Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 09:1 (Nov 1946)
Article: Reviews Of Books
Author: Anonymous

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WTJ 9:1 (Nov 1946) p. 85

Reviews Of Books

Nels F. S. Ferré: Faith and Reason. New York and London: Harper and Brothers. 1946. xii, 251. $2.50.

No issue is more crucial in the entire range of theological problems than that of the relations between faith and reason. There can be little doubt but that the present work will occupy a permanent place in the literature on this subject. Its very style is challenging, marked as it is by an unusually refreshing simplicity and directness in attacking some of the more abstruse and recondite questions by which minds given to reflection have been and are yet perplexed. Not only the style but also the matter of this little volume is worthy of serious consideration. The major issues relating to the foundations and inter-relations of science, philosophy and religion are defined with lucidity and fairness. In striving towards an adequate synthesis of these branches of human knowledge, the author displays a felicitous balance between originality of insight and expression and thorough acquaintance with the choicest contributions of classical and contemporary writers.

One need not read many pages to be struck by the honest effort of the author to provide satisfactory definitions of the fundamental terms to be employed. Worthy of being pondered is the definition of religion as “our normally necessary whole-response to what is considered to be most important and most real” (p. 4). The emphasis on whole-response promises from the outset to avoid one-sidedness in the direction of over-estimation of reason, while the just claims of reason are by no means to be underestimated. The aim of the work is thus far commendable, though there be reason to doubt that it has been sufficiently attained in the actual unfolding of the argument. A central difficulty arises from the terms “most important” and “most real” and from their combination. The terms, notwithstanding their superficial simplicity, betray the background of the history of Western philosophy with its ever-recurring duality of the ideal and the real, the rational and the empirical, the possible and the actual.

No adequate exposition of the term “most real” appears in the volume. It seems to take for granted the Platonic principle that reality is capable

WTJ 9:1 (Nov 1946) p. 86

of degrees though no formal effort to justify this principle is attempted. Since this is the first volume in a series planned by Ferré, it is to be hoped that the second volume on Faith, Society, and the Problem of Evil will shed light on this point. As a matter of fact, it is only with a measure of tentativeness that criticism can be levelled until the second volume appears. The considerations of the present volume are largely formal in character, leading the...

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