Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
“Q1 Must human faith be completed by reason, or not?”
Sic et Non (1120)
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Peter Abelard20
French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent lo… 1079–1142Related quotes
“Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith.”
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian
Reported in Walter Nigg, The Heretics: Heresy Through the Ages (1962) (who cites Adolph Hausrath 1895 as a source)
Context: The faith of simplicity is mocked, the secrets of Christ profaned, questions on the highest things are impertinently asked, the Fathers scorned because they were disposed to conciliate rather than solve such problems. Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. It falls upon things which are beyond it... desecrates sacred things more than clarifies them. It does not unlock mysteries and symbols, but tears them asunder; it makes nought of everything to which it cannot gain access and disdains to believe all such things.
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…
A Prescription for Hope (1985)
Context: If we are to succeed, this vision must possess millions of people. We must convince each generation that they are but transient passengers on this planet earth. It does not belong to them. They are not free to doom generations yet unborn. They are not at liberty to erase humanity's past nor dim its future. Only life itself can lay claim to sacred continuity. The magnitude of the danger and its imminence must bring the human family together in common pursuit of peace denied throughout the century. On the threshold of a new millennium the achievement of world peace is no longer remote, for it is beckoned by the unleashing of the deepest spiritual forces embedded in humankind when threatened with extinction. The reason, the creativeness, and the courage that human beings possess foster an abiding faith that what humanity creates, humanity can and will control.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi
"The Holy Dimension", p. 338
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: There is neither advance nor service without faith. Nobody can rationally explain why he should sacrifice his life and his happiness for the sake of the good. The conviction that I must obey the ethical imperatives is not derived from logical argument but originates from an intuitive certitude, in a certitude of faith.
There is no conspiracy against reason, no random obstinacy, no sluggish inertia of mind or smug self-assurance entrenched behind the walls of believing. Faith does not detach a man from thinking, it does not suspend reason. It is opposed not to knowledge but to backwardness and dullness, to indifferent aloofness to the essence of living. … It is a distortion to regard reason and faith as alternatives. Reason is a necessary coefficient of faith. Faith without explication by reason is mute, reason without faith is deaf. There can be a true symbiosis of reason and faith.
Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast
Patheos, A Letter to a Certain Christian http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/10/12/a-letter-to-a-certain-christian/ (October 12, 2013)
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954), by Louis Fischer, p. 177 <br class="br"> Mahatma Gandhi to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, August 29, 1947 https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/ghp_booksection_detail/Ny0yMzUtMg==#page/258/mode/2up. In Letters to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. 1st edition (April, 1961), p. 246 <br class="br">Posthumous publications (1950s and later)