RELIGION AND REASON

We do not know what constitutes religion and we do not know what constitutes reason. Since reason regularly allies itself with science, we may just as well confess right away our ignorance of what constitutes science.

Traditionally - that is to say, in the Western tradition - faith and rea­son meet and immediately clash when Jew (faith) and Greek (reason) meet in the Hellenistic world. Traditionally, for neither pre-Hellenistic Greek nor pre-Hellenistic Hebrew does the problem arise, since the problem rests on the specific conflicts between the two traditions so symbolized and which neither knows before they meet - not even Job, not even Ecclesiastes. Julius Guttmann says in his classic Philosophies of Judaism that there is no (rational or critical) philosophy in pre- Hellenistic Judaism. As many writers have suggested, pre-Hellenistic Greek philosophy is singularly free of religious problems proper - its theology and ethics being only very loosely linked with any specific reli­gions. In Hellenism this changed drastically: the Philonic tradition tried to harmonize faith - a specific faith, that is - and reason.

Change came in the Renaissance, and with it the problem, the con­flict, as we know it today. Admittedly, in Medieval philosophy one can find passages suggestive - but not much more - of modern controversies; yet, the modern concern with the peace between faith and reason be­longs to the Renaissance of science. The problem - “does reason conflict with faith?” - became central. Not much room was left even then to the question, assuming that there is no possible conflict between reason and faith, “can they cooperate or not?” This question is characteristically of our age. The concern of the Renaissance remained, like that of Mai­monides, to answer those who wished to reject faith in the name of reason.

When the Royal Society of London was founded in the mid-seven­teenth century, its chief concern was to separate faith from reason in order to prevent any possible conflict. This is all well and good. The question is, however, can we separate the two? One can always say faith and reason are inherently separate, since they share no problem. This, however, may mean that there is no limit to reason, that reason handles all questions, and faith handless all quests (but not the questions). And, we remember, Maimonides viewed this as the only foundation for the antireligious philosophy which a believer should seriously criticize.

The tradition based on this claim is very important. Therefore, many authors, from Maimonides to Marx to Marcel, agree: Either reason is unlimited, or is it not. If it is unlimited - meaning if on principle reason can solve all problems - then there is no room for religion in any signif­icant sense; it is then relegated to poetry and emotion and such. If rea­son is limited, and we may assume it to be limited in any way, then cer­tain problems are beyond reason. Perhaps even reason depends on other agents for success; perhaps there is no reason and no sicence without in­tuition, instinct, belief, or whatever you call it. In such cases room is made for religion. In such cases, perhaps, there may be room for ra­tional theology, perhaps for the application of reason to the study of the intuitive faculty.

How much of all this was acceptable is hard to say. What seems to have been widely accepted is that either reason is unlimited and ex­cludes religion, or it is limited and calls for religion.

Since the crisis in physics at the turn of the present century, a new breed of religious scientists has developed. Members of the breed tend to endorse an instrumentalist philosophy of science, one similar to and very often influenced by, that of Pierre Duhem. Such religious philoso­phies of science strip science of its claim to know about the nature of things. The new religious scientists also endorse Buber’s quasi-existen- tialist philosophy of religion which considers religion a private matter between a man and his god. And they endorse Buber’s and Polanyi’s traditionalist philosophy, according to which there is no rationality without prior commitment; and commitment, though not entirely arbi­trary, is arbitrary within the limit of coice between existing traditions and the philosophies they endorse. In a distinct sense this group of sci­entists plays the role of the religious avant-garde of our days; the taste makers and molders of educated opinions and attitudes in the religious sphere; a quiet avant-garde of professional scientists of a traditionalist inclination who prefer to operate within their religious, social, and political institutional frameworks, rather than use open public plat­forms for open debates.

To conclude the present introduction, let me present the broad out­line of the situation as I see it. The conflict between faith and reason has occupied much of the literature on the relation between the two, in­cluding the theological writings of Kepler and Galileo, whose chief concern was to prevent any such clash. Accepting their view, most phi­losophers now agree that either reason is limited, thus making room for faith, or not, thus rendering faith a matter of mere psychological or poetic interest. Very few writers, notably Kant, thought differently: Reason is limited yet the claims of faith have to be carefully checked. Somewhat in line with this philosophy, I suggest we depart from tradi­tional polarizations, and even from traditional equations.

Tradition has (falsely) equated:

religion=faith; as contrasted with: reason = science.

I find both equations unacceptable and the polarization between reason and religion even more objectionable. Still following Kant, and more so in accord with more recent views, particularly of Popper and of Bart­ley, I suggest that reason is limited, and that hence there is room for faith within reason: Such a faith conflicts with the modern versions of traditional religion as advocated by the avant-garde religious scientists as described here.

In the present chapter I shall try to present the background of this avant-garde movement. Here is an outline of my presentation (the numbers indicate the subsequent sections).

II. There is a dissatisfaction with both science and religion.

III. Once science was a handmaiden of established religion. When science freed itself of the authority of established religion, claims for science were made which later proved to be exaggerated. Both reason and faith seem now to be courting one another.

IV. But one must examine carefully the question: In what sense is it possible, and in what sense desirable, that science and religion supple­ment or complement each other?

V. What each expects from the other is that it complement the other’s intellectual weakness.

VI. The idea of cooperation, then, is that of intellectual supplemen­tation between science and religion, which idea emerges from the intel­lectual disappointments in both.

VII. Hence, these disappointments should be the first indications of ways leading to remedy.

VIII. To evaluate these we need standards of rational thought and of rational action more general than hitherto available.

IX. In view of the failure of credulity and naive hopes, new rational standards must, first and foremost, be those of utter self-reliance - per­haps merely out of despair - much as expressed by Jorge Luis Borges in almost every essay of his.

X. But the inevitable dose of despair need not be as large as that contained in the pragmatism of the new avant-garde.

XI.The religious aspect of science offers a better remedy of existing defects - of both religion and science - than the uneasy merger of old- fashioned philosophies of science and of religion. The honest religion of science, the true agnostic religion, does easily what other blends can­not possibly achieve.

II.