Reason, Science, Technology & Religious Faith
by Prof. Emeka Aniagolu
I can see the human need for faith. Faith in God, faith in love, faith in life, faith in meaning, faith in hope, faith in life-after-life or death; and faith in faith itself. It is the only way intelligent, self-conscious, self-aware, creatures such as human beings can endure the otherwise existential vacuity of life; the only way for such beings to hedge their bets against the nihilistic threat life poses to human consciousness. It is the reason faith is the foundation of religion. Religion is an act of faith; and faith, in turn, ironically, is actually an act of reason.
How can this be, you query? Is not faith the opposite of reason? Are they not the very anti-thesis of one another? The answer to that question is yes and no; depending on how we define reason. If we define reason as the provision of logical proof or empirical evidence for faith — in religion; then, faith fails the test as an act of reason. And it is that definition of reason most scientists and empiricists use to discount religious faith as an act of reason.
However, if, on the other hand, we define reason simply as why — the philosophical rationale behind our religious faith — then religious faith passes the litmus test as an act of reason. For the philosophical rationale — the reason behind the religious faith of human beings — is the need for a bulwark against the existential assault of life on human beings. Human beings invented religion, so to speak, because we needed it for our psychic, emotional and spiritual sustenance; every bit as much as human beings invented food cultivation — agriculture — for our physical survival.
Without faith — the reason for religion — religion collapses as a human enterprise, organization, tradition and custom. Thus, while we cannot provide empirical proof for the existence of God or of life-after-life or death; we can provide philosophical reason for our belief in the existence of God and the afterlife; and that philosophical reason is the human need for faith, which itself is the wellspring of religion.
How else to explain the ability of religion to take root in societies in Far East Asia traditionally devoid of eschatological belief systems? How else to explain how religion could go underground or become comatose in the former Soviet Union for a generation or two, on account of the enforced atheism of the Soviet regime; only to resurrect after its collapse, as though such an impasse never occurred? Religion draws its lifeblood not from empirically demonstrable evidence of the existence of God or the afterlife, but rather from the philosophically demonstrable reason of the existential human need for faith.
Of course, the foregoing does not and cannot answer the teleological question of whether or not that human need for faith, which gives rise to religion, which, in turn, gives rise to a belief in God and an afterlife, is empirically a misplaced faith or an idolatrous self-indulgence. For the human need for faith never ceases and dare not cease, except at our existential peril. Consequently, many conflate and, therefore, confuse the existential human need for faith, which gives rise to religion accompanied by a belief in God and the afterlife; with religious faith as evidence of the existence of God and the afterlife, rather than its imprimatur — its originating warrant.
Thus, human beings cannot do without two fundamental weapons in our existential sojourn: Reason and Faith. Reason as empirical logic and/or evidence, and reason as philosophical thinking; both of which give rise to faith: Faith in the human intellect — with its resultant science and technology; and faith in the human spirit — with its resultant belief in religion. Both faiths are weapons with which humanity battles the existential, nihilist assault on human beings: physiologically, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally.
Human beings, therefore, cannot live without faith. However, depending on which definition of reason they employ or invoke, they will be led to one faith or the other, or even, to both faiths: in the human intellect and/or in human eschatology, and hence, in religion. The two shall never cease. The greater the achievements of human beings in science and technology, the greater will be the conviction of those who have reasoned faith in the human intellect. Conversely, the greater the comedy of errors in the drama of human existence, the greater will be the conviction of those who have reasoned faith in human eschatology — in religion, and thus, in God and the afterlife.
For if we are so rational and smart, why do we keep making such monumental mistakes in human society, and why does evil and injustice seem so intractable? Yet, if God has independent existence, why does He, She or It, not reveal Himself, Herself or Itself and make humanity’s woes cease? Moreover, who can doubt the self-evident, stupendous achievements of the human intellect, starting, as it were, from the blank slate of the ‘primordial mud;’ and based on the evidence of that achievement, who can doubt the still greater achievements of the human intellect that lie ahead issuing from the scientific and technological ingenuity of the human mind? Thus, the eternal battle line between the two faiths is drawn, to be waged on so long as humanity is embarked upon its perilous existential journey.
