We propose here to take a sudden break from our train of thought so far to reflect on two fundamental questions that might creep up by now.
1. In this scientific age, where truth is supposedly measured by the Principle of Verification, what is the place for faith and religion?
2. We started out with our main title of this series "Perfect Happiness is our Birth-Right" and seems to have strayed into matters of faith without showing any connection of the latter to our happiness at all!
1. Science and Religion: This is the age-old question of the compatibility between the two tempting us to accept one as true and reject the other as false. In any dispute, the contending parties themselves cannot be the arbitrators and so a third party is needed to study the case and settle it. In our case, the third party is Philosophy that will lay out certain fundamental principles that no reasonable person can ignore and still profess to be reasonable. What are these fundamental principles? The basic ones are as follows:
a) Anything that exists or claims to exist should have a reason, either from itself or from outside itself. This is called the principle of sufficient reason.
b) If the reason is from itself, it is divided into two sub-sections: The principle of identity and the principle of contradiction or non-contradiction.
c) If the reason is from outside itself, it is called the principle of causality.
d) The principle of being open: A reasonable person will not restrict oneself to a particular mode of reality or thinking with the exclusion of all others, claiming them to be non-existent, but be open to reality that may reveal itself anytime.
If both science and religion follow these principles, which are the minimum requirement of reasonableness, there need not arise any animosity between the two. They can progress together side by side keeping to their own fields of interest and ultimately converge on Truth that is but One.The Principle of Verification of Science is but a restricted tool used by various sciences in their own fields of specialization and will vary for each branch of science. It is not equipped to fight religion or faith, which have their own ways of verification of truth. This right of religion and faith has to be readily conceded since there is no uniform method of verification even in sciences. All of these principles arise from the fundamental principle of sufficient reason. Besides, it is not without reason that we qualified truth in science as supposedly measured by the Principle of Verification. The progenitors of the Principle in the Vienna Circle of Philosophers and their followers like British empiricist A.J.Ayer could try to defend it only as a principle of meaningfulness of statements and not as one for truth. Even so, it was established that the Principle could not stand as a general principle of meaningful statements in all fields of knowledge.
As for faith, though the core of faith is blind and a leap in the dark, it has its own sufficient reason not to make an unreasonable leap. This is why Philosophy is said to be the handmaid of Theology! Those who go for an unreasonable leap fall into superstitions and dark practices due to ignorance, greed for money, satisfaction of lusts etc. Thus, we have to make the fundamental distinction between the rationality of physical sciences pertaining to the visible level and the rationality of the metaphysical ones belonging to the invisible level.
2. Faith and Happiness: As for the next point of perfect happiness and matters of faith, it is the general experience of humanity that this visible world does not contain perfect happiness. Therefore, we have to search for masters who have overcome the world offering us a share in their kingdom for perfect happiness.
We have chosen Jesus Christ as our master, teacher or 'Guru', in the Indian context, to let us enter into perfect happiness. Jesus not only announced, but started building up the kingdom of heaven (of God) in this world to be completed in the world to come. We would like to be his disciples in order to be perfectly happy that is meant by entering into the Kingdom of God or into eternal life.
There is, however, a catch in this whole program initiated by Jesus. Jesus wants us to discern between reality and appearances. What appears to be true and pleasant may in fact turn out to be false and unpleasant. On the contrary, what appears to be false and unpleasant may turn out to be true and pleasant. Our attempt through the posts we have so far made as well as the ones to follow is to bring out into the open the true nature of reality and the real source of our happiness. This is summarized in the war cry, so to say, of Jesus: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew, 4:17). We are but trying to understand and follow this momentous call of the difference between life and death for us in eternity!
1. In this scientific age, where truth is supposedly measured by the Principle of Verification, what is the place for faith and religion?
2. We started out with our main title of this series "Perfect Happiness is our Birth-Right" and seems to have strayed into matters of faith without showing any connection of the latter to our happiness at all!
1. Science and Religion: This is the age-old question of the compatibility between the two tempting us to accept one as true and reject the other as false. In any dispute, the contending parties themselves cannot be the arbitrators and so a third party is needed to study the case and settle it. In our case, the third party is Philosophy that will lay out certain fundamental principles that no reasonable person can ignore and still profess to be reasonable. What are these fundamental principles? The basic ones are as follows:
a) Anything that exists or claims to exist should have a reason, either from itself or from outside itself. This is called the principle of sufficient reason.
b) If the reason is from itself, it is divided into two sub-sections: The principle of identity and the principle of contradiction or non-contradiction.
c) If the reason is from outside itself, it is called the principle of causality.
d) The principle of being open: A reasonable person will not restrict oneself to a particular mode of reality or thinking with the exclusion of all others, claiming them to be non-existent, but be open to reality that may reveal itself anytime.
If both science and religion follow these principles, which are the minimum requirement of reasonableness, there need not arise any animosity between the two. They can progress together side by side keeping to their own fields of interest and ultimately converge on Truth that is but One.The Principle of Verification of Science is but a restricted tool used by various sciences in their own fields of specialization and will vary for each branch of science. It is not equipped to fight religion or faith, which have their own ways of verification of truth. This right of religion and faith has to be readily conceded since there is no uniform method of verification even in sciences. All of these principles arise from the fundamental principle of sufficient reason. Besides, it is not without reason that we qualified truth in science as supposedly measured by the Principle of Verification. The progenitors of the Principle in the Vienna Circle of Philosophers and their followers like British empiricist A.J.Ayer could try to defend it only as a principle of meaningfulness of statements and not as one for truth. Even so, it was established that the Principle could not stand as a general principle of meaningful statements in all fields of knowledge.
As for faith, though the core of faith is blind and a leap in the dark, it has its own sufficient reason not to make an unreasonable leap. This is why Philosophy is said to be the handmaid of Theology! Those who go for an unreasonable leap fall into superstitions and dark practices due to ignorance, greed for money, satisfaction of lusts etc. Thus, we have to make the fundamental distinction between the rationality of physical sciences pertaining to the visible level and the rationality of the metaphysical ones belonging to the invisible level.
2. Faith and Happiness: As for the next point of perfect happiness and matters of faith, it is the general experience of humanity that this visible world does not contain perfect happiness. Therefore, we have to search for masters who have overcome the world offering us a share in their kingdom for perfect happiness.
We have chosen Jesus Christ as our master, teacher or 'Guru', in the Indian context, to let us enter into perfect happiness. Jesus not only announced, but started building up the kingdom of heaven (of God) in this world to be completed in the world to come. We would like to be his disciples in order to be perfectly happy that is meant by entering into the Kingdom of God or into eternal life.
There is, however, a catch in this whole program initiated by Jesus. Jesus wants us to discern between reality and appearances. What appears to be true and pleasant may in fact turn out to be false and unpleasant. On the contrary, what appears to be false and unpleasant may turn out to be true and pleasant. Our attempt through the posts we have so far made as well as the ones to follow is to bring out into the open the true nature of reality and the real source of our happiness. This is summarized in the war cry, so to say, of Jesus: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew, 4:17). We are but trying to understand and follow this momentous call of the difference between life and death for us in eternity!
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