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The argument from reason is a transcendental argument against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God (or at least a supernatural being that is the source of human reason). The best-known defender of the argument is C. S. Lewis .
These arguments often stipulate that subjective religious experiences are not reasonable evidence and thus religious truths must be argued based on non-religious evidence. One of the strongest positions of evidentialism is that by William Kingdon Clifford who wrote: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon ...
The approach is expressed in Paul James's argument that religion is a "relatively bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence through communion with others and Otherness, lived as both taking in and spiritually transcending socially grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing". [11]
C. S. Lewis's argument from reason is also a kind of transcendental argument. Most contemporary formulations of a transcendental argument for God have been developed within the framework of Christian presuppositional apologetics and the likes of Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen. [2]
Pascal argues implicitly for the uniqueness of Christianity in the wager itself, writing: "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible...Who then can blame the Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs, professing as they do a religion which they cannot explain by reason?"
Ontological arguments are arguments based on reason with the conclusion that God exists. [11] There are many notable contributors to the development of various ontological arguments. In the 11th century C.E., Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) reasoned in his work Proslogion about the existence of God in an ontological argument based on ...
Recent popes have spoken about faith and rationality: Fides et ratio, an encyclical letter promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 14 September 1998, deals with the relationship between faith and reason. Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture, delivered on 12 September 2006, was on the subject of "faith, reason and the university". [8]
In the preface to the published version of "The Will to Believe" James offers a different argument for the way in which the evidence for religion depends upon our belief. There he contends that it is through the failure or thriving of communities of religious believers that we come to have evidence of the truth of their religious beliefs.