The relationship between faith and reason is an interesting one, especially with the modern dichotomy often placed between them. Not so in days past. In the pre-modern era, faith and reason were two sides of the same coin, in a real sense supporting one another:

A) Faith in God establishes reason.

B) It is therefore reasonable to have faith in God.

This is a pretty simplified and imprecise way to describe the way the early Christians thought about these things, but it seems quite clear to me that the ancient Christians never saw themselves as those who had to defend one over another. Both were valuable and neither one conflicted with the other. Thus, it seems that the kind of Kantian thinking that has predominated these conversations dramatically shifted the way in which both faith and reason were understood. This is quite an unfortunate reality. As Oliphint demonstrated in our reading this week, and I as I alluded to earlier, true knowledge is linked intrinsically to faith.

Kant and those who follow similar thinking have sought to place metaphysical (abstract "faith-based" study) outside discussions of knowledge, seeking to differentiate between knowledge and faith on that which can be evidentially or experientially shown and that which can only be propositional and abstract, existing apart from evidence, and therefore apart from knowledge.

However, those of us who hold to the classical Christian understanding of epistemology would assert that this description is simply not helpful or true. What Kant and those like him seem to miss is that the metaphysical, which forms our fundamental belief about reality itself, must be included in the realm of knowledge on the basis that it shows us how to think about evidential and experiential reality. I don't think it is that much of a stretch to say that knowledge of reality that can be evidentially known depends upon the assumptions one makes regarding metaphysics.

To reiterate clearly: what makes this intimately tied to knowledge is that unless one believes in certain metaphysical propositions, he cannot properly ground his claims to know anything at all. He can evidentially claim something, but within those claims, there will always be presuppositions about reality itself at work. Therefore, true knowledge has to begin within the realm of the metaphysical. Apart from that, you have a bunch of knowledge claims suspended from nothing! Even claims about human nature and the reliability of human reason are completely unanswered without seeing knowledge linked to metaphysical realities. Oliphint points this out, being very specific by saying: "That principle and that foundation [of reality] is found only in Christianity" (104). He then goes on to show that our very constitution as human beings comes with a "pre-installed" knowledge, namely, knowledge of God. This is, in part, to our being made in his image. Knowledge, therefore, apart from sin, orients us to see reality rightly, and in seeing it rightly place our faith in its proper telos.

Knowledge of the world, knowledge of ourselves even, cannot be understood except through first knowing God. We must remember that faith itself is never blind as many might assume. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1, ESV). Assurance and conviction are never divorced from knowledge.

Often, people assume that physical reality—the tangible world that we can experientially touch, taste, smell, hear, etc—is more real than any spiritual or metaphysical presuppositions we could make about the world. However, in the Christian worldview, and in a thoroughly catholic (not Roman) worldview, the world we live in is a sacramental sign and copy of the heavenly realm. Christ was raised in what St. Paul calls a "spiritual body," not because he denied the physical resurrection of Christ, but because he rightly recognized that the spiritual, the heavenly, the "metaphysical" is more real than our ethereal physical world. Only knowledge of that world, which we take hold of by faith, can inform our inquiry and conclusions about this one.

Thus, I believe that not only are faith and reason compatible, but they are necessarily two sides of the same coin that bring about true knowledge of reality as God himself has revealed it.

Works Cited:

The Bible. English Standard Version. Crossway, 2016.

Oliphint, Scott K. "Historical and Theological Studies: Using Reason by Faith." Westminster Theological Journal. Vol. 73. 2011.