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The importance of religion
Role of religion
The importance of religion
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Critical Paper 3
Fides et Ratio, One or Both?
The Middle Ages saw a period in time that was deeply rooted in Christianity. Almost every aspect of life was monitered and ruled by the Church. This period in time also saw the emergence of men beginning to question whether the existence of God can be proved by faith , reason, or as Thomas Aquinas insists, by both faith and reason. There were differing opinions of this matter in both scholarly and religious circles. Faith is what all believers must have within them, it is a crucial part of man’s relationship with God. On the other hand, reason is a part of science and some believed that matters of The Divine should not be subjected to reason; there should not be a justification for God.
Thomas Aquinas was a teacher of the Dominican Order and he taught that most matters of The Divine can be proved by natural human reason, while “Others were strictly ‘of faith’ in that they could be grasped only through divine revelation.” This was a new view on the faith and reason argument contradictory to both Abelard with his belief that faith should be based on human reason, and the Bernard of Clairvaux who argued that one should only need faith.
Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae, stated that, “Man should not seek to know what is above reason.” His argument was, in very simple terms, that men need reason to understand all of God’s truths. Yet there are certain truths that are beyond reason which men can only understand through Divine Revelation, or faith. And sometimes there might be certain aspects of faith that one day reason might have been able to prove but only a few men would know and understand this, so it is necessary that all men know this through Divine Revelation and faith.
In a personal point of view, I see this interpretation the same way that I see all explanantions of religious beliefs. Religion, in my definition, is a simple way to attain the answers to the mystery ...
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...roofs of God’s existence are basically the same in that they are all, essentially, examples of cause and effect. This cause and effect does not neccesarily prove there is a God but it does lead one to wonder what may be the highest cause, and for this there is no proof.
In the question of faith and reason it is ridiculous to claim that God or any matter of the Divine may be proven by reason. And although I agree with the Bernard of Clairvaux on this one matter I agree for a different reason. He leaves the only answer to be faith. I do not think there is any true way to prove religious matters. Though it may be easy at times to disprove them with the use of reason, it becomes difficult to do so with faith. It is impossible to use faith and reason in conjunction with eachother. Faith is a belief in something that does not have reason, so therefore if something can be proved with philosophical reasoning there would be no reason to have faith except for in the case where reason does not answer the question. This reasoning equation, in the end, does not add up.
The rise of literacy towards the end of the Middle Ages brought with it a torrent of individuals ready to think fro themselves and formulate their own theories and ideas regarding God and the Christian faith. For a long time, the church held a near monopoly on literacy and used this to maintain control over people’s lives and beliefs. While some of these new intellectuals created ideas that would forever change the way people envision themselves and their relation to God and the universe, some simply patched together tidbits of ideas that were not born out of deep philosophical inquiry, but had more of an instinctive type of logical grounding. This was the line of thinking that made up Domenico Scandella’s beliefs.
St. Thomas Aquinas presents five arguments to demonstrate the existence of God. However, this paper focuses on the fifth argument. The fifth argument is regarded as the Teleological Argument and states that things that lack intelligence act for some end or purpose. While the fifth argument satisfies God’s existence for Aquinas, some contemporary readers would argue that Aquinas neglects the laws of physics. Others argue that Aquinas allows a loophole in his argument so that the Catholic conception of God is not the only intelligent designer.
From a sociological understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is condemned from social standards because it defies social norms or social expectations. Sociological understanding of deviance is not always associated with a negative outcome, but can have positive effects for the individual or soceity. With the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was seen deviant for sitting at the front of a bus and refusing to move when a white male came on board. This act of civil rights not only made a stance for improving African American rights, but also helped change social norms.. From an everyday understanding, deviance is any behavior or physical appearance that is seen with a bad or negative outlook. An example of an everyday understanding of deviant behavior can be seen as an individual having tattoos all over his or her body. Some individuals would consider tattoos covering someone’s entire body are bad or a negative appearance, even if the tattoos had significant meaning to that specific individual.
The natural end of every human life is death. Some people, for reasons that have never been fully understood, choose to end their own lives. This is called suicide, which means literally ?self-killing?. For all the uncertainty that has surrounded the phenomenon of suicide, this assessment of the problem is probably as accurate as any. The individual seemingly hopeless conflict with the world, decides to end his or her existence in what amounts to a final assault against a society that can no longer be tolerated. In so doing, the person tries to obtain a final revenge on everything and everyone that has caused their feelings of depression.
There are two main threads of suicide. The social or institutional suicide and individual or
Leenaars, A. A., & Lester, D. (1992). Facts and myths of suicide in Canada and the United States. Journal of Social Psychology, 132(6), 787. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Suicide along with suicidal behavior has become very prevalent within our ever changing society. The United States estimates that nearly 30,000 people a year either attempt or completed the act of suicide. Studies from the World Health Organization indicate that suicide is one of the number one leading causes of our burden in the country. And is predicted to escalate as a tremendous global issue in years to come.
Through my study of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Saint Augustine’s “The Confessions”, I discovered that both text involve a journey of finding real truths before acquiring a faith. This suggests that faith and reason are compatible because one must embark on journey in which they are educated about real truths before they are able to acquire a faith.
Individuals in society experience many changes that can make them feel overwhelm or feel accepted by their friends, family members and the rest of society. But there is times when people feel that they do not fit or feel welcome in their social group. Many people face their difficulties and achieve success others are do not have such luck. The individuals that are not lucky finishes their life committing suicide. Suicide is an act of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally that affects not only immediate family and friends but indicates factors in society that are influencing individuals to commit this act. Is important to understand what aspects in society are making individuals to take their own live? And if
existence to those who could not accept or believe God on faith alone. Aquinas’ first way
Pope John Paul II once said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fallible Blogma) Based on this significant and powerful quote, one can infer that faith and reason are directly associated and related. It can also be implied that the combination of faith and reason allows one to seek information and knowledge about truth and God; based on various class discussions and past academic teachings, it is understood that both faith and reason are the instruments that diverse parties are supposed to use on this search for truth and God. There are many stances and viewpoints on the issues of faith and reason. Some believe that both of these ideas cannot and should not be combined; these parties deem that faith and reason must be taken as merely separate entities. However, this writer does not understand why both entities cannot be combined; both terms are so closely compatible that it would make sense to combine the two for a common task. Based on various class discussions and readings, there are many philosophers and theologians who have certain opinions regarding faith, reason and their compatibility; these philosophers include Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn Rushd, Moses Maimonides, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The following essay will examine each of the previously stated philosopher’s viewpoints on faith and reason, and will essentially try to determine whether or not faith and reason are ultimately one in the same.
The rational or a priori of knowledge- the base of this knowledge is provided by “natural light.” The empirical basis of knowledge is the content of a person conscious state of mind, beliefs, desires, and sensory states. “Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is before my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there was some idea in me of a perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects” (Descartes, 1641)? “I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist with the kind of nature I have — that is, having within me the idea of God — was it not the case that God existed. By ‘God’ I mean the very being the idea of whom is within me, that is, the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow reach in my thought, which is subject to no defects whatsoever. It is clear enough from this that he cannot be a deceiver since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect” (Med. 3, AT
Here are the most common reasons why people with money in their bank account may still use a credit card.
In today’s modern western society, it has become increasingly popular to not identify with any religion, namely Christianity. The outlook that people have today on the existence of God and the role that He plays in our world has changed drastically since the Enlightenment Period. Many look solely to the concept of reason, or the phenomenon that allows human beings to use their senses to draw conclusions about the world around them, to try and understand the environment that they live in. However, there are some that look to faith, or the concept of believing in a higher power as the reason for our existence. Being that this is a fundamental issue for humanity, there have been many attempts to explain what role each concept plays. It is my belief that faith and reason are both needed to gain knowledge for three reasons: first, both concepts coexist with one another; second, each deals with separate realms of reality, and third, one without the other can lead to cases of extremism.
Today, faith is the cornerstone of all major religious knowledge claims because there is no definitive way of...