(Originally written February 1, 2007 in Book 7)
Philosophy of Religion
John Hick
Chapter 5 - Revelation and Faith
It is impossible to establish the existence or non-existence of God via rational arguments proceeding from universally accepted premises.
Chris Linehan - An atheist can never convince a believer that God does not exist if he/she has truly felt God's touch/. But, a believer can never convince an atheist that God exists if he/she has naturalized all of his or her experience. God shows Himself to men and men must then interpret what they have seen.
Philosophy recognizes two ways in which human beings can come to know what may be known:
1) Experience (empiricism)
2) Reasoning (rationalism)
God must be known by experience. "If God exists, God is not an idea but a reality outside us; in order to be known to men and women, God must become manifest in some way within their experience" (Hick, 58).
Chris Linehan: I believe that God can be known solely by experience, but I think He can be known via reasoning. God is a logical necessity; thus, all we need to know is logic and necessity to know God.
The Bible takes God's existence for granted. There are no attempts to prove His existence.
The Biblical writers saw God as an experience reality, not an inferred entity.
God's disclosure of Himself to man is "revelation". Man's response to revelation is "faith".
The Propositional view of Revelation and Faith
Roman Catholicism and conservative Protestantism (as well as the Medieval conception) represent the propositional view of revelation. Revelation in this view is a body of truths expressed in statements and propositions. "Revelation is the imparting to people of divinely authenticated truths" (Hick, 60). Faith under this scheme is a person's obedient acceptance to these truths.
Natural theology and revealed theology have accompanied the propositional view of revelation and faith for centuries.
Natural theology is the sum of all theological truths that can be ascertained by humans without divine assistance. Revealed theology is the sum of truths that can be comprehended only with the assistance of the Divine.
Voluntarist Theories of Faith
Blaise Pascal and William James treat faith as the acceptance of certain beliefs by a deliberate act of will. Both Pascal and James saw it better to believe than not believe because it is so much worse to not believe in something that is true than believe in something that turns out to be false.
F.R. Tennant states that faith always involves risk, but it is via risk that human knowledge is increased.
Tillich's conception of Faith as ultimate concern
Paul Tillich taught, "Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned".
God is the object of man's ultimate concern and our attitude in participating with God is our ultimate concern.
No comments:
Post a Comment