Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account

by C. Stephen Evans

This volume provides an explanation and defense of a view of faith and reason found in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and others that is often called fideism. Carefully distinguishing indefensible forms of fideism that involve a rejection of reason from responsible forms of fideism that require reason to become self-critical, C. Stephen Evans unfolds a Kierkegaardian view that genuine religious knowledge is grounded in faith beyond reason. / Three versions of responsible fideism are discussed and analyzed. First, Evans looks at faith without reasons, illustrating this form of attack on evidentialism with the thought of Alvin Plantinga and William James. Next, Evans considers the form of fideism that understands faith as above reason, a view exemplified by Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant. Finally, Evans examines the form of fideism that claims that faith must go against what is taken as rational by most human societies. This position is most clearly displayed in the writings of Kierkegaard. Evans here defends the Kierkegaardian view that genuine religious knowledge is grounded in faith beyond reason by analyzing faith as making possible a critical analysis of the limits of reason that reason itself can recognize as sound. Evans’s discussion is deepened by concrete examples of how fideists might view three traditional topics in philosophy of the knowledge of God’s existence, the problem of evil, and the verifiability of divine revelation.

Genres: Philosophy, Christian, Theology

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1998

About the author

C. Stephen Evans (b. Atlanta , Georgia) is an American historian and philosopher, he is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard having published six books on Kierkegaard over 25 years. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He holds a B.A. with High Honors (philosophy), from Wheaton College, an M.Phil. (philosophy) from Yale University, and a Ph.D. (philosophy) from Yale University.

He has won numerous awards, and reviews manuscripts for several university presses, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, as well as Harper and Rowe. He does the same for several academic journals. He was curator of the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. He has organized several major conferences. He served five years on the the editorial board for Kierkegaard Monographs and for the International Kierkegaard Commentary Series. He is a past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Søren Kierkegaard Society.

Reviews

[Samuel Eastlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evans' attempt to rehabilitate fideism, or what he calls 'responsible fideism'. Outlining reasons to reject irrational fideism, he proceeds to understand fideism as 1. reason's inability to determine truth or falsity for a proposition, 2. reason's inability to even investigate that belief, or 3. reason's inability to grasp an important concept in a proposition. These loosely correspond to Aquinas, Kant, and Kierkegaard, but there is significant overlap with the later thinkers with the earlier.

Evans rejects 'presuppositional' understandings a la Van Til, but when he goes on to show how Kierkegaard understands 'Faith Against Reason' the reasons are surprisingly similar. Both think that concrete/practical reason has been damaged by sin and needs an act of God to move over for faith. I think Evans' reasons for rejecting Van Til is the coercive nature of God's action in his account. For Van Til, human reason is unable to move aside and accept its impotence over certain propositions/knowledge, and God has to force his way in. For Kierkegaard, human reason is just as selfish and imperialistic, but (with God's help) has the ability to recognise its own limitations, and can move itself aside for the faith necessary to know God. At least this is how I understand the distinction Evans proposes.

The last few chapters cover some related issues in philosophy of religion which a fideist might be involved in. The most helpful for me was the chapter on the problem of evil, where the fideist can reject the logical and evidential problem of evil based on reason's damaged nature and limitations, and can provide encouragement for the believer in the face of evil.

This was a really good read, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Christian philosophy.

[Holland Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

In case you were wondering. I despise Philosophy books. The pursuit of knowledge in this book was at times intriguing at best. A fun game I would play would be to turn to a random page and read a random sentence to a friend. Every single time the response I got was, “wow, that’s a lot.” An opinion of mine that I hold is that any book that cannot be read by the majority of people is in fact, badly written.

The book talked about the fideism which is a particular kind of view that holds a type of faith “without” reason. That’s literally it. It just talks about what a bunch of different people have thought about relationship between reason and faith. This would be an interesting conversation to have, but the way that this book was written took away all interest from the subject.

[Andy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fantastic book. Well written and bold case for what Evans calls "responsible fideism." He successfully argues that a faith beyond reason is logically and philosophically the only true faith. I loved it: book of the year with just a month to go.