Hendrik Hart

Religion acquired a bad press in philosophical modernity after a rivalry developed between philosophy and theology, originating in philosophy’s adopting the role of our culture’s superjudge in all of morality and knowledge, and in faith’s coming to be seen as belief, that is, as assent to propositional content. Religion, no longer trust in the face of mystery, became a belief system. Reason as judge of propositional belief set up religion’s decline. But spirituality is on the rise, and favors trust over reason. Philosophy could make space for the spiritual by acknowledging a difference between belief as propositional assent and religious faith as trust, a distinction lost with the mixing of Greek philosophy and Christian faith. Artistic or religious truth disappeared as authentic forms of knowing. But Michael Polanyi reintroduced knowledge as more than can be thought. Also postmodern and feminist thought urge us to abandon autonomous reason as sole limit to knowledge. We have space again for philosophy to look at openness to the spiritual. If spirituality confronts us with the mystery of the existential boundary conditions, religion may be a form of relating to the mystery that confronts us from beyond the bounds of reason. That mystery demands our attention if we are to be fully in touch with perennial issues of human meaning.

Kai Nielsen’s recent book Philosophy and Atheism is discussed here. The main point is that Nielsen’s arguments against Christianity can be turned against his own rationalist atheism with similar results, namely that the position seems incoherent from its own point of view. Christianity is unempirical and irrational by certain arguments, but the position assumed underneath those arguments does not survive treatment by those same arguments. Nielsen’s dependence on arguments that undermine the position assumed in these arguments should make him open to the suggestion that these arguments may not be relevant to the assessment of the validity of a religious position.

Liberalism is no longer defensible as a strategy for coping with conflicts in a pluralistic society, but is itself one of the pluralities in conflict. Hence its strategy for coping with plurality---tolerant suspension or privatization of the deep commitments that are the roots of conflict, coupled with rational discussion to form a public consensus not connected to the plurality of commitments---can no longer serve as a common sense approach for all citizens. In this paper I explore as a solution the continuation of discussion toward shared public policy, but now discussion openly tied to underlying commitments. Truth in this context is pursued not as a matter of argument, but as fruitful consequences of action.

Since the time of the Enlightenment in Western Europe, discussions of faith and reason have often pitted the believer against the skeptic, the theist against the atheist, and the person of one faith against the person of no professed faith. But the relation of reason to faith has been a matter of debate among believers as well. There are those who hold that religious faith can be proven or supported by rational argument. Others say that to try to give reasons and arguments does violence to religious faith, or opens it to misunderstanding and doubt, or trivializes it. Responses to the Enlightenment: An Exchange on Foundations, Faith, and Community is a dialogue between Hendrik Hart and William Sweet, two philosophers who identify themselves as Christians, and who seek to respond to the challenges of the Enlightenment and its legacy. The authors approach the relation of faith to reason, however, in very different ways: Hart from the perspective of the Calvinian tradition and postmodern philosophy, Sweet from the Catholic tradition and analytic philosophy. Among the topics discussed are the nature of religious faith and of reason, liberalism and orthodoxy in religion, the relation of religious experience and rationality, and building community in a religiously and culturally pluralistic world. This exchange presents two distinctive perspectives to some of the major challenges of the reason to religious belief, but seeks to find common ground between them

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Herman Dooyeweerd’s New Critique of Theoretical Thought in 1985 and the 10th anniversary of his death in 1987, I explore his theory of theory. Dooyeweerd distinguished theory as conceptual knowledge of abstracted functions from everyday knowing as integrated knowledge of wholes. He tried to show that critical theorizing requires philosophical integration, self-awareness, and religious knowledge of the origin of ourselves and creation. In the course of developing his view Dooyeweerd touched on many issues that are still current for us today, in particular issues around foundationalism. A brief evaluation in the context of our contemporary philosophical scene closes the essay.

In response to the critique of his work by William Sweet, Hendrik Hart first offers some terminological clarifications. The important difference between ‘faith’ (trust in God) and ‘belief’ (our network of accepted understandings of things, expressed in concepts and propositions) is emphasized and his use of terms such as ‘religion,’ ‘knowledge,’ and ‘truth’ are explained. Hart then clarifies his approach to the Western philosophical tradition. He argues that Christian accommodation to philosophy and its idea of ‘reason’ as ultimate arbiter have hindered proper understanding of biblical faith. He finds support for his critique within the philosophical tradition itself, particularly in the form of feminist and postmodern thought. In the end, he offers a vision of religious truth, encapsulated in Jesus’ proclamation, “I am the truth,” that is based upon the embodiment of God’s will and intent.