Faith and reason: is there any legitimate move from the failure of argument to belief anyway?

J. L. Mackie, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

No. Once the question of whether there is a god has been raised, appeal to revelation, tradition or common certainty is viciously circular, since the authority appealed to is precisely what is at issue.1 Locke was right that reason must be the last judge and guide, and Descartes saw the circle clearly in the dedicatory letter to the Meditations. Faith seeking understanding is a respectable procedure; faith substituting for it is not.234

Sources

  1. The possible existence of a god has to be investigated, therefore, in the first place, as a threat to what would otherwise be, in Descartes's view, a reliable method of discovery. Since clear and distinct perception has an independent authority, derived from the cogito, it is not circular to rely on it when inquiring whether there is a deity and, if so, of what sort.
    The Miracle of Theism, Arguments For and Against the Existence of God, p. 36
  2. No doubt there have been and still are many who give less weight than we would to arguments of this sort. But not because they cannot understand them or doubt their force; rather because they think they have other sources of information which make arguments of this kind unnecessary.
    The Miracle of Theism, Arguments For and Against the Existence of God, pp. 9–10
  3. Their beliefs would be true, but they could not defend them if they were challenged; if any sceptical doubts arose in their own minds they could do nothing to overcome them. We could indeed describe them as cognitively healthy: their believings on these matters would tend to be correct. But these men would be in a state of intellectual servitude.
    Problems from Locke, pp. 231–232
  4. Thirdly, he argued (not now from the cogito) that there PYi";t"; a Qo d who is an infinitely perfect bein]g. who cannot therefore be a deceive r.
    The Miracle of Theism, Arguments For and Against the Existence of God, pp. 35–36

Where the argument is made

  • The Miracle of Theism, ch. 11, on Pascal's wager, William James's "The Will to Believe" and Kierkegaard's leap
  • the Introduction, on Locke and Descartes against the circularity of appealing to revelation

How the argument was received

The point at which the disagreement usually stops being about arguments and starts being about whether arguments were ever required.