Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 19:3 (Summer 1976)
Article: On The Rationality Of Christian Commitment
Author: James D. Spiceland

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JETS 19:3 (Summer 1976) p. 217

On The Rationality Of Christian Commitment

James D. Spiceland*

It is appropriate, I think, to point out at the beginning of this paper that the word “rational” is not as simply understood as it sometimes appears. In ordinary language it has innumerable uses, only a few of which will be discussed here. One important aspect of the use of this word is that it carries both a descriptive and an emotive meaning. For example, it is one thing to point out that a particular philosopher’s argument contains a logical fallacy and is therefore refutable on “rational” grounds, but it is quite another to say that the I. R. A.’s response to the situation in Northern Ireland is an “irrational” response. In this latter sense “rational” and its cognates are similar to words like “communism” and “democracy.” The word is also sometimes given to persuasive definition. It is important to bear these facts in mind when discussing the rationality of religious belief in order to be clear about what the discussion is aiming at.

In this study I shall concentrate on the descriptive meaning of “rational.” Of course I do not intend to ignore the emotive meaning of the term. If participation in religious belief can be shown to be in any way rational in the descriptive sense, this, I suppose, will work in its favor in the emotive or persuasive sense. So this aspect will not be ignored. It is, however, not the important point at issue in what follows. What I wish to focus on is the rationality (or lack thereof) of religious belief, in the descriptive sense. In doing so, I propose to consider a particular recent attack on the rationality of religious language. I will investigate the theory of rationality implicit in this attack, its application to religious belief and language, and show why I think it does not really get the job done—i. e., it does not show participation in religious belief to be irrational. In the end I hope to make it clear that participation in such belief is at least as rational as participation in some other universes of discourse—say, science or moral discourse. The “attack” I refer to is that of W. W. Bartley in his book, The Retreat to Commitment (London, 1964).

The theory of rationality that Bartley presents is called “comprehensively critical rationalism.” Bartley’s man who adheres to this rationalism is defined in the following way:

The new framework permits a rationalist to be characterized as one who holds all his basic beliefs, including his most fundamental standards and his basic philosophical position itself, open to criticism; who never cuts off an argument by resorting to faith or irrational commitment to justify some belief that has been under severe critical fire. I shall call this conc...

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