I posted earlier this week the importance faith plays in religious belief. That post and the one I am writing today stem from my reading for my Philosophy of Religion class that I am currently finishing.
Strong Rationalism states that "in order for a religious belief-system to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the belief-system is true"
(Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach, and Basinger, Reason & Religious Belief, 3rd edition)
Prove - To define prove here we are looking to say that the arguments that support the belief system should be convincing to any reasonable person. This is not 100% undeniable evidence but a reasonable argument that comes to a reasonable conclusion, which the conclusion would be accepted by any reasonable person.
On the surface this doesn't seem to hard to accomplish. We are, after all, each one of us reasonable people right? But even the most widely accepted arguments face considerable opposition from a good number of "reasonable" people.
Strong Rationalism appears to be asking that even if we disagree with the conclusion of the argument, we as reasonable individuals would accept the argument and its conclusion as a possibility. The rub lies here. How might someone who fundamentally disagrees with the conclusion accept it as a possibility?
If it is a reasonable argument with a reasonable conclusion and yet I still disagree, wouldn't the conclusion be that either I am being unreasonable in my unbelief or that the argument and/or its conclusion are flawed at some point?
My question here for this post is whether or not you agree with the above statement or do you see a third answer? Is Strong Rationalism being unreasonable to ask for such a consensus that all reasonable people would have to accept the argument and its conclusion?
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