Huckleberries Online

Ledford: Reason Leads To Faith

Posted by DFO

Feb. 13, 2009 9:21 a.m. • 17 comments

As someone who is a strong supporter of both faith and reason, I get tired of hearing people, even highly educated people, talk about faith in a way that completely misrepresents it. For example, it is not uncommon to hear a sentence that goes something like this: “Faith, by definition, is believing something without evidence or even against the evidence.” Part of what gets to me about this type of comment is they are usually made with such authoritative ease and self-importance, but my main problem with them is they are completely wrong. Faith does not refer to believing something even when reason points in the other direction. On the contrary, the Bible claims following reason will lead us to faith/Benjamin Ledford, UI Argonaut. More here.

Question: Are faith and reason mutually exclusive? Or does reason lead to faith, as Argonaut columnist Benjamin Ledford contends?

17 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

moscow_minidoka on February 13 at 10:08 a.m.
Ledford mentions two groups in this article: Those (like him) who think Faith/Reason can coexist, and those who think that Reason precludes faith. He’s leaving out one huge Idaho constituency, the one that the Sweater Nemesis of the South depends upon for donations and support: Those who embrace Faith to the exclusion of all Reason.

I know plenty of people who are both very full of faith and also reasonable. I know people who have no faith and depend on reason. And I’ve met some who live on faith alone. However, my atheist/agnostic associates never tell me what kind of sex I can have with my wife, when or where I can drink an alcoholic beverage, or whether or not I can rent a movie intended for adults.

For that reason, I’ll give the Reason-only folks an edge over Faith-only.
idawa on February 13 at 10:40 a.m.
I don’t think faith and reason are mutually exclusive, however, I think this is one of the weakest pieces I have ever read on the issue. Does he even make an argument in the piece, if so, can someone point it out to me?
moscow_minidoka on February 13 at 10:46 a.m.
I’m just glad that HBO didn’t exist when *I* was an Argonaut columnist… I wrote some turds on deadline that I very, very dearly wish to expunge from the public record. Thank goodness they were pre-internet, and you’d have to do some major research to dig them up.
nic on February 13 at 10:46 a.m.
Step one: criticize people who define faith as “Faith, by definition, is believing something without evidence or even against the evidence.”

Step two: claim the Bible disagrees with the people in step one.

Step three: ignore what the Bible actually says (“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebews 11:1)

Step four: look like an idiot
idawa on February 13 at 10:54 a.m.
I think, on the spectrum of belief from atheist to believers, there is a whole range of people who use reason to come to faith. And, there are a large number of people who use reason to walk away from faith. I tend to discount anyone at either ends of the spectrum when they tell me they use reason - ie, those that believe with certainty that there is a god or those that argue there is not a god. Both of these positions can only be come too without reason as there is nothing available to man that can support such a definitive conclusion through rational thought - these extreme positions can only be come too via faith.
Sisyphus on February 13 at 12:58 p.m.
Definitely weak considering their are whole branches of religious and philosophical thought devoted to the topic even pre-dating the re-discovery of Aristotle in the late Middle Ages like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Luther, Spinoza.

And Republicans want to cut education.
toadman on February 13 at 1:06 p.m.
Some people can use reason to define their faith. I cannot. I have too much trouble with cognitive dissonance when I do that. But that’s not to say faith is a fantasy. For me, faith will forever be the act of balancing hope against doubt.
Escapee on February 13 at 1:23 p.m.
I was listening to Ron Reagan’s syndicated radio show yesterday, and the subject was evolution. A lady called in and said that she believes in God, but also believes in Evolution, and she said that “God got things started”…and I’d never thot of it that way before. The reason of convenience, perhaps? I don’t know, but this makes more sense than a lot of things I’ve heard.
Arch_Druid on February 13 at 7:46 p.m.
I’ll put in my two cents, faith, never mind the literal word of the bible. Challenge that “word” by what one presumes God really wants through church canon. If the bible does not have a consistent message on anti-abortion tenets for example, just ignore it. If one takes out of context quotes out of Job to challenge evolution, just ignore the rest of the story. Further, given the kinds of letters to the editors I’ve seen published in say the CDA Press, I fail to find much “reason” applicable to the authors’ ideas of faith.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.