If you had to choose ?

Question

Which would you rather have ?
Faith or reason ?
Do tell why ....

Answer 1

Faith.I rather believe than having to make up reasons.

Answer 2

Faith,b/c you don't need a reason to have Faith

Answer 3

Reason. It's based on fact. Faith is based on spiritual.

Answer 4

Faith and reason are often seen as adversaries. Reason, after all, is all about following the evidence, while faith is belief in the absence of or in opposition to evidence. Believing on faith, it therefore seems, is essentially an irrational thing to do.

This view of religious faith, fideism, is common, and deeply ingrained in our language. When we say that a person has faith, we often do so specifically to suggest that they lack evidence for their belief. It is therefore understandable that people think about religious faith in this way.

Religious faith, on this account, is easy to criticise; it is a form of self-deception for those unwilling to follow the facts where they lead. This, though, is not the only way of understanding religious faith. There are several alternative understandings of the way in which evidence and faith relate that do not depict faith as irrational. It is not necessary to see faith and reason as opposed in the way described above.

In order to determine whether a belief constitutes faith, then, on Aquinas?s model, we must ask two questions: First, we must ask, Is the belief voluntary? If we have irresistible evidence for a proposition, then we cannot help but believe it. I cannot help but believe, for instance, that I have two hands, or that the square root of 9 is 3. In such cases we do not choose to believe, but believe involuntarily. A belief for which we have irresistible evidence, then, cannot be held on faith.

If the belief is voluntary then we must ask a second question in order to determine whether it constitutes faith: Is the belief confident? One whose belief is not resolutely held, one who worries and doubts, does not have faith. If a belief is both voluntary and held with confidence, however, then the believer has faith.

On Aquinas?s account it is possible for faith to be supported by reason. Although strong evidence leaves no room for faith, because it renders belief involuntary, not all evidence is so strong that it compels belief; evidence can be suggestive without being compelling. If a person has strong but inconclusive evidence, then, and chooses to trust it resulting in confident belief, they have faith that is supported by reason.

There is, however, an alternative way of understanding faith that allows for the reconciliation of faith and reason. Thus far, faith has been taken to be belief formed in a specific way; in the opening paragraphs faith was taken to be belief formed in the absence of evidence, while on Aquinas?s account faith is confident belief formed by an act of will. However, faith need not be seen in this way; faith can be seen as a matter of what one believes, rather than how one believes it.

If a person has these beliefs then it seems reasonable to say that they have faith irrespective of how they came by them. Someone who, in spite of finding evidence to the contrary persuasive, assents to these doctrines, has faith. Someone who, convinced by the arguments of Christian philosophers, assents to these doctrines, has faith. Someone who engaged a hyponitist to induce in them these beliefs, has faith. Because, on this view, faith is about what is believed, rather than about how it is believed, there is no tension between faith and reason.

Answer 5

Faith: I've already got too many reasons!

: )

Answer 6

reason...i lost faith in everything a long time ago

Answer 7

Both, each in it's proper application.


Faith -- for those things you fully believe in, but can't explain
why or how. It's a trust based on an inward ffeeling.

Reason -- things that you prove to yourself to be correct
by logic, the written word (proven) and personal observation

Answer 8

I'D RATHER HAVE 2 POINTS!

Answer 9

reason.............its everything