Friday 26 September 2008

Distinction between faith and reason

Caputo's take on the distinction:
The distiction between philosophy and theology is between two kinds of faith, by which I mean two kinds of 'seeing as.' (Caputo, Philosophy and Theology 57.)
The distinction is between a common or philosophical faith, which is the complex web of presuppositional structures built into every human enterprise,and another, specifically religious faith. This is a distinction between two kinds of interpretative slants.Faith is an elemental form of human life, a basic ingredient in our existence, as necessary for philosophy as for theology. (Ibid. 57-58.)

Perfectly acceptable. In the 1962 course on Method, Lonergan makes much the same kind of distinction between a common faith, and the light of faith; and he is not saying anything new, but merely recalling (probably) Thomist doctrine. Still, I think he would distinguish the two in a way Caputo has not (yet) done.

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