Belief

Readings on the Reason for Faith

Francis S. Collins

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9780061978401
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Essays

“A brilliant, wide ranging and powerful series of readings on the possibilities, problems and mysteries of faith. This book belongs on the shelf of every believer—and every serious skeptic.” — Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith Matters

“This life-giving, faith-filled and hard-nosed collection reveals why, as St. Anselm wrote, true faith always seeks to understand.” — Rev. James Martin, author of My Life with the Saints

From Dr. Francis Collins, New York Times bestselling author of The Language of God, comes the definitive reader on the rationality of faith.

Classic Arguments for Faith and Reason

PLATO

Indisputably one of the greatest minds in world history, Plato (428/427–348/347 BC) lived more than three hundred years prior to Christ. Known and still admired throughout the Western world as a Greek thinker, philosopher, and mathematician, he was a student of Socrates and tutored Aristotle. Together these three intellectual titans are considered profound influencers on the modern approach to natural philosophy. Not content in just soaking in the learned culture of his time, Plato established the first center of higher education in Greece, the Academy in Athens.

Plato’s famous pedagogical dialogues continue to gain far-reaching attention. Even today they are used to teach such subjects as philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and mathematics. From the perspective of the development of rational philosophy, Plato’s thoughts and questions begin our quest in analyzing the compatibility of faith and reason. Implicit in his concept of reality is the existence of the supernatural, a spiritual domain outside human senses. The selections chosen are framed in a discussion on the existence of God. They encompass a wide range of issues: acknowledging the longing in our souls, asking meaningful questions about life, hypothesizing about divinity, exploring true knowledge, contemplating the idea of loving one’s enemies, and critiquing atheism.

From Plato and the Christians

AN ATHENIAN: Tell me, you two, has God or a man been responsible for settling your laws for you?

CLEINIAS, A CRETAN: God, Sir, God, most decidedly.

DIVINITY NOT SUBJECT TO VARIATION

AN ATHENIAN: The stars and the whole system which they display always move on the same courses because this was determined of old a wonderful long time ago, and they do not alter their plan and waver, sometimes doing one thing and sometimes another, wandering about the sky or changing their circuits. This ought to have suggested to men that they are endowed with intelligence. But it suggested just the opposite to most of us. Because they do the same things and in the same way we thought they had no soul; and the multitude followed those who were mistaken in this and supposed that humanity was intelligent and alive, while the divine, because it continued to exhibit the same motions unaltered, was without mind. Whereas a man by putting himself in contact with what is more beautiful and better and in harmony with himself might come to apprehend that what always acts along the same lines and in the same way and for the same reasons is on that very account possessed of mind, and that the stars are of this nature, most beautiful to behold, satisfying the needs of all living creatures as they dance the most beautiful and magnificent of all dances and advance upon their courses….

(EPINOMIS 983A): Let us then decide how such massive systems could revolve ceaselessly at the same rate as the stars now do, and what being could make them revolve. I assert that God must be the cause, and that it never could be possible any other way. For nothing could ever possess a soul by any means except God’s agency, as we have shown. But when God is of a mind to do it, it is perfectly easy for him first of all to make the whole system into a living creature in spite of its bulk, then to set it in motion in whatever way he decides is best. So may we sum up all this in one true statement: heaven and earth and all the stars and the whole mass which they make up move precisely through an exact annual period of months and days, and all that occurs makes for our common good. Now this is impossible, unless a soul is conjoined to each and is in each separate part.

GOD IS UNCHANGEABLE

Socrates Debates with Adeimantus

Do you think God is a wizard so as purposely to make his appearance sometimes in one disguise and sometimes in another, on such occasions changing himself and transforming himself into many shapes, and on other occasions deceiving us and making us suppose he has done so; or do you think he is single, not multiple, and least of all abandons his own form?

At the moment I don’t know how to answer, he said.

Well, what about this? If anything got detached from the form that properly belonged to it, the change must either be effected by itself or by something else, mustn’t it?

Yes, it must.

Well, that which is in a very good state is the least likely to be altered and changed by something else? As for example the body by food and drink and work, or a plant by scorching heat and winds and such happenings—is not the healthiest and strongest least altered?

Of course.

And would not the soul that is bravest and wisest be least confused and altered by something it experienced from without?

Yes.

And again, I suppose that according to the same argument all manufactured articles and buildings and clothes are least altered by time and other agencies when they are well made and in good condition.

That is so.

Then a thing that is in proper condition either by nature or by art or by both is least subject to being changed by anything else. It seems so.

But God and what belongs to him are in every way proper condition.

Of course.

Consequently, God least of all would suffer many alterations.

To be sure, least of all.

But would he then change and alter himself?

Obviously, he said, that is, if he does alter.

Well then, does he change himself to what is better and finer or to what is worse and less beautiful than himself?

It must be to the worse, if he does alter. For we shall not allow that God is at all deficient in beauty or goodness.

Quite right, said I. And that being so, do you think anyone, whether god or man, would willingly make himself worse in any way?

Impossible, he said.

Then, said I, it is impossible for a god to wish to alter himself, but it looks as if each of them being as fair and good as possible every abides in the single form that is his.

GOD NOT THE CAUSE OF EVIL

Socrates Debates with Adeimantus

Whatever God is, as such of course he must be represented in poetry, whenever the poet describes him in an epic or a lyric or a tragedy.

Yes, he must.

Now God is good and must be actually described as such, mustn’t he?

And what then?

Nothing of what is good is harmful. Or is it?

No, I don’t think it is.

Well then, does what is not harmful do harm?

Of course not.

But does what does not harm do any evil?

No, again.

But what does not do any evil would not be the cause of any evil, would it?

How could it be?

Again the good is advantageous.

Yes.

The cause of well-being?

Yes.

Then the good is not the cause of everything, but the cause of things that are good, and not the cause of evil things.

Exactly, he said.

Then, said I, God, since he is good, would not be the cause of everything, as most people say, but the cause of only a few of the things that happen to people. He would not be the cause of many things, because the good things that befall us are much fewer than the evil, and of the good things we must reckon none but God to be the cause, but of the evil we must seek some other causes and not God.

ATHEISTS

AN ATHEISTS: Those who despise all these prods of the existence of the gods do not do it for a single sufficient reason, as anyone would say who had any sense. But that compels us to speak as we do, and how could anyone admonish these people with mild words when starting to teach them that gods exist? But we must try. It would never do for some of us to be furious from an excessive appetite for pleasure and the others from feeling angry at their being like that. So let some such unruffled speech as the following preface what we have to say to those who have their understanding corrupted, and let us suppress our feelings and speak mildly, as though in conversation with one of them:

My child, you are young, and time as it passed will make you change many of the opinions you now hold and adopt the opposite. Wait till then therefore before becoming a judge of matters of great importance, and most important of all, though you now reckon it a mere nothing, the question of thinking rightly about the gods, and so having a good life or the reverse.

And first I could not possibly be thought to be deceiving you if I told you this one great fact about them, namely, that you and your friends are not the first and foremost to hold this opinion about the gods, but men are always appearing who suffer from the distemper, sometimes more and sometimes less in number. But I who have consorted with many of them would like to tell you, that no one who from childhood entertained the opinion that there were no gods ever continued till old age abiding in the same state of mind. But two other attitudes towards the gods do abide, not in many minds, but still in some. First there is the view that there are gods, but they take no interest in human affairs, and then the view that they do take interest, but are easily appeased with sacrifices and prayers. If you take my advice, you will wait for the clearest belief about them that can possibly arise in your mind, considering whether the matter stands thus or thus, and inquiring more particularly from the law-giver. And in the meantime do not venture on any want of piety to the gods.

THE CREATOR’S PURPOSE

TIMAEUS: Well, now let us say why the great Architect designed creation and this universe. He was good, and no jealousy about anything is ever found in the good. So being quite free from it he wished to make everything as far as possible good like himself. If one had this from wise men as the most authentic explanation of the origin of creation and the world one would be getting what is correct. He wished that all things should be good, and that as far as possible there should be nothing wrong with anything. He found the whole visible worlds not in a state of rest but moving at random and in no order. He brought it into order from disorder, thinking order in every way better than the opposite. It is not nor ever was allowable for him that is most good to do anything except what is most admirable. So as he considered the matter he began to find that in the whole of visible nature there was simply nothing without mind that was ever going to be superior to anything with mind, and also that it is impossible that anything should have mind without soul. On the strength of this consideration he began to contrive the universe by attaching mind to soul and soul to body, thus producing what is by nature most beautiful and good. So according to the most probable view one must say it is by the providence of God that this world is of a truth a living being with a soul and a mind.

GOLDEN RULES

SOCRATES: In the course of such a long discussion, while other views have been refuted, this alone remains unshaken, namely, that doing wrong is to be avoided more carefully than being wronged, and more than anything a man must take trouble not to seem, but to be good, both in his private and his public life; and whoever becomes bad in any respect, he must be corrected. And the second best thing after being virtuous is to be made so by being corrected and paying the penalty. All complacency about oneself or about others whether few or many is to be avoided. On these lines advocacy is to be used on all occasions to promote justice, and so is every other accomplishment also. Hearken to me then and follow this course, and, if you keep to it you will come to be happy in life and death, as the argument shows. Let people despise and jeer at you for a fool if they like. Yes, yes, cheerfully let them knock you about. For no disaster can happen to you, if you practice virtue and are in fact a good man.

THE MEAT WHICH ENDURETH

Socrates Debates with Glauco

Look at it this way, I said. Are not hunger and thirst and such-like in a way a deficiency in the physical condition?

What then?

Are not ignorance and brainlessness likewise a deficiency in the condition of the soul?

Certainly.

Then he that has a portion of food and he who owns a mind would fill up these deficiencies?

How could it be otherwise?

But does the less real or the more real more truly fill up a deficiency?

Obviously the more real.

Which of the two kinds do you think has the greater share of pure reality, the kind that is concerned with food and drink and delicacies and nourishment in general, or the class that comprises truth and knowledge and mind and in a word all that is excellent? Sort it out like this. Ask yourself whether that which attaches itself to the truth and to what is always the same and knows no end, and is itself of that kind and exists in what is of that kind, seems to you to be more real, or does that seem more real which attaches itself to what is never the same and is subject to extinction, and is itself of that kind and exists in what is of that kind?

That which is always the same is much more real.

Then say now whether the reality of that which is always the same has more reality about it than it has knowledge.

Oh no!

Well then, more reality than it has truth?

No again.

Then if there is less truth, is there not less reality also?

There must be.

All things considered then the kind of thing that concerns the care of the body has a smaller share of truth and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Classic Arguments for Faith and Reason
• The Meaning of Truth
• Loving God with All Your Mind
• Faith and the Problem of Evil and Suffering
• Faith and the Cry for Justice
• The Harmony of Science and Faith
• Miracles, Longing, and Mysticism
• Love and Forgiveness as Pointers to God
• Voices from the East
• The Irrationality of Atheism
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Editor
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher