Faithfully Seeking Understanding: Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn

The Precedence of Faith over Reason

70 The Pr ecedence of Fa ith over R e a son Einleitung in die Katholische Dogmatik (1859 ed., 252–68) Twenty years separate this and the previous text on faith and reason. This selection comes from the 1859 dogmatics, from which several of the following chapters derive. Kuhn’s concern here is to combat a movement in neoscholasticism that sought to translate the principle that faith precedes reason into a renewed understanding of philosophy as a handmaiden. One can see from the text below how easy it was for Kuhn’s fundamental theology to raise ire. The neo-scholastic zeal for a return to a thirteenthcentury relationship between sciences would seem to be the clearly preferred option. Kuhn, however, shows below how philosophy must be granted a certain autonomy for it to be a legitimate field of study. This argument did not commit Kuhn to a position wherein theology could be dissolved. Philosophy had its autonomy but could not attain the higher, theological truths absent the historical revelation privileged to theology. Nor was Kuhn naïve about the results that autonomous philosophy would yield. Kuhn lamented the direction of modern philosophy and saw it as largely wrong-headed. Kuhn’s criticism of Jakob Clemens catapulted him into a series of disputes that would eventually end his academic career. The text below, then, is an important bridge between his early and later theological disputes. Faith over Reason C 71 C We accept that there are two realms of higher truth—the realm of reason and the realm of immediate revelation. The reception and knowledge of the truth follows from the distinct principles of each of these realms. From here it becomes obvious that these two sciences come into relation with one another. The question that follows is: What kind of relation is it? What are the borders in which each science can operate so that their relation remains friendly and cooperative, and that conflict will be avoided? according to the usual explanation, philosophy has procured its reputation for the free and pure pursuit of reason [Vernunftforschung] on account of its self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, theology has obtained its status on the basis of possessing a higher truth. So theology inclines toward giving orders to philosophy, and to make positive truths the norm and measure of all truth. Philosophy, meanwhile, tends not to acknowledge truths that cannot be known through reason alone, therewith either excluding theology or rationalizing it. in other words, philosophy tends to reduce positive truth to what is already contained in reason. We must designate both tendencies as extravagant, overreaching, and impermissible according to the given presuppositions. let us first address philosophy. descartes, the father of modern philosophy , famously declared doubt to be the principle of investigation into truth. For descartes, this doubt extends to everything given immediately (by this i mean what precedes speculative and contemplative thought). This includes the truths acquired through tradition, education, and sense experience. descartes sought a foundation (which he found in the selfcertainty of the thinking mind [des denkenden Geistes] that became his cogito ergo sum) for truth that would withstand every doubt. On this foundation descartes wanted to construct an edifice of truth and of the knowledge of this truth. Such an edifice was to be of indestructible permanence and unshakable security. Such a notion of philosophy did not begin with descartes. it is almost as old as philosophy itself and seems to be inseparable from the very concept of philosophy. Philosophy is capable of regarding itself as independent of any presupposition, experience, or authority. and its truths arise from 72 C Faith over Reason the knowledge realized through the sheer power of discursive reason. Philosophy thus sees itself as the science of the absolute lacking any presupposition . When philosophy sees itself in this manner it becomes the absolute science and the measure of all the others. as aristotle says of philosophical theology or metaphysics, it is the philosophia prima, the head of all the sciences, which at the same time cannot contradict its maidservant.1 Philosophy submits to this presupposition and sees in it the accurate expression of its idea, namely, absolute, a priori knowledge. This presupposition is the πρῶτον ψεῦδος [first error] of philosophy, and the reason it necessarily drifts into pantheism. There is no absolute knowledge, no pure, absolute cognition of the truth that arises through mere thought. This is so because thought is not the source of truth...