Faith and Reason: Their Roles in Religious and Secular Life

NOTES

NOTES CHAPTER 1. INITIAL SKETCH OF A CONCEPT OF FAITH 1. Caputo 2007: 143. 2. Proverbs 3:5, in The Holy Scriptures: According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation. 3. There is debate about how fundamental causal determinism was to Einstein’s objection to quantum theory. The physicist Jeffrey Bub gives evidence for the view that what was primarily at issue for Einstein was his conviction that “the properties of systems described by the [quantum] theory” must be “determinate, that is, that the values of the physical magnitudes are definite without regard to any consideration of the observational context” (Bub 1988: 61). This comment still leaves open the question of whether quantum phenomena involve real or only apparent elements of chance. For some passages that affirm the importance of strict causal determinism in Einstein’s outlook, see Isaacson 2007: 84, 323–24, 333. CHAPTER 2. FACETS OF FAITH 1. Salzberg 2002: xiv. 2. James 2:19, in The Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version. 3. Job 13:15, in The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation. 4. This story by the poet Hesiod (ca. 700 BCE) is recounted in Hamilton 1953: 70–1. 5. The story of Noah and the flood is in chapters 6 through 9 in the Book of Genesis. 6. This metaphor aptly captured the British attitude toward India during the time it was a colony of Great Britain, but the metaphor’s positive connotation was likely to be called into question by the many citizens of India who yearned for freedom from British rule. 7. Tillich is talking here of his version of the Christian faith, and he relates this matter to the sin of idolatry. But I think that his observation about the importance of acknowledging an aspect of self-negation in the symbols of faith pertains to all the forms of faith, given the scope and complexity of them that I am seeking to analyze and describe in this book. CHAPTER 3. FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 1. Polanyi 1962: 267. 157 2. Whitehead makes a similar point when he remarks, “the art of literature, vocal or written, is to adjust the language so that it embodies what it indicates” (Whitehead 1964: 115; emphasis added). 3. See Stone 2008 and Crosby 2002. 4. An extensive investigation of the resources and implications of various religious traditions for environmental thought and action is provided in Gottlieb 2009. 5. “Q” is an abbreviation for Quelle, the German word for “source.” 6. A historical root of our strong tendency in the West to identify faith with belief in a particular set of doctrines is what Harvey Cox calls “the ‘imperialization’ of the [Christian] church and the glorification of the bishops” that had its beginning in the fourth century of the Common Era and continued on into the high Middle Ages. “[N]ow faith,” Cox continues, “came to mean obeying the bishop and assenting to what he taught. Faith had been coarsened into belief, and this distortion has hobbled Christianity ever since” (Cox 2009: 98). 7. “When we accept a certain set of pre-suppositions and use them as our interpretative framework,” writes Polanyi, “we may be said to dwell in them as we do in our own body. . . . They are not asserted and cannot be asserted, for assertion can be made only within a framework with which we have identified ourselves for the time being; as they are themselves our ultimate framework, they are essentially inarticulable” (Polanyi 1962: 60). 8. I adopt the felicitous term animal faith from Santayana 1923. Animal faith encompasses both the cognitive and existential realms, providing necessary and substantial basis for our thought and reasoning, as well as for our being able to adapt to our natural environments and to survive and flourish within them. Animal faith is thus presupposed in all viable forms of existential faith. 9. Hume was well aware of the destructive effects of his skepticism for daily life. He argued that it is the “sensitive” rather than the cognitive part of our natures, and our reliance on “custom” or “nature” rather than reasoned belief, that enable us to live with confidence in the everyday world. He is famous for declaring that, despite his skeptical philosophy, he could “dine, play a game of back-gammon,” converse, and be merry with his friends—activities that made his speculations seem “cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous” (Hume 1978: Bk. I, Part IV, Sections 1 and 7, pp. 183, 269). 10...