Faith and reason are both sources of authority upon which beliefs can rest. Reason generally is understood as the principles for a methodological inquiry, whether intellectual, moral, aesthetic, or religious. Thus is it not simply the rules of logical inference or the embodied wisdom of a tradition or authority. Faith, on the other hand, involves a stance toward some claim that is not, at least presently, demonstrable by reason. Thus faith is a kind of attitude of trust or assent. As such, it is ordinarily understood to involve an act of will or a commitment on the part of the believer. Religious faith involves a belief that makes some kind of either an implicit or explicit reference to a transcendent source??? (Swindal). Skepticism is something that involves doubt and goes against both faith and reason. Many scholars have debated upon the relevancy of these three issues in religion and our society. These have included the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas, who talks about faith when he makes his first statement, which is that there is some conditioned being that exists. This takes in account the faith of the person, who should be able to believe that there does, in fact, exists an entity that is conditioned. The last line is about reason. The line says that in lieu of the second statement, it should be reasoned that the only entity that can exist in combination with the two statements is in fact God. Thus, even though faith, reason, and skepticism may appear to be opposites of each other and tend to undermine each other's premise, it is extremely important to have a belief and understanding of all three in one's life in order for a healthy outlook.
Such are the notions of the subordination-of-reason-to-faith and William James concept of ???the will to believe.??? This is compared to Skepticism by the author here and it simply states ???a proposition is true if it works, that is, if it is profitable or expedient (either intellectually or practically) to believe it.??? This sort of an option is described as living and can be used to describe both theism and atheism (or agnosticism) as it commends itself to us as real possibilities and not just blind faith. It does not need too much reason either, since it is very plausible and we can almost always see it happening.
The basic impetus for the problem of faith and reason comes from the fact that the revelation or set of revelations on which most religions are based is usually described and interpreted in sacred pronouncements, either in an oral tradition or canonical writings, backed by some kind of divine authority. These writings or oral traditions are usually presented in the literary forms of narrative, parable, or discourse. As such, they are in some measure immune from rational critique and evaluation. In fact even the attempt to verify religious beliefs rationally can be seen as a kind of category mistake. Yet most religious traditions allow and even encourage some kind of rational examination of their beliefs. Many scholars have discussed the belief of God as being a properly basic belief. The argument is that there is no evidence of the existence of God and this is the reason a person should have faith and it is exactly this lack of evidence that gives birth to Skepticism as well. There is no evidence of the existence of God, yet the belief in him is not based on any evidence. It would be important to discus some ideas relating to evidentailism and foundationalism in order to better understand our argument for faith, reason, and skepticism.
Foundationlism is defined as ???that proposition that is accepted as true either on the basis of some other proposition that is accepted as true or because it just seem to be true immediately.??? The basic of the proposition is then defined as being either self-evident, incorrigible, or one that expresses an immediate deliverance of sense or the obvious (Stanford Encyclopedia). Other people, such as Calvin and Plantinga, have discussed this issue and regard the belief in God to be on any grounds other than rational and promotes them as true believers of faith. It is important that faith and reason go together in order for the believer to find assurance in their religion, either by faith, reason or both of them together.
Skepticism, as they say is the enemy of faith. Skepticism ethics basically deal with four important virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Aurelius was also an advocate of going through continuous meditation and exercises in order to keep the mind and the body in a state of togetherness. In Meditations, Book II, part 1, Aurelius writes: ???Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be
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