RT Article
T1 Revelation and Reasons
JF Scottish journal of theology
VO 11
IS 4
SP 352
OP 361
A1 Smart, Ninian
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 1958
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785541943
AB The article by Dr Farrer on ‘Revelation’ in the Faith and Logic collection is of special importance, for here we have a theologian attempting to steer between the Scylla of irrationalism and the Charybdis of apriorism. That is, by trying to point out the criteria for determining the truth of revelation he is able to avoid the extreme irrationalism that has characterised much Protestant theology in recent decades; while on the other hand, in concentrating attention upon these checks on religious truth he escapes that metaphysical assimilation of religious to deductive arguments which mars Thomism and (the more immediate cause of the irrationalist revolt) Hegelianism. Whereas the word ‘reason’ is a chameleon, which changes its colour in accordance with its environment, so that mathematical reasoning has a different style and rigour from reasoning in morals, and this in turn differs from scientific reasoning, etc., philosophers and theologians have tended to overlook such matters. A crude version of a common attitude can be expressed something as follows: ‘In religion there either is or is not a proper place for reasoning (and this will be deductive reasoning); if there is, we can divide theological assertions into two kinds, those which are provable by reason and those which are not; and if there is not, we must take religious assertions on faith.’ This attitude has two main evil effects.
DO 10.1017/S003693060000911X