Truth Through Faith and Reason

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council, this is John Rosen presidency family and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fall better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters Tracy to bedroom. Thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters, it's tempting to look around at our culture and begin to despair that our best days are behind us and that we've wandered too far off the right path to ever get back again. We have a guest with us today who is uniquely qualified to help us sort through how we might be able to do that.

Dr. Samuel Greg is research director at the Acton Institute. He has a doctorate in moral philosophy and political economy from Oxford and a new book out, reason and faith in the struggle for Western civilization. He's here to talk to us about what he calls the genius of Western civilization and offer some hope for a way forward. Dr. Samuel Greg.

Welcome to family policy matters. So let's just start off with what is meant by Western civilization.

Is it primarily geographical or is there more to it than that. One geographical dimension to write because we tend to think all the West, both America and Western Europe. About a dozen war because his plenty of countries that are outside that particular geographic world of the country like Israel, a country like Australia or to clearly Western country, but on part of the geographical zones we clearly goes beyond just geography. What is this basically three dimensions to Western civilization.

The first is the commitment to rational inquiry into trip that I think is very cool means we take reasonable receivers. The second is liberty, freedom, in the sense all freedom from unjust coercion but also freedom with all that higher flourishing to completely pursue the virtues and thirdly you another unique feature of Western civilization.

This is particular integration of faith and reason. That was achieved by the true faith by which a medical student is when Christianity now. It's not that other civilizations don't have inquiry into truth which note that although civilization doesn't have Gothic freedom. The point is that this unique synthesis all rational inquiry in search of truth a commitment to freedom, but also this particular synthesis of reason.

Faith. That's what I think makes Western civilization distinctive. So why do you think reason and faith are so important, and they enhance each other so well well I think they're really concerned with the same city. The thing that that concerned with is reason is about the search for truth. We have we have reason so that we can know the truth and then we can decide with a reboot or follow. But faith is also about true faith is not a question of just sentiment. Faith is not just a question of just feeling faith involves answering questions about the just truth is there a God. If so, what is this God's nature houses.

God revealed himself.

Those are questions I think, which are ultimately concerned with religious truth. So that's one thing that both concerned with truth thing is that they also help to reinforce and clarify each other. Reason provides us with ways of puncturing complicated theological questions like the problem of suffering faith, however also reminds us that reasons horizons go beyond the scientific view on things. We can measure and that faith points to the types of big questions about the meaning of life where we come from, where we going good reason also has something to say about the different ways in which they complement each other.

They also stop each other, I think, from going off the reservation. Space I think prevents reason from degenerating into what type of hyper rationalism at the same time. Reason prevents faith from fully into the trap of fideism where faith becomes a question of just complete blind obedience without any reflection about what it is will bring us to those lots of different ways of thinking which reason and faith enhance each other. I think that becomes more apparent when we see the connection visit between the two stopped of the disintegration. So for example if you say that faith is influenced and shaped by reason tells you that there's certain things that should never be done in the mall religion such as blowing the symbolical flying planes into buildings or doing all sorts of terrible things.

So that's an example.

I think whereby throwing reason out the door, gives particular types of face a type of basis for going ahead and doing terrible things.

I think that's one thing. Another thing I think is hubris. Hubris on the part of those who recognize the reason is very, very powerful tool, but also make the mistake of thinking that reason itself makes us into something like God, saying that I am more or less got myself because I have reason to click the capacity shape and change the will around people become so confident in reasons capacity to do certain things that they they forget there were also human and humans make mistakes. Humans make errors affect. We have reason doesn't mean that we stop making errors.

We make errors all the time so I think these are some of the ways in which the two things have started to become detached from one another. What it really reflects is the loss of the sense of God is divine reason we talk about God's divine love which years we talk about God as divine ministry which he is, but the Hebrew people in the first Christians but also clearly understood God as being low-cost logos is the Greek word for divine reason. When you lose a sense that God has this reasonability about him that he's a rational being, he's not the type of irrational creatures that we find, for example, in the Greek ecology when we recognize that God is in fact divine reason himself. That changes the way I think we think about reason and faith and how the two things relate to each other you listening to family policy matters weekly radio show and podcast of the North Carolina family policy Council. This is just one of the many ways and see family and works to educate citizens across Mr. Lana about policy issues that impact a lot of families. Our vision is to create a state a nation where God is on religious freedom versus families in life is cherished more information about his family and how you can help us to achieve this incredible vision for our state and nation. Visit our website@ncfamily.org again that's in see family.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and of course our flagship publication family North Carolina magazine would also love for you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and so you say that some extreme examples about what happens when we don't apply reason to our faith that there less extreme ways right that we make mistakes as people of faith, could you talk a little bit about that. I get off that question a lot and I think today that the problem we face much of the West is one of the CDs we see in some parts of the Islamic world.

I think what we see is more or less the opposite of that which is what I call sentimentalism sentimentalism is the sense that reason is trumped by feelings and emotions. We see this all the time just in a common language. How many times do we hear people say things like I just feel that when the starting a sentence not interested in what you feel interested in what you think that's what reasoned conversation and discussion inquiries about startup feelings about knowing the truth and you can only know truth in its fullness through rational inquiry. So I think this is actually major problem with going to so much of the West. Today our public discourse is saturated sentimentalism. Even within religious communities. We see this sentimentalism everywhere and it's very problematic because I think it reflects a loss of the saints with God does have this dimensional logos that he use the logos for the use divine reason, which means that God gets reduced to what I call a type of celestial teddy bear teddy bear who does nothing but a firm must tell us how wonderful we never judges also tells us that we are doing something wrong.

The Scripture's provide us with knowledge of the nature of God and something that we read through engaging our mind as we read through these texts and that's important because what that tells us is that God used certain things in these works are the thing so we wrote for example good to go to the Hebrew people is not like the colonists of Greece and so the God of the Hebrew Bible is rational, Jost creative involved in human history and has given us freedom. That's very important, very important that we know this information about God when you understand the nature of God himself, and you can make clear decisions about what is religious truth and what is religiously unclear. So the relationship between faith and reason get so out of balance. Do you think oh I think that there's lots of what the historical reasons for this which I could talk about in the book of great development but I think it's a couple things very quickly. I would say one problem is that we have tended to reduce reason to the signs so to the natural sciences to empirical inquiry said that this is the only way he respects that we can know what is truth and that's a problem because scientific truths current aunts philosophical questions theological religious questions. The scientific method can talk about things that we can measure and that we can arrive at some type of empirical understanding law can't resolve or understand those questions which are nonempirical which unknown scientific I think for quite a long time now. This is been this collapse of our understanding of reason into science and the empirical method which means that there's a tendency to say well that's what reason is then religion is clearly about preference subjectivity. It's really not true in the same way that science is used hard truth is that when you see that's starting to happen, you see signs become more and more closed off from philosophy and knowledge eat, but you also see religion and faith get more and more closed off from philosophical questions but also the application of reason to religious problems and religious questions, with the result that religion gets, as I said pushed into the corner of… Feelings of emotion sentimentalism that has nothing to do with this hot reason. What help is there hope that were going to be able to walk ourselves back off of this ledge.

Well, that's a good question and many people have asked in one of the things about my book is its differences from many of the other books about the West, because most of the books about the West today what they basically say is, it was wonderful. It's gone it's finishes its company recovered what was the other type of book is West was fundamentally evil from the very beginning we should just be happy to see it disappear in my argument is that neither of these positions are adequate or true. I don't think the W. Did Go Way. I think the West contains an almost cultural, intellectual, philosophical, religious, economic, cultural resources, which we benefit from today which we should want for the future, but I also don't think decline is inevitable because I think that in the end that the people recognize that God is in fact both mercy but also divine reason and that we can have confidence. This God is true and that reason can know truth, then we can make a choice for civilization because in the end I think civilizations rise and fall because people choose certain products.

We can choose civilization or we can choose decadence. The choice is not as long as the choice is truly and I we have every reason to believe that a different point of history you can see change consists of societies move away from decadence and much more towards the path that's more faithful to the genius of the West high fascinating conversation with just about out of time. I just want to tell our listeners one more time.

The name of your book and it is reason faith in the struggle for Western civilization, said Dr. Samuel, Greg, thank you so much for being with us and family policy matters heavily matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plenitude it again next week to listen to the show online insulin more about his encourage and inspire families across Carlotta. Our website at NC family.ward that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family