Should we believe without proof?
Faith and reason: harmony, separation or conflict
Should we believe without proof? Philosophers give 4 main answers: faith and reason agree, two separate domains, faith goes beyond and no belief without evidence. AskPhilosophy presents 15 arguments, from Tertullien to Stephen Jay Gould, reconstructed step by step, logic-checked and verified word for word against their original texts.
The 4 possible answers
Each column is one way of answering the question: what it holds and the philosophers who defend it. Click a column to see only its arguments.
Truth is one: reason supports faith, and faith enlightens reason.
Augustin, Thomas d'Aquin, Averroès
Faith and reason do not answer the same questions: each in its own domain.
Spinoza, Galileo Galilei, Stephen Jay Gould
We may, and sometimes must, believe without proof: faith goes beyond reason.
Pascal, Tertullien, Alvin Plantinga, William James…
It is wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence.
Locke, William K. Clifford, Carl Sagan
The arguments
Click an argument to see it step by step, with the objections and replies.
Faith and reason agree
Truth is one: reason supports faith, and faith enlightens reason.
3 argumentsBelieve in order to understand
Some truths are not yet understood; faith purifies the heart so we may one day see them, and reason is there before it.
Faith cannot contradict reason
Reason and faith both tell what is true, and two truths cannot contradict each other.
Truth does not contradict truth
Two truths cannot contradict each other: if the Law and demonstration seem to clash, the text has a meaning other than the apparent one.
Two separate domains
Faith and reason do not answer the same questions: each in its own domain.
3 argumentsFaith seeks obedience, philosophy seeks truth
Faith aims at obedience and philosophy at truth: with different goals, neither should rule the other.
Scripture teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go
Scripture cannot lie, but its true meaning is often hidden: against a demonstrated fact, it is the literal reading that gives way.
Two magisteria that do not overlap
Science answers questions of fact, religion questions of meaning and value: no question gets two competing answers.
Faith goes beyond
We may, and sometimes must, believe without proof: faith goes beyond reason.
6 argumentsThe heart knows first principles
We know first principles (space, time, numbers) as firmly as proofs without being able to prove them: another route, the heart.
The Son of God died: it is credible, because it is unfitting
What people would not have invented, because it seems absurd to them, deserves to be believed.
Believing in God without proof can be rational: the "basic" belief
The rule that forbids beliefs held without proof fails its own test: it is neither self-evident nor proven.
We have the right to believe when evidence cannot decide
When a choice is unavoidable and evidence cannot settle it, doubting is also a gamble: we may decide by what we feel.
Reason, the "devil's whore", before the Word
On God, reason takes its own ideas for the Holy Spirit and no one can correct it: one must hold to the Word.
Of God we can say only what he is not: knowledge ends in silence
God is absolutely simple, so any positive quality would be false of him: we can say only what he is not.
No belief without evidence
It is wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence.
3 argumentsEnthusiasm is not proof: reason must judge every revelation
A strong inner conviction proves neither that an idea is true nor that it comes from God: only reason can examine it.
It is wrong to believe on insufficient evidence
No belief is truly private: a poorly grounded one makes us gullible and can harm others, which honest inquiry would have avoided.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
The further a claim departs from what we know, the stronger the evidence needed, and whoever makes the claim must supply it.
Other philosophers' positions arrive as profiles are completed. No position is presented as the winner.