, you pay no allegiance to faith;

*To lectors of the Archdiocese of Lagos, St Dominic’s Church, Yaba, Solemnity of Ss Peter and Paul, 2013.

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or, you are a man or woman of faith, and for that reason, youpay no allegiance to reason. In other words, you cannot be,at the same time, a man or woman of faith and a man or womanof intelligence.

Many are examples of people on the two sides of thedebate on faith and reason. My intention in this paper is toexplore the positions of some chosen across time beforepresenting my position on the matter. Let me begin with amost contemporary voice in the debate.

Either reason without faith or faith without reason

About fifteen years ago, I was listening to “Fresh Air”,a famous radio programme compered by Terry Gross and broadcaston the National Public Radio in America. In this particularedition of the programme, she interviewed the writer JohnDominic Crossan. Crossan is prolific author and a formerCatholic priest. Gross had asked him why and when he left thepriesthood. He responded by saying he left the priesthoodwhen he realized no intelligent person can be a priest. Thereis something more to that statement, and that is, if you are apriest you are not intelligent, and if you allow yourself tobe guided by a priest you are even less intelligent.

Crossan’s position raises the question of therelationship between faith and reason. In fact, in his manywritings regarding Jesus in the New Testament, Crossan draws asharp contrast between what he and like-minds in the JesusSeminar call the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history.The Christ of faith is the Christ preached by the Church andprofessed in the Creed, that is, the Christ who has the samenature as God, who was born of a mother without a humanfather, who performed miracles, who died on the cross, whorose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will comeagain.

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For Crossan, this is utterly impossible. The Christ whois proclaimed in the New Testament and professed in the Creedis nothing but a myth. He is different from the real Jesus.If you want to know the real Jesus, the New Testament, thepreaching and the faith of the Church are woefully unreliable.In their place is the Jesus who is known through a criticalstudy of history, that is, history understood as gathering ofmathematically certain facts. The real Jesus was not born ofa virgin but the fruit of a sexual assault on Mary his motherby a Roman soldier. He did not die on the cross. He slippedinto a coma, and was revived by Simon the Magician. He went onto marry Mary Magdalene and they had children.

Crossan and the Jesus Seminar represent a radicalizationof the position earlier held by German Lutheran theologian,Rudolf Bultmann (August 20, 1884 – July 30, 1976). As a NewTestament scholar, Bultmann’s stated objective was to presentthe Christian message in a way that will make it meaningful tothe modern man and woman who, having seen the achievements ofscience and technology, and having been influenced by therationalist philosophers of the Enlightenment for whom faithmust be relegated so as to promote reason, considersincredible the stories told in the New Testament. Bultmannheld the opinion in his writings that the New Testament is abook of myths, and that the way to get to the Jesus behind thetext passes through a programme of demythologization of theNew Testament. But while Bultmann saw the New Testament asmyth, he held on to the position that the reader can onlyrelate with the texts in faith. There were no miracles, noexorcisms, no bodily resurrection of Jesus. All is mythteaching us that in Jesus a new way of existence is here, aliberation from a past of guilt and fear into a present markedby love of neighbor.

In other words, for Bultmann, while the stories in theNew Testament are historically untrue, they are existentiallyuseful in the sense that, while reason would point to themythological and unreal status of the texts, faith calls for

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existential adherence to them. Reason shows that they areincredible. But they bear meanings that are useful forunderstanding one’s existence.

Crossan and Bultmann could not reconcile faith andreason. Crossan and other modern disciples of Bultmann held onto reason without faith. Bultmann held on to reason and faithwithout considering it necessary to reconcile both. Hisposition flowed from his philosophical affiliation toexistentialism, and his religious affiliation with the Churchthat came out of the Reformation of Martin Luther.Existentialism was the doctrine of a school of philosopherswho were preoccupied with the meaning of existence. Giventhis philosophic bent, he could say that even though the NewTestament is myth, it offers meaning to our existence markedwith fear, insecurity and guilt. Since it offers meaning toour existence, the right existential attitude is faith in whatthe texts convey as meaning. So, while reason commandsskepticism, faith shows the usefulness of the myths.Bultmann’s position is not one of reason without faith but offaith and reason without any connection. In other words, whileBultmann was skeptical about the New Testament, he seemed tohave been skeptical about reason’s ability to deal withexistential issues. It is by understanding Martin Luther thatone can explain Bultmann’s adherence to faith despite hisskepticism about the trustworthiness of the New Testament.

One cannot trace the history of the problem of faith andreason while ignoring the role of Martin Luther. One of theprinciples of Luther’s Protestant Reformation is sola fides,that is, faith alone without reason. Luther’s position isrooted in his pessimistic understanding of the human conditionafter sin. For Luther, the sin of Adam destroyed human natureto the point that nothing good can come out of it. Sin hastotally corrupted human nature, and the powers of the soul arefatally flawed. Now, the intellect is one of such powers. Itis the power which enables the human being to know the truth.Reason is the intellect at work striving to know the truth.

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The intellect, now darkened by sin, shows itself in reasonprone to error. Reason cannot be trusted. Therefore, onlyfaith can save us. Sola fides. The human being needs to knowGod. But reason is incapable of apprehending divinerealities. Faith alone can. One can therefore see whyBultmann, as it where, tried to seat on two chairs at the sametime, on the chair of skepticism regarding the historicalaccuracy of the New Testament stories, and on the chair offaith because of his Lutheran confessional affiliation.

But the problem of faith and reason is much older thanCrossan, Bultmann and Luther. It goes back to antiquity.Paul the Apostle, in his First Letter to the Corinthians,pointed at this problem. Let us listen to him:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with anybrilliance of oratory or wise argument to announce to youthe mystery of God. I was resolved that the onlyknowledge I would have while I was with you was knowledgeof Jesus, and of him as the crucified Christ. I cameamong you in weakness, in fear and great trembling andwhat I spoke and proclaimed was not meant to convince byphilosophical argument, but to demonstrate the convincingpower of the Spirit, so that your faith should depend noton human wisdom but on the power of God.

But still, to those who have reached maturity, we dotalk of a wisdom, not, it is true, a philosophy of thisage or of the rulers of this age, who will not last longnow. It is of the mysterious wisdom of God that we talk,the wisdom that was hidden, which God predestined to befor our glory before the ages began (1 Cor 2:1-7).

Many there are who interpret these words of Paul as wordsspoken against the use of reason, against philosophy, in theproclamation of the Gospel. On the basis of thisinterpretation, some have questioned the rationale of makingthe study of philosophy compulsory for candidates for thepriesthood in the Catholic Church. After all, did Paul not

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condemn philosophy? But such interpretation fails todifferentiate between sophistry and philosophy. In Plato’sRepublic, Socrates made a distinction between the two. When hisaccusers called on the court to be wary of Socrates because hewas a wise man (a sophist), he retorted that whereas hisaccusers were wise men, he (Socrates) was not. A sophistargues for the sake of arguing and so is a lover of argument.A philosopher argues for the sake of truth and is a lover ofwisdom. To the accusation that he was a sophist, Socratesresponded that he was a philosopher, that is, not a wise manbut a lover of wisdom. Paul was distancing himself as apreacher of the Gospel from sophistry, from love of argumentfor the sake of argument. He was not against the love ofwisdom that philosophy is.

After the apostle Paul came Quintus Septimus FlavusTertullianus (c. 160-c. 225). Tertullian in English, fatherof Church Latin, and first to use the word Trinitas in Latin,writing seemingly under the inspiration of thismisinterpretation of Paul, would pose the question of therelationship between faith and reason in a very brutalfashion. The words in which he raised the question deserve tobe quoted.

Whence spring those “fables and endless genealogies,” and“unprofitable questions,” and "words which spread like acancer?" From all these, when the apostle would restrainus, he expressly names philosophy as that which he wouldhave us be on our guard against. Writing to theColossians, he says, "See that no one beguile you throughphilosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men,and contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost." He hadbeen at Athens, and had in his interviews (with itsphilosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdomwhich pretends to know the truth, whilst it only corruptsit, and is itself divided into its own manifold heresies,by the variety of its mutually repugnant sects. Whatindeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is

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there between the Academy and the Church? what betweenheretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from "theporch of Solomon," who had himself taught that "the Lordshould be sought in simplicity of heart." Away with allattempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic,Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curiousdisputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisitionafter enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire nofurther belief (De Praecriptione Haereticorum, 7)

Tertullian’s question, “What indeed has Athens got to do withJerusalem?” is the classic formulation of the question offaith and reason. Athens was where Paul encountered theAreopagus, the gathering of Greek intellectuals. Theylistened to him as he preached but burst out into laughterwhen he mentioned the resurrection from the dead, politelytelling him to come and preach on another occasion. Athensrepresents reason and the academia. Jerusalem representsfaith and the Church. To ask whether there is a nexus betweenfaith and reason is to pose the question of Tertullian.

Another writer in the antiquity of Christianity, Jerome,with the Latin name Eusebius Hieronymus (c.342-c.420) deservesour attention in this discussion. Jerome was an ascetic alearned man and a polyglot who knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew.With his knowledge of these languages, he accomplished thefeat of producing the Vulgate, the translation of both the Oldand New Testaments into Latin. He deployed these skills inhis many writings. What concerns us here is his letter to thevirgin Eustochium. In it he tries to counsel the virgin aboutthe imperative of fidelity to her ascetic state of life.Breaking her vows would amount to flirting with darkness andimpurity. It would be analogous to adultery and idolatry.Idolatry and adultery are committed when a Christ readswritings from the pagan world. Since bringing faith andreason together involves reading the writings of the paganworld, it is idolatry. He asks rhetorically, before narratingthe story of his dream.

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what communion has light with darkness? And what concordhas Christ with Belial? How can Horace go withthe psalter, Virgil with the gospels, Cicero withthe apostle? Is not a brother made to stumble if he seesyou sitting at meat in an idol’s temple?  Although untothe pure all things are pure, and nothing is to berefused if it be received with thanksgiving, still weought not to drink the cup of Christ, and, at the sametime, the cup of devils.  Let me relate to you the storyof my own miserable experience.

In other words, bringing faith and reason together is likedrinking the cup of Christ and the cup of devils at the sametime. Jerome admitted that he had been doing this beforeembracing a life of asceticism. And even afterwards. For notabandoning his library of pagan poets and philosophers he waspunished severely, in a dream. Hear him again.

Many years ago, when for the kingdom of heaven’s sake Ihad cut myself off from home, parents, sister, relations,and—harder still—from the dainty food to which I had beenaccustomed; and when I was on my way to Jerusalem to wagemy warfare, I still could not bring myself to foregothe library which I had formed for myself at Rome withgreat care and toil. And so, miserable man that I was, Iwould fast only that I might afterwards read Cicero.After many nights spent in vigil, after floods of tearscalled from my inmost heart, after the recollection of mypast sins, I would once more take up Plautus. And when attimes I returned to my right mind, and began to readthe prophets, their style seemed rude and repellent. Ifailed to see the light with my blinded eyes; but Iattributed the fault not to them, but to the sun. Whilethe old serpent was thus making me his plaything, aboutthe middle of Lent a deep-seated fever fell upon myweakened body, and while it destroyed my rest completely—the story seems hardly credible—it so wasted my unhappyframe that scarcely anything was left of me but skin and

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bone. Meantime preparations for my funeral went on; mybody grew gradually colder, and the warmth of lifelingered only in my throbbing breast. Suddenly I wascaught up in the spirit and dragged beforethe judgment seat of the Judge; and here the light was sobright, and those who stood around were so radiant, thatI cast myself upon the ground and did not dare to lookup. Asked who and what I was I replied: I ama Christian. But He who presided said: Thou liest, youare a follower of Cicero and not of Christ. For “whereyour treasure is, there will your heart bealso.” Instantly I became dumb, and amid the strokes ofthe lash—for He had ordered me to be scourged—I wastortured more severely still by the fire of conscience,considering with myself that verse, In the grave whoshall give you thanks? Yet for all that I began to cryand to bewail myself, saying: Have mercy upon me, O Lord:have mercy upon me. Amid the sound of the scourges thiscry still made itself heard. At last the bystanders,falling down before the knees of Him whopresided, prayed that He would have pity on my youth, andthat He would give me space to repent of my error. Hemight still, they urged, inflict torture on me, should Iever again read the works of the Gentiles. Under thestress of that awful moment I should have been ready tomake even still larger promises than these. Accordingly Imade oath and called upon His name, saying: Lord, if everagain I possess worldly books, or if ever again I readsuch, I have denied You. Dismissed, then, on taking thisoath, I returned to the upper world, and, to the surpriseof all, I opened upon them eyes so drenched with tearsthat my distress served to convince even the incredulous.And that this was no sleep nor idle dream, such as thoseby which we are often mocked, I call to witness thetribunal before which I lay, and theterrible judgment which I feared. May it never,hereafter, be my lot to fall under such an inquisition! I

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profess that my shoulders were black and blue, that Ifelt the bruises long after I awoke from my sleep, andthat thenceforth I read the books of God witha zeal greater than I had previously given to the booksof men (Letter 22 Ad Eustochium).

Jerome, by his own admission, was given lashes in his dreamfor mingling his faith with pagan philosophy. He swore neverto read them again. But he did not keep his promise. He wasstill fascinated by the texts of pagans. His erstwhile friend,Rufinus, would accuse him of infidelity to his vow. Jeromereplied, justifying his return to pagan literature, that itwas a promise made in a dream, and that such a promise oughtnot be taken seriously. To have promised in a dream not toread the pagans, and to go on reading them after the dream isno infidelity, for you do not punish someone for what he didin a dream. Said Jerome:

I might well reply as I have done even if it were aquestion of a promise made with full consciousness. Butthis is a new and shameless thing; he throws in my teetha mere dream. How am I to answer? I have no time forthinking of anything outside my own sphere. I wish that Iwere not prevented from reading even the HolyScriptures by the throngs that beset this place, and thegathering of Christians from all parts of the world.Still, when a man makes a dream into a crime, I can quoteto him the words of the Prophets, who say that we are notto believe dreams; for even to dream of adultery does notcondemn us to hell, and to dream of the crownof martyrdom does not raise us to heaven. Often I haveseen myself in dreams dead and placed in the grave: oftenI have flown over the earth and been carried as ifswimming through the air, over mountains and seas. Myaccuser might, therefore, demand that I should cease tolive, or that I should have wings on my shoulders,because my mind has often been mocked in sleep by vaguefancies of this kind. How many people are rich while

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asleep and wake to find themselves beggars! Or aredrinking water to cool their thirst, and wake up withtheir throats parched and burning! You exact from me thefulfillment of a promise given in a dream. I will meetyou with a truer and closer question: Have you done allthat you promised in your baptism? Have you or Ifulfilled all that the profession of a monk demands? Ibeg you, think whether you are not looking at the mote inmy eye through the beam in your own (Apology Against Rufinus,I, 30).

The issue of the relationship between faith and reason is setup by Tertullian and Jerome as one of having to make a choicebetween Christianity and paganism. It was such that anyattempt to bring philosophy into the Christian religion wasseen as making an incursion to paganism. Philosophy wasportrayed as a pollutant to Christian religion, reason acorrupter of faith.

Not either faith or reason but faith and reason

To the question of Tertullian, what then has Athens got to dowith Jerusalem? A number of Christian writers would respond:quite a lot. Those who answered the question this wayrepresent the other side of the debate. Let us begin with thegreatest of the Latin Fathers, St Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

To call St Augustine a prolific writer is stating thevery obvious. By the time he was converted to Christianity386, he had been a well-schooled teacher in the use ofrhetoric and logic. He combined this with the immensephilosophical arsenal he had amassed by reading Plotinus, aleading disciple of Greek philosopher Plato. This enabled himto become a theologian, philosopher, rhetorician,psychologist, homilist, humanist, a spiritual writer of nomean repute. His position on the relationship between faith

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and reason is found in all his writings. But I shall referhere to what he said in his landmark treatise on the Trinity,De Trinitate. Struggling to explain how God can be one and threeat the same time, how God’s oneness is not contradicted by histhreeness, St Augustine consistently held to two principles.First, that what the Christian faith teaches about one God inthree persons can be shown to be consistent with reason; and,secondly, where we are yet to discover how what faith teachesis in harmony with reason, we are not to dismiss the teachingof faith as inconsistent with reason. We do not understand inorder to believe, we believe in order to understand. Credo utintelligam. St Augustine wrote regarding his procedure ofdeploying reason in matters of faith, in this case, theTrinitarian faith:

As far as the wonderfully merciful creator may assistus….let us turn our attention to the things we are goingto discuss….all the while still keeping to the rule thatjust because a thing is not yet clear to ourunderstanding, we must not therefore dismiss it from thefirm assent of faith (De Trinitate, Bk 8, Prologue).

For Augustine, right relationship between faith and reason issuch that reason tries to grasp intellectually what is alreadybelieved. In other words, intelligence is not the startingpoint of faith, faith is the starting point, the guidinglight, and the destination of intelligence. Reason is able tograsp divine realities only because it is assisted by God, andwhat reason has not known should not be dismissed asnonsensical. How then does this work out in trying to showthe harmony between faith in a God who is one and three andhuman reason that teaches that one plus one plus one is three?

St Augustine begins his explanation of the Trinity byreaffirming that God is love, and that, in the experience ofloving and being loved, there are three—the lover, the belovedand love. Now, one cannot love what one does not know. If Iwere to love my self, there would still be three—the self, its

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knowledge of itself, and its love of itself. Furthermore,using the philosophy of Plato, St Augustine affirms that toknow is to remember. So, in knowing my self, there is my selfremembering itself, and that is memory; there is my selfunderstanding that I know myself, and there is the will tounderstand. Thus Augustine explains the Trinity using threetriads: lover, beloved and love; the self, self-knowledge andself-love; and memory, understanding and will.

For Augustine, God gives reason the impetus to look forGod and causes himself to be found by reason but imperfectly.The prayer he said at the end of his treatise on the Trinityis instructive.

O Lord my God, my one hope, listen to me lest out ofweariness I should stop wanting to seek you, but let meseek your face always, and with ardor. Do you yourselfgive me the strength to seek, having caused yourself tobe found and having given me the hope of finding you moreand more. Before you lies my knowledge and my ignorance[the limitations of my reason]; where you have opened tome, receive me as I come in; where you have shut to me,open to me as I knock. Let me remember you, let meunderstand you, let me love you. Increase these things inme until you refashion me entirely (De Trinitate, Bk 15).

Here is the prayer of a man who is, at the same time, modestand confident in what reason can accomplish when it comes tomatters of faith. He therefore leaves his intellect,consecrates it to God, as it were, to God who is able to openand to close the door, providing knowledge and removingignorance. Faith and reason do not cancel out each other.They work together in the human quest for knowledge. As PopeJohn Paul II (1920-2005) would later say in his Encyclical onFaith and Reason, Fides et Ratio, faith and reason are like twowings of a bird lifting the human being to great altitudes inhis quest for truth (Fides et Ratio, 1).

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Following the footsteps of St Augustine and echoing hisvoice in the prayer at the end of his treatise on the Trinityis St Anselm of Canterbury. Suffice it to quote his ownprayer here.

Be it mine to look up to thy light, even from afar, evenfrom the depths. Teach me to seek thee, and revealthyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee,except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou revealthyself. Let me seek thee in longing, let me long forthee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love theein finding….I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thysublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understandingwith that; but I long to understand in some degree thytruth, which my heart believe and loves. For I do notseek to understand that I may believe, but I believe inorder to understand. For this also I believe—that unlessI believed, I should not understand (Proslogion, ch. 1).

St. Anselm’s phrase, “I believe in order to understand”,not only echoes St. Augustine, with Augustine, it set theagenda for what is today called systematic theology, which isthe endeavor to explain what is held to be a doctrine offaith, showing how adhering to such a teaching neitherconstitutes an assault on nor an insult to reason. Thisbrings me to discuss the position of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275) who cannot be left out of any discussion on therelationship between faith and reason.

For St. Thomas, the truths of faith and the truths ofreason cannot contradict each other because they come from thesame teacher, namely God, who does not contradict himself(Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. 1). But if the truths of faith andthe truths of reason are not in contradiction, why not rely onreason alone in our effort to know God? He thus began hisSumma Theologiae with an inquiry: whether besides thephilosophical disciplines, any further doctrine is necessary?His answer: reason alone is not sufficient in knowing God. For

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if reason alone were to be relied upon, very few would knowGod, this few will come to know God after a long and arduousjourney, and their knowledge of God will be an admixture oferrors. The human being comes from God and God is his finalend. The human being must know God in order to be saved. Butthis goal surpasses human reason.

It was necessary for the salvation of man that certaintruths which exceed human reason should be made known tohim by divine revelation. Even as regards those truthsabout God which human reason can investigate, it wasnecessary that man be taught by a divine revelation. Forthe truth about God, such as reason can know it, wouldonly be known for a few, and that after a long time, andwith admixture of many errors, whereas man’s wholesalvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledgeof this truth (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 1 art. 1).

From St Thomas we can learn the following about therelationship between faith and reason. First, that faith andreason are not in opposition; secondly, that faith boosts thepower of reason so that human beings can know God, and thatknowledge is necessary for the human being to attain thepurpose of his existence and thus be saved. Before I come tothe third, let me quickly point out that these first twolessons can be deduced from what has been said so far in thepassages I quoted from St Thomas.

The third lesson from St Thomas can actually be derivedfrom what St. Augustine taught. St Augustine had taught thatreason shows us how to understand what we already believe. Itis not that the truths of faith depend on reason. Rather, ourintellectual grasp of the truths of faith depends on the gooduse of reason. For it is one thing to know it is another to bewise. The one who is wise is the one who is able to grasp themeaning of what he knows. Or, as St Thomas puts it, and thisis the third lesson, reason does not and cannot argue to provethe faith. Rather, reason can show why what is proposed by

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faith is believable by responding to objections broughtagainst faith. Reason cannot prove that there is a God. Butreason can provide arguments leading to the conclusion thatthere is a God. Reason cannot prove that God is one andthree. But reason can provide arguments leading to theconclusion that God is one and three. In a nutshell, for StThomas, reason can be used to demonstrate the conceptualpossibility of faith, to throw light on the content of ourfaith, and to refute arguments and assertions made against thefaith. Yet, it is important to emphasize with St Thomas thatthe arguments that reason provides in favour of faith are notnecessary arguments but probable arguments (Summa Theologiae,I, q. 1 art. 8). In other words, they are not argumentsthat cannot but hold, they are arguments that can only holdgiven certain presuppositions and assumptions.

The fact that reason provides probable arguments does notweaken the status of reason in the relationship. It is infact the case that, even in the so called exact sciences,probability is a precondition for the attainment of certitude.The scientist will not be able to begin any experiment withoutassuming some probable. In matters of faith, just as it is inmatters of science, cumulative probability is a pointer tocertitude. What scientists finally articulated in the 20th

century was already asserted by John Henry Newman in the 19th

century in his book, An Essay in Aid of the Grammar of Assent, in whichhe argued in favour of the possibility, value and verificationof religious knowledge on the ground of consistent andcumulative probability. That truths of faith cannot beproven by logic or sense perception because they rest oncumulative probability does not mean they are illogical. Itis to say that they challenge our logic, our usual way ofreasoning. It is to say with Newman in his second of hisOxford University Sermons: “we must assume something to proveanything, and can get nothing without a venture.” Just asmathematical reason cannot prove the existence of God,mathematical reason cannot disprove it. The one who insists

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that necessary arguments must be provided before he canbelieve in God cannot provide necessary arguments to show thatthere is no God.

Cumulative probability is itself an offshoot of ourinitial assumptions and expectations. In the case of theresurrection, given that the substance of the resurrectionnarratives is the faith of the early Christians that Jesusrose from the dead; given that this faith rests on theassumption that the tomb was found empty, and that Jesus,whose body could not be found in the tomb, appeared to thedisciples; given the belief in and expectation of theresurrection in the religious world view of the Jews at thetime of Jesus, there are sufficient grounds to believe in theresurrection.

The empty tomb in itself provides a probable andinsufficient argument in favour of the resurrection. In thesame way, the appearances of Jesus to the disciples provide aprobable and insufficient argument. The two constitutecumulatively probable arguments given the assumption andexpectation of resurrection in Jewish religion at the time ofJesus. Of course, given a different set of assumptions,religious statements in general, and belief in theresurrection in particular, may be held to be nonsensical.

Concluding Remarks

I have, in my discourse, examined two sides of the debate onthe relationship between faith and reason. One side rejectsthe possibility of any relationship. On this side, there aresome who reject faith because of reason. They would argue forreason without faith. Crossan and the rationalistphilosophers of the modern era belong to this group. Also onthis side, there are those who reject reason because of faith.For them, it is a matter of faith without reason.

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Representatives of this side of the debate include Luther,Tertullian and Jerome.

I have also examined the position of Christian thinkerslike Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas who believed that faith andreason can and should go together. For them, the affirmationof faith does not necessarily imply the denial of reason,neither does the affirmation of reason necessarily imply thedenial of faith. The position of these Christian thinkerscome together in Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Fides et Ratio.The title of the Encyclical is itself instructive. WhileProtestant Reformers advocated faith without reason (sola fides),rationalist philosophers advocated reason without faith (solaratio), Pope John Paul wrote fides et ratio, that is, faith andreason. In the Encyclical, Pope John Paul II recognizes thenatural desire to know and to understand, the quest formeaning, which is in all human beings. Both faith and reasonplay together in the satisfaction of this desire. “Wisdomknows all and understands all” (Wis 9:11). The human being istaught by faith and reason in order to attain wisdom. Whileit is true that ancient Israel, the land that gave birth tothe Bible, did not arrive at knowledge by way of abstractionas the Greek philosophers or Egyptian sages did, herdistinctive contribution towards the satisfaction of the humanquest for knowledge and meaning cannot be ignored. In thewords of John Paul II,

What is distinctive in the biblical text is theconviction that there is a profound and indissolubleunity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledgeof faith. The world and all that happens within it,including history and the fate of peoples, are realitiesto be observed, analysed and assessed with all theresources of reason, but without faith ever being foreignto the process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason’sautonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solelyto bring the human being to understand that in theseevents it is the God of Israel who acts. Thus the world

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and the events of history cannot be understood in depthwithout professing faith in the God who is at work inthem. Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind todiscover in the flux of events the workings ofProvidence. Here the words of the Book of Proverbs arepertinent: “The human mind plans the way, but the Lorddirects the steps” (Prov 16:9). This is to say that withthe light of reason human beings can know which path totake, but they can follow that path to its end, quicklyand unhindered, only if with a rightly tuned spirit theysearch for it within the horizon of faith. Therefore,reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishingthe capacity of men and women to know themselves, theworld and God in an appropriate way (Fides et Ratio, 16).

I want to conclude this discourse where I began. I beganby stirring your imagination with the example of peoplegathering in a large auditorium addressing their words tosomeone who is neither seen nor heard by an observer. It isvery easy, quite tempting, to dismiss them as lunatics. Yet,this is what we do on a regular basis when we pray. Webelieve in a God we have not seen. It is in fact the firstarticle of our faith. Credo in unum Deum. It is in theprovince of reason to assist us to know why there is a Godeven if we do not see him.

The question of God, that is, whether or not there is aGod is the most important question a human being has to face.It is the most fundamental of all questions. Importantquestions in life cannot be answered with mathematicalcertitude. They can only be answered with moral andexistential certitude. We make friends without anymathematical certitude that they will not harm us. Humanbeings fall in love and get married without any mathematicalcertitude about how the marriage will turn out. They wake upin the morning and jump out of bed without waiting formathematical certitude that the ground beside their beds hasnot collapsed during the night. They venture out of their

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rooms, out of their homes, into the world not knowing withmathematical certitude whether or not it is absolutely safe todo so. There could be hired gunman out there. But if, out offear of what will happen to you out there, you stay withinyour room, you will get nothing done. In fact, you have nomathematical certitude that the roof of the house will notcollapse on you. This is where one sees the wisdom inNewman’s words: “we must assume something to prove anything,and can get nothing without a venture.”

If the question of God is the most important questionthat every human being has to face, it has to be admitted thatthere are only three possible answers to this question: yes,or no, or I don’t know. Whatever answer is given, one shouldbe able to give a reason why such answer is given. Thebeliever in particular must be ready to provide a reason forhis or her faith. Seeking out that reason is not a once-and-for-all duty, but a duty to be assumed once and always.

It is a great disservice to our faith to separate it fromreason. Faith without reason will either lead tofundamentalism or fanaticism, while reason without faith willeither lead to agnosticism or atheism. Reason enables us toshow that the act of faith is an intelligent act because it isa thoroughly human act. It is in fact the case that the loudand extravagant religiosity for which Nigerians have becomefamous turns out to be case of faith without reason spicedwith emotions. When religion is taken out of the realm ofintelligence it becomes toxic, a public nuisance, aninstrument of insecurity.

The task of bringing faith and reason together is thetask of theology. Theology detoxifies corrupt religion sothat it neither degenerates into a public nuisance or aninstrument in the hands of rascals, charlatans and impostors,quack pastors seeking relevance and recognition. Nigeriaought to take theology seriously. But she does not. There isno department of theology in any of her government-run

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universities. Our system of education produces schizophrenics—men and women for whom religion and life walk on two sides ofthe road without ever exchanging glances. So we end up withthe dubious distinction of being the most religious and themost corrupt country in the world. That is why we must bringtogether our faith and our reason.