Jan 28

Faith is unavoidable because it is only through faith that we pursue knowledge.  St. Augustine said, “no one believes anything unless one first though it believable.” Here, Augustine is arguing that unless we have some sort of faith that something is believable there would be no reason for us to use reason to examine it and try to understand it.  In this way, it is impossible to separate faith from reason in religion, because without faith there is no need for reason.  Much of the study of religion also has to do with history and studying the historical events and figures of our faith.  However, history also relies much on faith, as it accepts the viewpoint of the one who is reporting an incident.  In this way, Augustine once again shows that faith is unavoidable, even if one wants to focus solely on religion, as history would be a major tool in this use of only religion.  However, history implicitly requires faith, making it unavoidable.

Augustine also says that faith is beneficial because it is what bonds us together as humans.  If we do not have trust in each other, there is no way we can live together as a human race. In this way faith is beneficial because it helps us trust those who know more than we do in a certain topic, in this case religion.  Faith helps us look to them to gain a deeper understanding of the religious truth we are pursuing.  Augustine also says that faith is beneficial because it helps us fall in love with our faith, especially the writings of our faith.  It is only through first finding this love that we can then begin to examine it and ask questions about it, thus using our reason to examine religion.