Cross-posted from Studio et Quoque Fide
When I first started this blog back in 2010, I called it “Reason and Revelation.” I spelled out some thoughts I had on the relationship between the two at the time. Of course, as with all things, when I write, the thinking is not necessarily done, not even by me. Like everyone else, I keep wrestling with the tension that the two often create—a wrestle that, I must admit, I find strengthens faith.
There is a growing tendency among Latter-day Saint academics to talk about “bracketing” faith out of scholarship (although not everyone uses that term). While I grant that this method has certain benefits as a provisional mental or intellectual exercise, and I have gained some valuable insights both from works where such “bracketing” has been done and from engaging such exercises myself, I fear there are also corrosive effects that are not often recognized by its practitioners.
For starters, more often than not, it is not treated merely as a provisional mental exercise, but rather as a permanent, methodological necessity. That is, the conclusions reached while the lens of faith is removed are taken to be more valid and more accurate than those reached with faith. This has at least two byproducts that are harmful to holding a vibrant faith.
First, it treats the lens of faith as a distortion rather than a corrective. Most practitioners of bracketing, I suspect, will object to this assertion, and I accept that none of them are consciously meaning to demean faith in this way. Nonetheless, it is inherent in the method. By privileging conclusions reached without faith, you inherently make faith a negative bias—as I said, a distortion to how you read and interpret the data which should be removed.
While most secular academics would likely read that, nod their heads and say, “Yes, of course, that is exactly what faith is,” as believers and disciples, we ought to take a more positive view of our faith and the revelations it gives us access to. Faith should be viewed as a positive bias—a lens which improves and enhances our vision and clarifies what we see. A corrective to our imperfect ability to reason and interpret.
The second byproduct is that it creates what I call a “One Way Street,” between reason and revelation. Because faith is “bracketed,” i.e., blocked off from traveling with our reason into the realm of scholarship, faith and revelation have no influence on the conclusions reached. But these conclusions are still imported back into the practitioner’s faith. That is, they reshape and reform their faith in light of conclusions reached without faith.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I am not opposed to letting scholarship, reason, and evidence influence and shape the content of our faith. My faith has certainly under gone changes as a result new information. What I am opposed to is the one way relationship created by bracketing faith out of scholarship, but not bracketing scholarship out of faith. Instead, I believe that faith and scholarship, reason and revelation, should have a two-way, give and take relationship. Where they help influence and shape each other.
This should not be viewed, however, as a relationship of equal partners. While granting that we can—and sometimes do—misunderstand what the Lord has revealed, we nonetheless ought to grant the Lord’s revelations precedence over our own reasoning. I particularly like the metaphor of faith and reason as riders on a tandem bike. Both must not only be peddling, but they must be in-sync with each other in order to move forward most effectively. And while the rider in the back can offer some guidance on where to go, only the front rider can actually steer the bike. I would suggest that faith should be the front rider. When we bracket faith out of scholarship, however, we often times not only make reason the front rider, but push faith off the bike completely (or, at least, forbid it from peddling at all, making it dead weight).
In closing, I would simply like to state what should be obvious—my faith is a part of me. As such, it will influence any creative act in which I engage—and make no mistake about it, scholarship, particularly that related to history and the humanities, is an act of creation, and hence a creative endeavor. It would be absurd to ask someone to “bracket” or ignore evidence they know contradicts something the Sunday School teacher, or the Sacrament meeting speaker, is saying. And, indeed, most practitioners of the bracketing method turn around and insist that scholarship is an important part of their faith, despite not letting faith be part of their scholarship.
I can no more bracket my faith out of my attempts at scholarship than I can turn off my brain and capacity to reason while worshiping at Church, or while reading the scriptures devotionally. Both reason and faith are part of who I am, and are constantly influencing me in how I understand both scholarship and revelation. To my best recollection, I have never pretended it to be otherwise. I freely and willingly and openly let faith influence my scholarship (and vice-versa), and leave to readers to decide what to count that for (whether it be a weakness or a strength).
When one contemplates the number of moves in a chess game “… After four moves by each player, the number of possible board configurations has rocketed to 315 billion,’ By David Shenk Doubleday you can understand the need for having faith in the masters playing the Chess Game of Life. Our Heavenly Father sees many many moves ahead of us in this “worldly/eternal ” chess game and thus to ensure our happy ending He gives counsel the meaning of which we just might not see at the moment.. this was a great article. Thank you. Dennis
I always struggle with discussions that put faith against reason. I think the whole discussion is usually misframed. To me it should be framed as what resources we use to reason with. We have the information that can be learned by our five mortal senses and we have the information that comes to us through our eternal spirit or our conscience. Each sense is a resource to use in our reasoning. Faith is involved by how much we value a particular sense. Of the five senses I usually value sight more often than other senses. You might say I have more faith in that sense. A person with poor vision or no vision may have more faith in their ability to touch or hear.
It would be silly for a person with impaired vision to claim that he is better off with poor vision or to simply give up on vision altogether. Yet that is what usually happens with the sense of the spirit. If someone with poor vision was offered glasses to have 20/20 vision, would he not welcome it? There are methods that can be used to correct, improve or sharpen our weak spiritual ability. Rather than using such methods, many who lack ability or understanding of this sense suggest that we blind ourselves spiritually rather than getting spiritual glasses. Such behavior seems very irrational to me and is motivated more by emotion than logic.
I find it somewhat humorous that those who argue vigorously against using our sense of the spirit use spiritual principles to argue their case, such as honesty, fairness and compassion. They consistently contradict their arguments with their behavior.
My Dad used to say “when you play the game by the other man’s rules, you always lose.” This bracketing idea seems to me to be nothing less than playing by the academic’s rules.
Very well said.
Please go to http://www.librosenred.com. Authors, my name, and look for my book!”To be or not to be…a believer”. Please comment
Ok- I think I understand what you are saying but if you had given a fe crystal clear exsmples of application we would be able to confirm our agrteement or disagreement. Do you adhere to a notion of “blind faith” and the role it can play in one’s “faith ” journey. Many of us have been there.
Even Martin Luther had his crisis of faith- works or grace? He being enlightened by the HS through the scriptures finally was able to “see”- salvation is all about grace alone in his new faith’s eye. How about a convert to the Mormon faith who suddenly sees his RC faith shattered when he comes to believe in the prophet JS. Or the reverse, a Mormon no longer has faith in JS- his character, story or doctrine and becomes an evangelical. Or the Mormon who comes to believe his faith in Mormonism has “issues” and puts said issues on the shelf because of family or employment and considers he can believe enough to stay Mormon.
I would that you would provide some examples so we can understand more fully the points you are making.
I notice that Pres. Eyring reflected the above approach to combining faith and scholarship when he talked about his father in this past (Oct. 2015) General Conference:
“He knew eternal truth the only way you can know it. He was a scientist who searched for truth about the physical world throughout his entire adult life. He used the tools of science well enough to be honored by his peers across the world. Much of what he did in chemistry came from seeing in his mind’s eye molecules moving about and then confirming his vision by experiments in a laboratory. But he had followed a different course to discover the truths that mattered most to him and to each of us. Only through the Holy Ghost can we see people and events as God sees them.” (read more at “The Holy Ghost as Your Companion,” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/the-holy-ghost-as-your-companion?lang=eng) .
Alan Bylund I agree. Faith and the guidance of the Spirit should be our primary sense. In addition we should combine with that our other senses – science, scholarship, history etc…but we must keep in mind that the latter are moving targets which periodically shift as new evidence is obtained and interpreted. That is why President Uchtdorf’s counsel to doubt your doubts is so important. People leave the Church over some supposedly proven fact and then that “fact” later turns out to be wrong. It is also true that sometimes our understanding of the revelations is imperfect and subject to amendment as new revelation or inspiration is given – line upon line. However, we can have the witness of the Spirit and know the Church is true even though we don’t understand everything about every doctrine. That is why we must put some issues on the shelf for a while and live by faith until we get more information.
I also point out that it would be foolish to willingly give up any one of our senses. Why would anyone decide to blind themselves and rely primarily on hearing or make themselves deaf and rely primarily only on sight? Yet, that’s essentially what people are doing when they decide not to listen to spiritual promptings. They argue that spiritual promptings or “feelings” are subjective and that people who use them are self-deceived. However, the Light of Christ, and the promptings of the Holy Ghost are real and men and women, as children of God, have the ability to use this senses to their benefit. Some truths are spiritually discerned. When people are persuaded to set this major sense aside they are diminished in their ability to discern truth, they become spiritually blinded, and are more easily blown about with every wind of doctrine.
Like many other believing scholars, Henry B. Eyring’s father set the pattern (as commented above). Rather than narrowing his belief system to empiricism, he left the door open to faith. The result: a synergistic approach to life that cannot be matched by an exclusive reliance on either discipline. For non-believing critics, the Prophet Jacob said it best: “…when they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not to the counsel of God, supposing they know of themselves…” (2 Nephi 9:28). On the other hand, many believers–even many LDS–do not follow Peter’s counsel as given in 2 Peter Chapter 1, especially verses 5-8 and 20.
President Eyring’s father was wise.