Reason vs. Mysticism: Truth and Consequences
By Craig Biddle
How do we know what is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong? What is our means of knowledge?
Our answers to these questions are the most consequential of all. They underlie and affect everything we think, say, and do. They determine the ideas we accept and reject, the plans we make, the actions we take, what we support, and whom we enable. They determine the course of our lives and the course of our culture, for better or worse.
Is knowledge a product of reason, observation, and logic? Is it a product of religious faith or social consensus? Is it acquired through a mixture of these—or perhaps some other means?
Toward answering these questions, we will look first at reason, its key components, and how they work. Then we will consider two forms of mysticism (i.e., claims to a means of knowledge other than reason) along with arguments in support of each: (1) the claim that religious faith is a means of knowledge, and (2) the claim that social consensus is a means of knowledge.
Reason and How It Works
Reason, as the philosopher Ayn Rand observed, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.1 It operates by means of perceptual observation, conceptual integration, and logic.
In using reason, we perceive things, such as rocks, roses, people, and birds—and we observe their qualities and actions, such as hardness, redness, speaking, and flying. We mentally integrate our observations into conceptual abstractions, such as “rock,” “bird,” “speak,” and “fly”—and we integrate our concepts into increasingly abstract concepts, such as “animal,” “life,” “inanimate,” and “mortal.”
We further integrate our concepts into propositions and generalizations, such as “roses can be red,” “rocks are inanimate,” and “animals are mortal”—and into principles, such as “living things must take certain actions in order to remain alive” and “people must acquire knowledge in order to live.”
By enabling us to mentally integrate our perceptions into abstractions (concepts, generalizations, etc.), reason enables us to acquire, retain, and use a vast network of observation-based conceptual knowledge—from the principles of hunting to those of biology, to those of physics, engineering, art, and psychology.
Of course, human beings are fallible; we can err in our thinking. So, in order to correct any misconceptions or errors we might make, we must check our ideas for correspondence to reality. Our touchstones for this are the basic laws of nature: the laws of identity and causality. . . .
The law of identity is the self-evident truth that everything is something specific; everything has properties that make it what it is; everything has a nature: A thing is what it is. (A rose is a rose; a woman is a woman.) The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action: A thing can act only in accordance with its nature.2 (A rose can bloom, it cannot speak; a woman can become an engineer, she cannot become a pillar of salt.) Insofar as our thinking is consistent with the laws of identity and causality, our thinking is grounded in reality; insofar as it is not, it is not. Our method for checking our ideas for compliance with these laws is logic, the method of non-contradictory identification.3
The basic law of logic is the law of non-contradiction, which is the law of identity in negative form: A thing cannot be both what it is and what it is not at the same time and in the same respect.4 (A rose cannot simultaneously be a non-rose.) The law of non-contradiction is the basic principle of rational thinking. Because a contradiction cannot exist in nature—because things are what they are—if a contradiction exists in our thinking, then our thinking is mistaken and in need of correction. (If we believe that a bush spoke or that a woman turned into a pillar of salt, then we need to correct our thinking).
Reason also enables us to use concepts for engaging in fantasy. We can pretend for the sake of fun or enjoyment that reality is other than it is—for instance, when we read science fiction or play Dungeons and Dragons. We also can pretend that reality is other than it is in an effort to “get away” with something we know we shouldn’t do—such as when a bank robber pretends that other people’s money belongs to him. Further, reason enables us to distinguish between these two types of pretending (fantasy and immorality) and to form concepts for identifying the state of mind of an adult who is unable to make the distinction (e.g., schizophrenic) or unwilling to do so (dishonest).
Reason is astonishingly powerful. It is why human beings have achieved so much and continue to achieve more and more. Consider modern agriculture, shipping, and food production; atomic theory, fracking, and energy production; air and space travel; symphonies and sculptures; COVID vaccines and radiation treatment; satellites, the internet, Zoom meetings—all such values are made possible by reason.
“Knowledge,” as Ayn Rand defines it, is “a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation.”5
Reason is our means of knowledge and our basic means of living. It works. We can see that it works. And we can see how it works. It works by means of identifiable sense organs and methods—including our eyes and ears, conceptual integration, and logic.
Now let’s consider the claim that faith is a means of knowledge.
Religious Faith as a Means of Knowledge
According to the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, faith is a means of gaining knowledge apart from or against evidence and logic.
Understanding the distinction between reason and faith is crucial, so I want to emphasize it from a few perspectives.
When a person accepts ideas on the basis of evidence and logic, he is accepting them by means of reason. When he accepts ideas on faith, he is accepting them in the absence of evidence or in defiance of logic. We have the two different concepts—reason and faith—so that we can differentiate between these two different ways of accepting ideas.
What one can know by reason is limited to that for which there is evidence. What one (allegedly) can know by faith is not limited. For instance, on the premise that faith is a means of knowledge, a person can “know” that a woman turned into a pillar of salt—even though (a) no evidence supports the idea and (b) the idea defies the laws of nature and logic. Likewise, on this premise, a person can “know” that a bush spoke, that a stick turned into a snake, that the Earth is only six thousand years old, or that seventy-two virgins await those who die fighting for Allah.
Because faith rejects the need for evidence and logic, a person of faith can “know” literally anything to be true. The following observations and integrations will bear this out.
“Faith,” according to the Bible, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”6 As Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts it, faith is a way of grasping truths that are “beyond our rational discerning,” beyond what “either reason or perception is able to grasp.”7
Given that faith does not operate by means of reason or perception, how exactly does it work? When we use reason, we receive data from external reality by means of our senses. We see by means of our eyes, hear by means of our ears, touch and feel by means of our skin and nerves. Our sense organs are our points of direct contact with reality. They are where and how the basic data of knowledge comes in. When someone “knows” by means of faith, what organ receives the data?
Islamic scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali explains: “Faith is belief in things which you do not see with your eyes but you understand with your spiritual sense.”8 What is your “spiritual sense”? Rabbi Heschel elaborates: It’s the sense that pertains not to the truth of perceptual reality, but to “the truth of an invisible reality,” a reality “man’s physical sense does not capture, yet the ‘spiritual soul’ in him perceives.”9
In other words, your “spiritual sense” is an extra, non-physical sense—a form of “extrasensory perception” or ESP—a sense that functions by means of no physical organ.
And what is the purpose of this “spiritual sense”? What does it do for you that reason and your physical senses do not? It enables you to believe in the existence of God and to obey his (alleged) commandments. Rabbi Heschel explains: “Just as clairvoyants may see the future” by means of their mystical powers, so, too, people of faith can grasp “the presence of God” and the imperative “to obey His rules and commandments” by way of their “spiritual sense.”10
What kind of rules and commandments does this “spiritual sense” enable people of faith to “understand” and obey? A biblical example is the commandment God issued to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.”11 That order, of course, does not make any rational sense. Why should a man kill his beloved son? But pointing out that an “understanding” received by the “spiritual sense” doesn’t make rational sense misses the point of faith.
The fact that the “spiritual sense” may deliver “truths” or “commandments” that don’t make sense from a rational perspective is, according to people of faith, irrelevant. “Where the act of faith takes place,” Rabbi Heschel explains, “is beyond all reasons. . . . Nobody can explain rationally why he should sacrifice his life and happiness for the sake of the good. The conviction that we must obey [God’s] ethical imperatives is not derived from logical arguments. It originates in an intuitive certitude, in a certitude of faith.”12
Now that we have a more fleshed-out idea of what faith is and how it supposedly works, let us ask a pressing question: What reason is there to accept faith as a means of knowledge? Why should people accept the idea that truth can be grasped by non-sensory, non-rational means?
Saint Thomas Aquinas answers: People “ought to believe matters of faith, not because of human reasoning, but because of the divine authority.” And why should people accept “the divine authority”? More to the point: Why should people accept the existence of a “divine being” in the first place? Aquinas answers: “In order that men might have knowledge of God, free of doubt and uncertainty, it was necessary for divine truths to be delivered to them by way of faith, being told to them, as it were, by God Himself who cannot lie.”13
That, of course, is a circular argument. It commits the logical fallacy of question begging or circular reasoning (i.e., assuming the point at issue, in an attempt to prove it).14 But such logical errors do not faze people of faith, because by accepting faith as a means of knowledge, they reject the principles of logic.
Theologian and pastor John Calvin attests to this:
Our conviction of the truth of Scripture must be derived from a higher source than human conjectures, judgments, or reasons; namely, the secret testimony of the Spirit. . . . God alone can properly bear witness to his own words. . . . The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely entrusted.15
The devoutly religious philosopher René Descartes provides another example, with the added twist of openly acknowledging the circularity of his argument and the fact that people of reason will not accept it:
It is of course quite true that we must believe in the existence of God because it is a doctrine of Holy Scripture, and conversely, that we must believe Holy Scripture because it comes from God; for since faith is the gift of God, he who gives us grace to believe other things can also give us grace to believe that he exists. But this argument cannot be put to unbelievers because they would judge it to be circular.16
Indeed, they would.
To accept faith as a means of knowledge is to undermine (and ultimately reject) reason along with all of the principles that attend it—including the need of evidence, the laws of logic, the method of science. If someone accepts the idea that he can know by means of faith, he thereby rejects the need of evidence and logic in support of knowledge. Conversely, if a person requires evidence and logic in support of knowledge, he thereby rejects the notion that anyone can know anything by means of faith. Thus, for people to maintain that faith is a means of knowledge, they must not allow the principles of reason to interfere with their project. An 18th-century Historical and Critical Dictionary explained:
Since the mysteries of n are of a supernatural order, they cannot and must not be subjected to the rules of natural light. They are not made for being exposed to the test of philosophical disputations. Their greatness and sublimity forbid them to undergo this ordeal. It would be contrary to the nature of things that they should come out from such a combat as the victors. Their essential character is to be an object of Faith, not an object of Scientific Knowledge. . . . A disputation conducted exclusively in the light of our natural human intelligence will always end unfavourably for the theologians.17
The theologians are well aware of this.
Rabbi Heschel insists, “Reason is not the measure of all things, not the all-controlling power in the life of the man, not the father of all assertions. . . . Logical plausibility does not create faith nor does logical implausibility refute it.”18
Theologian and priest Martin Luther has more choice words for reason. It is, he says, “The Devil’s bride” and “God’s worst enemy”:
There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason, especially if she enters into spiritual matters which concern the soul and God. For it is more possible to teach an ass to read than to blind such a reason and lead it right. . . . Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. . . . Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God.19
We’ve seen what faith is. We’ve heard its advocates acknowledge that it involves no identifiable apparatus or means of operation, save a so-called “spiritual sense,” which amounts to clairvoyance or ESP. And we’ve heard what defenders of faith have to say about reason.
Now let’s take seriously this question: What would it mean genuinely to embrace faith as a means of knowledge—and to advocate that others do so, too? What would it mean in practice?
If we accept the idea that faith is a means of knowledge, we thereby accept the notion that people can “know” literally anything to be true:
If a person has faith that he should love his neighbor, then he knows he should love his neighbor.
If he has faith that he should love his enemies, then he knows he should love his enemies.
If he has faith that he should turn the other cheek if someone strikes him, then he knows he should do so.
If he has faith that he should kill his son if God commands it, then he knows he should do this.
If he has faith that he should convert or kill unbelievers in obedience to Allah, then he knows he should do that.
And so on.
You see the breadth and depth of the problem.
This is why people of faith have been slaughtering each other—and slaughtering people of reason—for centuries. The Middle Ages were fraught with misery and bloodshed because of people’s faith-based obedience to an alleged God’s will. The Crusades entailed the massacre of tens of thousands of men, women, and children because people had faith that those of the wrong faith must die. In faith-based compliance with an alleged God’s will, priests and soldiers of the Inquisition imprisoned, tortured, hanged, gored, or burned tens of thousands of “heretics.” (Victims included the astronomer Giordano Bruno, who was burned alive for the “heresy” of thinking, and the scientist Galileo, who was sentenced to life under house arrest for defying the Church by reporting the truth.) The Thirty Years’ War was thirty uninterrupted years of Protestants and Catholics slaughtering each other over whose “spiritual sense” got things right. Christians in 17th-century Massachusetts held “witch” trials and hanged or crushed to death those whom their “spiritual sense” deemed “guilty.” Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, ordering his execution for “insulting” Allah in his novel The Satanic Verses, because Muslims have faith that their alleged God wants them to kill anyone who insults him. Osama bin Laden ordered jihadists to hijack commercial airliners and crash them into skyscrapers full of people because bin Laden and the jihadists had faith that Allah exists and wants Muslims to kill unbelievers. In the so-called “Holy Land” in the Middle East, people of faith have been at war since religion began, slaughtering each other for having the wrong “spiritual sense.” Religious disputes between Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims are at the core of centuries of faith-based hatred and slaughter in the Balkans. In Afghanistan, the Taliban regularly beat, jail, and murder people for breaking the faith-based laws of Islam. (The punished include women for holding a job or exposing their ankles, men for failing to wear a beard, homosexuals for existing, and anyone for partaking in activities such as playing music, dancing, playing soccer, playing cards, taking photographs, or flying a kite.) And Muslims throughout the world declitorize young girls and make them “marry” old men because they “know” that this is moral.
Should we support these practices? The question is absurd. Yet if we accept faith as a means of knowledge, we do support them.
Either faith is a means of knowledge, or it is not. If it is, then whatever people have faith is true is by that fact true—and whatever they have faith they should do, they know they should do. Contrary to the tired bromide, “If there is no God, anything goes,” the fact is: If faith is a means of knowledge, anything goes.