Is faith purely emotional or is it possible to provide a rational justification for religious belief?

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

T.O.K.

Is faith purely emotional or is it possible to provide a rational justification for religious belief?

I would like to firstly substitute some of the words with simpler alternatives. Hence, is faith/trust purely an expression of instinct/emotional or is it possible to provide justification on a logical basis/rational justification for religious belief/acceptance.

On comparing the two stands of emotion and rationale it therefore becomes obvious that the two are most definitely opposites. Though I agree that at times the two may have similar responses their approach is different and so logic and instinct are certainly different as well.

For example;

The religious cleric may abstain from war because he claims God told him to do so. Yet the atheist may also abstain on the grounds that war causes destruction of property and life as well as economic instability.

So clearly while both are abstaining from war, they are doing so for different reasons.

However, to look more closely at ‘faith’, we can consider it from a different standpoint. People can have faith in their religion because of ‘evidence’ that they find. For example,

The scientist boasted in 1999 on his discovery of the death of a white star. ...

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For example;

So clearly while both are abstaining from war, they are doing so for different reasons.

However, to look more closely at ‘faith’, we can consider it from a different standpoint. People can have faith in their religion because of ‘evidence’ that they find. For example,

The scientist boasted in 1999 on his discovery of the death of a white star. It was a breakthrough in astrology. However, the Muslim clerics pointed out that this information had already been known to them for the death of the star was revealed centuries ago in the Quran. Learning of this, many of the scientists in the research team accepted Islam.

The example above explains how belief has been brought about in an individual not by instinct or emotion but through logical and sensible reasoning. The researches could obviously not believe that someone in Arabia would be able to observe such a procedure centuries ago. This procedure required the launch of space telescopes and some of the world’s strongest existing ground telescopes.

Hence the answer must be that it is possible to ascertain religious belief via rational justification. How frequent this maybe is another matter altogether.

Is emotion a source of spiritual knowledge?

This can be interpreted as whether spiritual knowledge is gained through emotion. Knowledge, in whatever form it may be in can be explained by the formula:

Knowledge = Justifiable x True x Belief (K = JTB)

Knowledge is information that we can believe in because we know it is true after justifying it through logic. Since it has already been mentioned that emotion and logic are two different issues it is therefore not possible for emotion to be a source of spiritual knowledge.

If so, how can we justify discussing spiritual matters in public?

Since I feel that emotion is not a source of spiritual knowledge the question remains irrelevant. Indeed it only further proves my point. If emotion was a source of spiritual knowledge then there would be many problems. For example, since people can have different emotions/instincts, they would discuss matters each through a different approach, henceforth resulting in chaos.

Ali Rathore IB1 – DR