Philosophy

Philosophy Study Guide

In his essay The Will to Believe , James believed that Pascal’s wager tries to force us into Christianity by reasoning if our concern with the truth resembles our concern with the states in a game of chance. In evaluating the role of faith in forming beliefs, James observes, “Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says that the best things are the more eternal things and that we are better off even now if we believe the first affirmation to be true.” James believes that that it is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. Near the end of the essay, James states, “I therefore, for one, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or willfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there would be an irrational rule.” James disagrees strongly with Clifford’s criteria for belief, viewing it as excessively narrow and limiting; instead, James believes there are many areas of experience, including morality, religion, and human relationships in which our beliefs must go beyond the evidence. 3.15 Subjective Knowing: The Leap of Faith Perhaps the most passionate voice for religious faith is Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who is considered to be the father of modern existentialism. In Kierkegaard’s essay, The Leap of Faith and The Limits of Reason , he argues to fully understand human existence, we must recognize the limits of reason and be prepared to make a leap of faith toward belief and commitment when such a leap is required. He states that our reasoning powers are limited when it comes to the metaphysical and the best we can do is acknowledge these limits and recognize that beyond the power of reason lies the unknown. It is virtually impossible to prove that anything exists, especially God. Our only realistic goal is to develop the content of a conception of God. It is not God’s actions that we use as a basis for inferring God’s existence; instead, it is an ideal interpretation of God that we use, an imaginative construction of God’s nature. But such an ideal construction already assumes God’s existence, so we are not really proving anything. He believed that we must let go of our efforts to prove God’s existence with logical, rational means and instead simply let the reality of his existence become manifest. To let go requires an act of will, a leap of faith in God’s reality. When we truly let go of our rational efforts, our faith is rewarded by our experiencing the reality of God’s existence in non-rational or supranational ways. We can only achieve genuine understanding of God through subjective knowing (personal, passionate, experiential) which allows us to establish a relationship with God by means of out leap of faith, a connection based on passion. Objective knowing (logical, rational) can never achieve a genuine understanding of God because it treats God as an object to be proved and understood, which is an impossible task, given the limits of our reasoning capacities. The objective knowing of reason can provide an illusion of understanding of God. Only by surrendering ourselves to subjective knowing, through the leap of faith, can we achieve true knowledge of God through a personal relationship. He argues that to try and find a reasoned, scientific proof for God (or any religious belief) is ultimately futile because of the nature of faith itself. Kierkegaard finds that it is only through a “leap of faith” that we can know subjectively, if there is a God or not.

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