Faith and Reason

Abstract

In a symposium with Roger Trigg, Renford Bambrough remarks that in discussing the difference between reason and faith philosophers too often raise the issue in a misleading form.1 The form is that of the ‘treacherous singular’. In other words, they assume that there is a single difference between reason and faith, that a line may be drawn with faith entirely on one side and reason entirely on the other. Against this, Bambrough argues that there is no sharp difference between the two, that they are related in many ways and that within the network of our discourse they come to different things at different points. Philosophers too often look only at one or two points, assume a radical divergence and produce a caricature alike of reason and of faith. A more extensive view will reveal no such radical incompatibility; rather it will enable us to see faith as a mode of reason.