So to that end, here are three sets of questions.
1. One problem or three problems?
In these discussions, the following three dichotomies are often presented as connected:
(a) Athens vs. Jerusalem
(b) The Theologico-Political Problem
(c) Reason vs. Revelation
My first question is whether these are all statements of the same problem or statements of three related but distinct problems.
As a matter of common sense interpretation, these three dichotomies are all a bit different. (a) seems to apply specifically to the case of Judaism (maybe Judeo-Christian religion) and the prospect of reconciling Judaism with Greek philosophy. This focus on Judaism is particularly clear in Strauss' own writings, as in the passages quoted below. The question raised by this juxtaposition is the relationship between divine law (or more broadly a law-like morality) and the non-legalistic moral theory offered by Aristotle and Plato. In other words: How can an ethics of divine law be reconciled with an ethics of human virtue?
The "Jerusalem" pole represents, it seems to me, two distinct concerns: (1) the authority of revelation; and (2) the status of divine law. But for that reason, this statement of the dichotomy doesn't obviously generalize. It is perfectly straightforward to countenance forms of revelation that do not take the form of law (Christianity, for example). So in short, it seems to me that "Athens vs. Jerusalem" fails to adequately disambiguate distinct worries about revelation and law and takes as its paradigmatic case a specific religious tradition that is a narrower species of a more general problem.
There is, I suspect, a closer connection between (b) and (c). At least, when I hear Straussians refer to the “theologico-political problem,” they often immediately connect that problem to the problem of revelation. But again as a matter of common sense interpretation, these are very different concerns! If these two dichotomies are to map onto one another, then we implicitly make a connection between “reason” and “politics.” But why should we do that? As I see it, the “theologico-political” problem refers to the tense relationship between the demands of religion and the demands of citizenship. A healthy city may favor or even require a religious people, but deep religious commitments can undermine the needs and goods of the city. So the puzzle is how to reconcile the two (or how to tame one or the other).
These problems are interesting. But they are not identical with the problem of “reason v. revelation.” Religions that do not rely fundamentally on revelation represent the same kind of threat to the city. The same is true of sweeping moral beliefs that are themselves wholly irreligious. Most importantly still, reason is not identical with politics. The reason vs. revelation dichotomy raises the most fundamental existential questions of “how ought I live” and “what is truth?”
So my suspicion is that the fundamental question here is "Reason vs. Revelation." Fine, that's a big question. But then what does that question have to do with the other dichotomies? Am I wrong in attempting to distinguish them as I have done?
2. A stab at stating the problem as sharply as I can: Is this an unduly Weberian statement?
Let me try to give my statement of the problem of reason vs. revelation. I want to try to state this problem as clearly and directly as possible. This is the subject I am most interested in here (it is the middle section after all): Am I stating the problem correctly? And am I wrong in thinking that the statement, as given, is essentially Weberian?
I understand the problem as follows: Reason and revelation both represent comprehensive approaches to human life, to the questions of how to live and how to come to know the truth. Reason suggests that we can only know what our own intellect can demonstrate. We must live by the lights of our own reason. The path of revelation suggests that we can come to know the truth not only by our limited, rational faculties, but by direct experiences of the divine or testimonies of such direct experiences. Perhaps we can know some things by reason, but there is no grounds to rule out the possibility of direct knowledge by revelation from God. And if such revelation arrives, then it constitutes the authoritative basis of belief and therefore the authoritative basis of moral conduct.
Those are the two paths. The problem is that each path represents a comprehensive, self-contained system of belief/action and that neither can “refute” the other. In light of the possibility of revelation, why should our weak reason remain our authoritative guide? But our reason is the sole means by which we can form justified beliefs, and so even if a revelation were to arrive, would we not need to test that revelation against our intellect? The partisan of revelation declares that we have no reason to believe in the exclusive power of reason, and the partisan of reason declares that revelation itself must accord with reason to be authoritative, which fact makes reason the ultimate guide.
And so if the path of reason and the path of revelation represent incompatible but comprehensive stances toward life, then we must choose between them. This appears like a Weberian moment of decision. But if I am correct in formulating the problem in these terms, then why should Strauss of all people have been so exercised by the problem? After all, Strauss offers a famous critique of Weber for insisting that no rational resolution can be found to fundamental moral questions and that we must simply take a decision on such matters. If I have posed the question correctly, then Strauss would himself have to be a Weberian for being so exercised by the problem. Is Strauss a Weberian? Or am I wrong to formulate the problem of reason vs. revelation in Weberian terms?
There is, I suspect, a closer connection between (b) and (c). At least, when I hear Straussians refer to the “theologico-political problem,” they often immediately connect that problem to the problem of revelation. But again as a matter of common sense interpretation, these are very different concerns! If these two dichotomies are to map onto one another, then we implicitly make a connection between “reason” and “politics.” But why should we do that? As I see it, the “theologico-political” problem refers to the tense relationship between the demands of religion and the demands of citizenship. A healthy city may favor or even require a religious people, but deep religious commitments can undermine the needs and goods of the city. So the puzzle is how to reconcile the two (or how to tame one or the other).
These problems are interesting. But they are not identical with the problem of “reason v. revelation.” Religions that do not rely fundamentally on revelation represent the same kind of threat to the city. The same is true of sweeping moral beliefs that are themselves wholly irreligious. Most importantly still, reason is not identical with politics. The reason vs. revelation dichotomy raises the most fundamental existential questions of “how ought I live” and “what is truth?”
So my suspicion is that the fundamental question here is "Reason vs. Revelation." Fine, that's a big question. But then what does that question have to do with the other dichotomies? Am I wrong in attempting to distinguish them as I have done?
2. A stab at stating the problem as sharply as I can: Is this an unduly Weberian statement?
Let me try to give my statement of the problem of reason vs. revelation. I want to try to state this problem as clearly and directly as possible. This is the subject I am most interested in here (it is the middle section after all): Am I stating the problem correctly? And am I wrong in thinking that the statement, as given, is essentially Weberian?
I understand the problem as follows: Reason and revelation both represent comprehensive approaches to human life, to the questions of how to live and how to come to know the truth. Reason suggests that we can only know what our own intellect can demonstrate. We must live by the lights of our own reason. The path of revelation suggests that we can come to know the truth not only by our limited, rational faculties, but by direct experiences of the divine or testimonies of such direct experiences. Perhaps we can know some things by reason, but there is no grounds to rule out the possibility of direct knowledge by revelation from God. And if such revelation arrives, then it constitutes the authoritative basis of belief and therefore the authoritative basis of moral conduct.
Those are the two paths. The problem is that each path represents a comprehensive, self-contained system of belief/action and that neither can “refute” the other. In light of the possibility of revelation, why should our weak reason remain our authoritative guide? But our reason is the sole means by which we can form justified beliefs, and so even if a revelation were to arrive, would we not need to test that revelation against our intellect? The partisan of revelation declares that we have no reason to believe in the exclusive power of reason, and the partisan of reason declares that revelation itself must accord with reason to be authoritative, which fact makes reason the ultimate guide.
And so if the path of reason and the path of revelation represent incompatible but comprehensive stances toward life, then we must choose between them. This appears like a Weberian moment of decision. But if I am correct in formulating the problem in these terms, then why should Strauss of all people have been so exercised by the problem? After all, Strauss offers a famous critique of Weber for insisting that no rational resolution can be found to fundamental moral questions and that we must simply take a decision on such matters. If I have posed the question correctly, then Strauss would himself have to be a Weberian for being so exercised by the problem. Is Strauss a Weberian? Or am I wrong to formulate the problem of reason vs. revelation in Weberian terms?
3. How to interpret these two passages from Strauss?
Here are two striking passages from Strauss’ preface to his Spinoza's critique of Religion:
The return to Judaism also requires today the overcoming of what one may call the perennial obstacle to the Jewish faith: of traditional philosophy, which is of Greek, pagan origin. For the respectable, impressive, or specious alternatives to the acceptance of revelation, to the surrender to God’s will, have always presented themselves and still present themselves as based on what man knows by himself, by his reason. Reason has reached its perfection in Hegel’s system; the essential limitations of Hegel’s system show the essential limitations of reason and therewith the radical inadequacy of all rational objections to revelation. With the final collapse of rationalism the perennial battle between reason and revelation, between unbelief and belief, has been decided in principle, even on the plane of human thought, in favor of revelation. Reason knows only of subjects and objects, but surely the living and loving God is infinitely more than a subject and can never be an object, something at which one can look in detachment or indifference. Philosophy as hitherto known, the old thinking, so far from starting from the experience of God, abstracted from such experience or excluded it; hence, if it was theistic, it was compelled to have recourse to demonstrations of the existence of God as a thinking or a thinking and willing being. The new thinking as unqualified empiricism speaks of God, man, and the world as actually experienced, as realities irreducible to one another, whereas all traditional philosophy was reductionist. (pg 233 in Liberalism: Ancient and Modern)This is a difficult passage. Strauss tells us that a tradition of rational philosophy that begins with the Greeks and reaches its perfection in Hegel is utterly incapable of refuting revelation. This fact does not mean we reach a permanent antinomy between reason and revelation, it means that victory in principle must be granted to the side of revelation. Some questions:
(i) Does Strauss mean this of ancient philosophy too, or is it the distinctively modern rational philosophy of Hegel that fails to refute revelation? He does say that the failure of Hegel's system reflects the failure of all rational objections to revelation. Or then again is there a difference between a failure (my word) and "radical inadequacy?"
(ii) What is meant by this distinction between the “old thinking” and “new thinking?” The “old thinking” seems to include the Greeks, the Christian classical theists, and the early modern philosophers. The “new thinking” appears to be phenomenological, experiential—he goes on to identify Heidegger and Rosenzweig as key figures. Is the implication that the “new thinking” is essentially on the side of revelation whereas the “old thinking” is essentially on the side of reason? And is the implication further that the new thinking is superior to the old?
(iii) Here we do not get a directly Weberian statement of the problem. We do not get a moment of radical choice between two incompatible, comprehensive paths of life. We get, rather, a victory for revelation because of the failure of reason. But why does Strauss say that this is a victory for revelation, rather than a draw, a permanent problem? Is it because the burden of proof for the partisan of reason is higher than that of the partisan of revelation? If reason fails to refute revelation, does that mean a victory of revelation?
Perhaps this final question is addressed in the next passage (a few passages combined).
The results of this examination of Spinoza’s critique may be summarized as follows. If orthodoxy claims to know that the Bible is divinely revealed, that every word of the Bible is divinely inspired, that Moses was the writer of the Pentateuch, that the miracles recorded in the Bible have happened and similar things, Spinoza has refuted orthodoxy. But the case is entirely different if orthodoxy limits itself to asserting that it believes the aforementioned things, that is, that they cannot claim to possess the binding power peculiar to the known. For all assertions of orthodoxy rest on the irrefutable premise that the omnipotent God, whose will is unfathomable, whose ways are not our ways, who has decided to dwell in the thick darkness, may exist. Given this premise, miracles and revelations in general, and hence all biblical miracles and revelations in particular, are possible. Spinoza has not succeeded in showing that this premise is contradicted by anything we know. … The orthodox premise cannot be refuted by experience nor by recourse to the principle of contradiction. … The genuine refutation of orthodoxy would require the proof that the world and human life are perfectly intelligible without the assumption of a mysterious God; it would require at least the success of the philosophic system … As a consequence, its cognitive status [the status of reason] is not different from that of the orthodox account. Certain it is that Spinoza cannot legitimately deny the possibility of revelation. But to grant that revelation is possible means to grant that the philosophic account and the philosophic way of life are not necessarily, not evidently, the true account and the right way of life: philosophy, the quest for evident and necessary knowledge, rests itself on an unevident decision, on an act of the will, just as faith. (p 254-5).I understand Strauss here to make a few points. The first is that the position of revelation is not a claim to knowledge, but rather a claim to belief, and no rational refutation can dismiss beliefs from revelation that do not claim the status of knowledge. The second perhaps clarifies the final question re: the above passage. Reason fails because it would need to demonstrate its own truly comprehensive claim to knowledge of all things. But if reason has limits—if reason proves to itself that it has limits—then reason undercuts its own claim to authority. If reason is to wield any special status, it must be that reason arrives at certain knowledge. Once we show that reason cannot produce certain knowledge, reason has forfeited the foundation of its claim. Thus there is no “draw” between reason and revelation, there is an utter defeat of reason. Reason is revealed to rest squarely on an act of decision—the groundless decision to believe in reason—and such a decision is just as arbitrary as the decision to believe in revelation.
I ask for some clarity on these passages because if my gloss is correct, then I'm afraid I really do not find the Straussian problem of reason vs. revelation all that philosophically compelling. These are simply implausible ways to construe the nature or demands of either reason or revelation.
So those are my questions. I repeat that what I am most interested in is neither terminological clarifications nor Strauss exegesis. I'm a bit worried that including those questions here will distract from my main question: What is the fundamental problem between reason and revelation as the Straussians see it? Have I adequately stated it?
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