by Scott Cherry
So for me this book is a celebration of reason, and I hope it will be for you too. Frankly, I love reason—literally everything about it. I love the way it works and how universal it is to the human species. Even though I will never talk to everybody in the world, by inductive reasoning I can be confident that people in Mongolia use reason too. It’s utterly fascinating to me that I can reason about things and solve many kinds of problems with it. I love that I can think about my own powers of reason and apply reason to them. I can analyze my own reasoning and make mental observations about the way I am doing it. This is called metacognition, and much of this book is metacognitive.
But I also love faith. If you had assumed this about me before now it was justified, but now I will ‘show you my hand’ as they say in cards. Yes, I am a man of faith as well as a reason, I openly admit it. As I have already alluded, I do not think they’re mutually exclusive or normally in competition with each other. In my educated opinion, faith and reason are complementary human attributes and share many interdependent qualities. They go ‘hand-in-glove’. That such pains are taken to exclude faith from the natural sciences is irrational. In a paper I wrote for Philosophy of Science I defended that claim, but in this book I will merely scratch the surface of the intersection of faith and reason. Again, I will primarily focus on reason to show how it validates some kinds of faith. You see, I presuppose that reason and faith have the same source, so reason is equally essential for people of faith as it is for those who disavow faith. It is necessary for both our everyday practices of faith and the intellectual pursuits of faith. That is to say, reason can be applied to faith and I do not think it is ‘schizophrenic’ to do so. In fact, many of the greatest men and women of faith have also been great thinkers with impressive intellectual prowess.
Take C.S. Lewis for example, a prolific Christian philosopher of the 20th century and a great exemplar to me and many others. Lewis actually formulated an argument for God based on the fact of reason. From my reading of his various writings and the literature about them I have known of this argument for some years but to my shame I had not actually read it until after I published this book. On the other hand I am proud to admit this because (if you believe me) it proves that I have not borrowed from it except for this quote below. Still, one should not be surprised to find commonalities between argument and mine.
In his essay “Is Theology Poetry” Lewis wrote:
Long before I believed Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture [i.e. naturalism] was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it… The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or the remotest part obeys the thought laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory—in other words, unless Reason is an absolute—all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based. The difficulty is to me a fatal one; and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare’s nest but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought from the very beginning. (Underscore mine)
"Is Theology Poetry?": The Weight of Glory and other essays http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/Theology=Poetry_CSL.pdf
It is not my intent to delve deeply into Lewis’s argument, either now or later. I only wish to highlight the fact that Lewis was a man of faith who thought reason was “absolute”. In this quote he seems to point to the fact that it is by reason that we comprehend the world and the reality in which we find ourselves. But he also seems to think it is ‘unreasonable’ to ascribe reason to “mindless matter”. In other words, in reasoning about reason itself, Lewis was so impressed with its powers that it seemed utterly unreasonable to him that reason could be the product of something without it. This is an idea that has captured my thoughts as well, and has been a stimulus for this book. He surmised that the most reasonable source of reason should be a rational one, as do I. Again, Lewis was a man of faith but he is not even talking about faith here, only reason. So his argument is that the fact of reason itself—the very presupposition of it—points strongly to a divine Source. I agree. I think Lewis is asserting that the exercise of reason involves a kind of implicit ‘faith’ in reason that is necessary to follow it where it leads, but also that reason actually bolsters the exercise of faith (or at least it should). This is an important part of my perspective as well. I am no Lewis but I hope I can do justice to his philosophical foundation.
I hope you enjoy my humble book, The Reason for Reason. More than that, I hope you will find it intellectually stimulating, meaningful, and compelling. Still more, I hope the weight and strength of my whole argument will lead you to the same conclusions that I have drawn, or similar ones. (And what author does not want that?) This is my first book and I value your feedback and reviews more than I might if this were my tenth. If you have read all or part of it, please make a simple effort to share this and some of your thoughts with me in the form of an online comment, a full review, or an email to me. I will use your feedback to improve future editions of this book.
Sincerely,
Scott R. Cherry
[email protected]
Reason
By C.S. Lewis
Set on the soul's acropolis the reason stands
A virgin, arm'd, commercing with celestial light,
And he who sins against her has defiled his own
Virginity: no cleansing makes his garment white;
So clear is reason. But how dark, imagining,
Warm, dark, obscure and infinite, daughter of Night:
Dark is her brow, the beauty of her eyes with sleep
Is loaded and her pains are long, and her delight.
Tempt not Athene. Wound not in her fertile pains
Demeter, nor rebel against her mother-right.
Oh who will reconcile in me both maid and mother,
Who make in me a concord of the depth and height?
Who make imagination's dim exploring touch
Ever report the same as intellectual sight?
Then could I truly say, and not deceive,
Then wholly say, that I B E L I E V E.
Chapter 1
Introduction: The Little Girl and the Logos
Why do reason and logic work?
Why do we believe and trust in them?
Why do we expect things to make sense?
Why does anything make sense at all?
The Rational Little Girl
This is a book about the prevalence of reason and related things that I and many people consider self-evident. On my own introspection, I guess I have a heightened awareness of how people use reason in ways that often intrigue or humor me.
My neighbors in the corner house two doors down are nice people of Lebanese descent. They’re a young couple in their early thirties with three young children, the eldest of which is a girl named Zainab who’s about 7 years old. One day I was walking past their house when Zainab and her mother were in the front yard. Her mother was sweeping the front porch while Zainab was at the helm of a full-sized baby stroller meandering slowly up and down the sidewalk, blocking both lanes. I was walking around the block in that direction. When Zainab saw me coming, instead of moving to one side she attempted to get out of my way by accelerating her pace with the stroller ahead of me, one of the two options. But it was not the best one. She did not factor in my speed relative to hers and in 10 seconds I overtook her. It was pretty cute.
Up to then it had not occurred to me to wonder what if anything was in the stroller, and the hood pre
vented me from seeing inside it at first. But when I caught up and was passing the stroller I glanced over and was surprised to see a baby in it! Now, if that seems kind of strange to you I admit it was strange for me not to assume there was a baby in the stroller. That’s actually the point. When I saw the baby I thought to myself, “Hey, there’s a baby in there” and also “Why should that surprise me?” Then I said to Zainab what anybody would have said: “Um, do you know there’s a baby in there?” …Do you think that was a stupid question? Maybe so, but I’m curious; why do you think so? Granted, I am stupid sometimes, but not that stupid. Actually, I said it to be “snarky”, i.e. just to seem stupid and to see what kind of reaction I would get. Yes, really. So, do you think she gave me a simple yes or no? It was what she said next that got me thinking for the next 20 minutes at least.
“Yes, I know that. …Why would I be pushing around this stroller if there was no baby in it?”
By then I had passed the stroller and I looked back to say, “That’s good logic” with a grin. Isn’t that kind of funny? It was to me. I guess that’s why I chose to write about it. It’s also a great example of one of my main ideas in this chapter and in this book. What’s your best guess? That…
Girls reason differently than boys? Nope. Contrary to urban legend, they do not.
Young children reason differently than teens and adults do? Uh uh. Not the case.
Members of ethnic minorities use a different logic than the majority uses? Nope.
Adherents of the Muslim religion use a different logic than non-Muslims? …No.
None of the above statements is true. The fact is that everyone—no matter what age group and demographic they belong to—uses and must use the very same rules of reason, and everyone is constrained by the same laws of logic and principles of reason. Premises always lead to conclusions. Normally, good reasoning is valued by everyone, everywhere, and we all expect it from one another, as I will endeavor to show. If it is faulty it’s always due to violations of a standard set of universal laws or principles. The principle of validity is one example which we will delve into more deeply later. In short, every argument is either valid or invalid, but never both (according to the law of non-contradiction). It’s not a matter of opinion. Either way, it is what it is for everyone, everywhere according to these fixed standards or rules of reason that we often call laws of logic. That they are fixed and permanent is my presupposition. Why they are fixed, how they got fixed and who fixed them, if anyone, is the focus of this inquiry. I argue that they neither fixed themselves nor arose naturally, in contrast to the view known as conventionalism. Simply put, they could not have, either by practice or by definition. Standards, rules and principles that act so much like laws require “legislation”, which requires a legislator.
On a side note, this is not to say that children have no special qualities. They do. Many of us recognize this even though their rational skills are not fully developed. That’s why in the better societies special laws are made to protect them and to promote their well-being. Two thousand years ago Jesus made this fascinating statement to his disciples: “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (Bible, Gospel of Matthew chapter 19:14) When Jesus said, “for…” he meant because, or for the following reason; then he gave it. He did not explain exactly what he meant by that but it had to be a weighty reason indeed. Perhaps it’s because their reasoning tends to be less rationalistic and more innocent in some sense. As important as reason and logic are most of us don’t want robots as friends or people like Spock from Star Trek who don’t mix in empathy and virtue. We are not meant to be computer-like. Although we are rational beings we are also emotional and moral.
Coming from this little girl it was adorable and even a little sassy. It was as if she was saying, “Duh…use some common sense, Mister.” I guess I had pretty much implied that she was stupid by asking that, and she threw it right back at me with good, sound reason. Of course, once I knew there was a baby in the stroller I also knew that she must have known it. How did I know? In actual fact, I didn’t “know” it empirically, but it was highly probable by virtue of a good assumption on my part that anyone would make: It is highly unlikely for a person to be pushing around a stroller and not know that it contains a baby. We may also call this a presupposition because the presence of a baby in a stroller usually presupposes one’s knowledge of it. But all this assuming or presupposing is often unconscious.
Assumptions are rational tools.
Zainab also called upon another assumption in her logic, that I should have the same assumptions she had. But the most salient one would be this: people do not usually push around strollers that contain no baby. Do you think that’s a good assumption? Of course. And I think we can agree that it’s generally true. Now, it’s not an absolutely true assumption, or it’s not an assumption at all. That’s why people say, “It’s never safe to assume”. But sometimes, or often, you must. That’s why people also say, “It’s safe to assume this or that…” The truth is the ability to assume is one of the components of human reason that seems to come with our “software bundle”; we must make assumptions because we do not know every fact in every situation. Indeed, we do not even need to know every fact, because some can be “safely assumed”. In many cases we have to make decisions based on partial information—some things we do know and some we don’t know. The important consideration about assumptions is that they can either be true or untrue, reasonable or unreasonable, so the trick is making good assumptions based on the available facts, which usually means that they’re reasonable, until later when the evidence is all in. As with other human abilities, the power to make reasonable assumptions is a vital skill that can and must be developed by everyone. Zainab’s mother made at least two assumptions of her own, that no cars would drive up onto the sidewalk and that nobody would grab the stroller and run. For that matter, Zainab assumed those things as well. Either of those assumptions could have been wrong but they were right and reasonable based on the available information. In my understanding, this is partly how faith works as well. Not “blind faith”, but reasonable faith.
The main point of all this is that reason has components. Humans have this ‘software bundle’ we call reason which contains a comprehensive menagerie, or collection, of thinking skills like the ones we have highlighted so far. And there are many more to be examined throughout our discussion. So we’re going to reason about reason and ask some very fundamental questions such as these: Why do we humans have this ‘software bundle’ in the first place? Why does it work? Why are the components essentially the same for everybody, everywhere? Where did it come from? And, is it even possible to know the answers to these questions scientifically? Finally, if we cannot know the answers scientifically, what is the most reasonable explanation?
Reason is based on non-negotiable laws.
Let’s go back to Zainab and her little brother in the stroller. In our short dialogue certain things became apparent, namely that Zainab could reason even though she was only 7. I assume she’d never formally studied critical thinking, and yet she proved that she could think critically. How exactly did she learn it? If we were to map out the logic it would look something like this:
Full-sized strollers exist for small children (to contain and transport them).
A full-sized stroller being pushed by someone probably has a child in it.
Zainab was pushing a full-sized stroller.
____________________________________
Therefore, there is probably a child in it.
Is this good reasoning? Yes. Does it mean necessarily that there is a child in it? (That would make it a deductive argument.) No. There might not have been. That’s why premise 2 says “probably” and not “certainly” or “always”. There are other possible explanations for why Zainab was pushing the stroller. For one, children like to pretend. Often little girls like to pretend they’re pushing a baby in a stroller that doe
s not actually contain one, or it contains a doll. In my own defense, this is what I think I assumed unconsciously, and it was reasonable but false in this case. If the stroller had been a smaller, toy-sized version it would have been a more certain bet, but it could just as easily have been true either way. So I don’t think I’m such an idiot after all.
Still, why did Zainab say what she said to me? “…Why would I be pushing around this stroller if there was no baby in it?” If I were to infer into Zainab’s meaning it would be one of two possibilities: 1) “You are silly because you should reasonably assume that if you see someone pushing a full-sized stroller there is a child in it” or 2) “I am not so silly as to push around an empty stroller.” Or both.
Zainab in her reasoning was using logic without even being conscious of the laws of logic. Again, she was unconsciously but rationally appealing to what I call the Law of Assumption, but also to the Law of Inference, which is similar. I call them laws because we must obey them. They are totally non-negotiable. Just as the natural laws demand physical conformity to them, so the laws of logic demand rational conformity. You cannot think and function without them. As we said above, you must assume things (i.e. you can’t help it) and you must infer things. Zainab was utilizing other laws of logic too without even knowing them. That’s how both sets of laws actually shape and control our reality, the order in which we live. They are imposed on us from birth (and from genesis) whether we are conscious of their names or not. But in actuality, even if we never learn their names they are still intelligible to us and eventually we learn that we’re subject to them. Even before Newton people knew the binding force of the natural Law of Gravity. The laws of logic are equally binding and reasonably point to a Lawgiver, for where there is law there is always a Lawgiver. I think that’s simple logic. Again, both categories of law are intelligible to us, and through them all other perceivable things in our Reality become intelligible to us. Without them we could know nothing. Add to these what some people call the moral law which is outside the scope of this small book. Taken together, these three categories are what constitute and define our Rational Order and how we make sense of it.