Faith and Understanding

243 Pages·1997·1.8 MB·English

by  Paul Helm

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Faith and Understanding

title: Faith and Understanding Reason & Religion (Grand
Rapids, Mich.)
author: Helm, Paul.
publisher: Edinburgh University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0748609229
print isbn13: 9780748609222
ebook isbn13: 9780585105116
language: English
subject Faith and reason--Christianity.
publication date: 1997
lcc: BT50.H5 1997eb
ddc: 231/.042
subject: Faith and reason--Christianity.
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Other titles in the Reason and Religion series:
Peter Byrne: The Moral Interpretation of Religion
ISBN 0 7486 0784 6
Stephen T. Davis: God, Reason and Theistic Proofs
ISBN 0 7486 0799 4
C. Stephen Evans: Faith Beyond Reason
ISBN 0 7486 0794 3

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Faith and Understanding
Paul Helm
Edinburgh University Press

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To Angela
© Paul Helm, 1997
Edinburgh University Press
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in 11 on 13 pt Sabon
by Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh,
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Hartnolls Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
A CIP record for this book is
available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7486 0796 X (hardback)
ISBN 0 7486 0922 9 (paperback)
The right of Paul Helm to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patent Act (1988).

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CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Part One The Main Issues
1. The 'Faith Seeks Understanding' Programme 3
5
Reasonsubstantive and procedural
9
Faith
18
Faith, understanding and philosophy
2. Faith Seeks Understanding 26
30
Faith Seeking Understanding and natural theology
35
Two contemporary approaches
36
Norman Kretzmann
43
Dewey Hoitenga
47
Other possibilities?
3. Understanding and Believing 53
55
A new proposal
67
The influence of Immanuel Kant
69
Objections
Part Two Five Case-studies
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4. Time and Creation in Augustine's Confessions 79
80
Time and Eternity
83
Augustine's three problems about time
85
Augustine's responses

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87
Time and creation
94
God and the creation of the world
99
Understanding and biblical interpretation
5. Anselm's Proslogion 104
110
An independent argument
119
Proslogion:the first four chapters
6. Anselm's Understanding of the Incarnation 128
130
Anselm's projects
136
Objections to the Atonement
140
Anselm's replies
7. Jonathan Edwards on Original Sin 152
154
Identity through time
159
Original sin
163
Edwards and identity through time
174
Comment
8. John Calvin's Sensus Divinitatis 177
180
The Sensus Divinitatis
183
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First application of the Sensus Divinitatis
191
Second application of the Sensus Divinitatis
197
Two questions
201
More radical still?
Bibliography 205
Index 209

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INTRODUCTION
The aim of this book is to discuss and evaluate the relation between religious faith and philosophy as this finds
expression in the 'faith seeks understanding' tradition. According to this tradition, philosophy is not an antagonist
of faith but provides tools and doctrines which may be used to articulate the faith, and so understand it better.
Such an approach characterises much contemporary philosophy of religion, particularly in the analytic tradition, as
it did the era of Christianity up to and somewhat beyond the Reformation. Indeed, the connections between the
mediaeval and the Protestant scholastic traditions, and the techniques and concerns of contemporary analytic
philosophy of religion are closer than the connection of such philosophy of religion with rationalism and
empiricism, or the Kantian and post-Kantian tradition.
Faith seeking understanding is an attempt to articulate faith, to elucidate its metaphysical, epistemological and
ethical implications. It has two main motives; to aid the believer's own understanding, of God and his ways, (an
understanding that will find its consummation in the beatific vision), and to rebut objections and challenges to his
faith, and particularly to individual doctrines of that faith, that arise from philosophical quarters.
The approach of faith seeking understanding is not, however, monolithic. Different thinkers in the tradition have
different understandings of the powers of human reason, and of the exact role that reason plays in articulating faith,
and different philosophical convictions. Certain issues

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remain matters of dispute, particularly the relation between faith seeking understanding and natural theology.
The book has two parts. Part One, the first three chapters, surveys and discusses various general features of faith
and understanding. As befits a philosophical approach, the emphasis is on the exposition and, where appropriate,
the critical appraisal of ideas and arguments rather than upon an examination of their historical provenance.
Part Two, the last five chapters, examines particular applications of faith and understanding. Of these the first three
see themselves as self-consciously within that tradition, the fourth and fifth less so, but nevertheless, as I shall try
to demonstrate, they exemplify it.
I have tried also to stress the diversity of the approach in another way. Some of the cases of faith seeking
understanding that we shall discuss work out an understanding of their faith in terms of an examination of a
particular doctrine; and this is the most natural way. But others consider a text of Scripture, others embark on
general metaphysical reflection intended to support Christian faith, while others take as their starting point the
seminal idea of a Christian thinker. Each of these approaches is represented in Part Two.
I am grateful to all, friends, colleagues and students, who have helped me to understand better the matters dealt
with in this book, and especially to my wife Angela for her support and encouragement.
Part of Chapter 7 originally appeared in 'Jonathan Edwards and the Doctrine of Temporal Parts', Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie (1979), pp.35-51.
FIFIELD
OXFORDSHIRE

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