Faiths Reason: The Interaction of Religious Faith and Reason

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how Wittgenstein views religious faith. It
will present how he describes it, articulates the relationship faith ust have to reason and
how philosophy should approach it.
!ccording to Wittgenstein, to have religious faith is to have an unsha"able belief.
This eans that one has to have a belief so strong that one ris"s being vulnerable and
open to being hurt greatly as they put their trust copletely into soething that they have
no control or understanding of. In short, coplete sub#ugation to whatever one is placing
theselves into.
There is no rhye or reason as to why one should have this unsha"able belief.
The reason that e$plains why they have this belief is, they believe because their belief has
becoe a part of their being. %ven so, this e$planation is not ade&uate enough in the
odern world to e$plain why one would have so uch faith in soething that they
cannot truly #ustify to other people. What Wittgenstein is trying to a"e us understand is
to truly have faith is to have no concrete foundation 'that you understand( to base your
belief on, to leave yourself open to the e$perience and let it overwhel your very being.
Wittgenstein does not e$plain what this foundation is or what the principles behind the
individual beliefs are, but it does e$ist and that it is soething that we cannot test,
easure or grasp. The reason that he gives for our inability to grasp the foundation of an
unsha"able belief is its e$istence rests on soething beyond our coprehension. For
e$aple, Wittgenstein illustrates this point by coparing the reactions of two individuals
towards everyday phenoena that occurs to their person. The first person would ta"e
everything that happens to hi as a reward or punishent, while the latter thin"s nothing
of it. )o, if soething good 'li"e winning a lottery( were to occur to the first person, he
would ta"e it as a reward. *eanwhile, the second person would feel neutral towards the
winning. +oth individuals won 'which is li"e the belief(, but where they differ is how
they interpret the winning, they are #ust loo"ing at it fro different perspectives. This is
why, for Wittgenstein, religious faith rests on soething other than what we consider to
be the noral foundation of faith. There is no e$planation outlining what this foundation
ought to be, but it is enough to "now that it e$ists and it is what drives the individuals
actions in his daily life. To truly have faith in soething eans not needing any
evidence to prove ones belief, that believing alone would be enough, belief does not
e&ual evidence. Wittgenstein argues that that faith is about not "nowing. +ut behind this
not "nowing is a freely given trust. Trust that whatever it is that you have faith in is not a
waste your e$istence and that whatever you are giving up in order to believe in it is not
for naught.
+ut we live in a world where evidence is needed to #ustify our actions, therefore,
there should be soe way one should be able to easure if an individual truly has faith.
Wittgenstein uses the e$aple of a persons behavior to easure their faith. +y
coparing how a person engages the world before and after they find their faith, soe
type of anifestation will eerge indicating that there is reason enough for the to have
this belief 'for us hoping to understand it would be another atter(. %ven then, draatic
change is not enough to encopass what a religious belief is. For Wittgenstein, having
faith is the whole pac"age of coplete trust without understanding and believing because
you believe.
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!s rational huan beings our actions are governed by otives. This eans we
have reasons why we choose to eat the way we do, dress the way we do and sleep the
way we do. The reasons for our actions can be either siple 'such as it is ore
cofortable for e to sleep on y side than y bac"( to cople$ 'such as I chose to
hand in this essay late rather than on tie because of the influence of outside factors(.
.aving reason is to have processed line of thought that is distinct and filled with clarity,
hence the proble with faith interacting with reason with regards to Wittgenstein. Reason
e$ists with faith, but not in the traditional fashion that one would often interpret it to be.
/sually, the reason why we do things e$ists with clarity to the person and everyone
around the, if reason were to be applied in the usual anner, what Wittgenstein calls
faith would no longer define faith. The belief is no longer based on blind trust, instead it
is based on evidence 'eaning belief is anifested through a result, which is
counterintuitive to faith where belief is anifested fro not "nowing the end result(. .e
argues that in religious faith, evidence does not ean very uch due to one "nowing
what to do with it. 0ust because soeone believes in their evidence does not ean that
you should be able to for a concrete conclusion to their stateent. To support the
previous stateent Wittgenstein uses an analogy of a an who was supposedly "illed in a
battle, but was spotted at a gathering. In the story, Wittgenstein "nows soeone naed
)ith and has heard that he has been "illed in a battle. ! friend coes up to hi and says
that )ith is in 1abridge. .e then learns that his friend stood at 2uildhall. While
loo"ing at the other end he saw a an and thought it was )ith. !ccording to
Wittgenstein, his friends clai of seeing )ith does not constitute as sufficient
evidence, especially when he has a fair aount of evidence that )ith was "illed. +ut if
)ith was #ust never heard of again, then Wittgenstein would be at an ipasse as he
would not "now what to a"e of the situation. The analogy is siilar to the proble with
religious faith and reason. Reason as"s for evidence that faith cannot produce because
having faith is to believe in soething without having any guarantees that what you
believe in is actually true. )o for reason to fit in with religious faith, it ust interact with
it in a non3traditional way. This eans that reason should not be evidence based, but
ore of an intuition.
)o what does this all ean for philosophy4 To Wittgenstein, philosophy should
approach the religious act with a critical eye, but ready to not understand anything.
5hilosophy should have the role of standing in the bac"ground and criticizing it as
opposed engaging closely in an attept to understand it. !s it was entioned before by
trying to understand religious faith one would be underining the very eaning of it as it
ta"es away everything it would be standing for. )o even though there is soe type of
reasoning for having religious faith, it would be soething that we would not understand
but still a"e an observation of.
Reading over how Wittgenstein describes religious faith, I agree with his
description. I believe that religious faith should be ta"en as soething that one should not
be able to understand, but rather be in awe of. It is ipossible to perceive how reality is
outside yourself, as one does not have control of the way the world is presented to the.
)o it would not be plausible for us to create reasons for soething that we have no
understanding of when we cannot even "now the world that we have an interaction with
on the daily basis. Thus we should #ust leave it be and ta"e it in as it coes.
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Wittgensteins approach of philosophys to religious faith is soft3rationalis.
Religious faith would be reasonable and can be criticized, but lac"s any conclusive proof
as opposed to hard3rationalis where everything should supported by evidence before
accepting it. In soft3rationalis the reason behind the persons religious faith would be an
unfolding process independent of the person 'this is due to the individuals ability to
reason being liited(. The whole point is that they will coe to understand why they
have the belief as they e$perience ore of the phenoena that their faith brings to the.
The reasonableness of faith in all this is not very reasonable in the way of how we
understand reason to be. Faith is not supported by reason in away that we could
understand and faith sees to contradict reason in a way that it does not #ustify when one
should behave in a certain way. It is not that there is no reasoning in religious faith, it is
#ust that we do not see it. !s 5ascal once said, 7the heart has reasons which reason does
not understand.8 It goes the sae way for faith too, #ust because we do not understand
does not ean reason does not e$ist.
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