Faith & Anti-Intellectualism:
Do rational people believe in God? Is it irrational to believe in an all powerful creator of the universe? There has been an assumption for some time now that people of faith, those who believe in the supernatural, who believe that there is more to life than the visible here and now are for one, irrational, and two, stereotypically anti-intellectual. Is this assumption justified? Are people of faith committed to anti-intellectualism? Is faith simply the result of ignorance or anti-intellectualism?
Common Ground:
Anti-intellectual, by definition, is an opposition or apathy aimed at recognized forms of higher knowledge offered in culture, education and the sciences. It can safely be said that many religious people fall into this category. Perhaps it is true that the stereotype isn't completely without warrant. The question naturally arrises then, is correlation causation? If it were granted that many people of faith were anti-intellectuals, does it mean that their anti-intellectualism leads to faith? Can faith be reduced to the product of anti-intellectualism? It seems that the claim "only uneducated people believe in God" would be at least in part based on this assumption of correlation and causation. It would indeed be false to conclude that correlation alone is causation in any instance, and so it would be a false conclusion to say that simply because many people of faith are anti-intellectuals, that therefore their faith is causally related to their anti-intellectualism. Also, it seems the person of faith would be in good company, for anti-intellectualism is not restricted to people of faith alone. One need not look far to find examples of this being true. Both camps, people of faith and those of no particular faith, both have samples of their population that would fit into the anti-intellectual category. Based on this observation alone, one ought to abandon the assumption that correlation is causation. It simply is not true, that people believe in God "because" they are not well educated, cultured or intelligent.
Counter Examples:
In the history of the world there are many examples of brilliant people on both sides of the line concerning the issue of faith. However, it is worth noting that there are many counterexamples to the assertion that faith is the result of ignorance, or that people of faith are committed to anti-intellectualism. While counter examples do not prove people of faith are intelligent, a very short list will still make the point with veracity that people of faith are not committed to anti-intellectualism.
- Leibniz - Mathematician/Philosopher/Co-invented Calculus
- Descartes - Cartesian Coordinate System & "I think therefore I am"
- Boyle - Pioneer in Physics/Chemistry, Boyle's Law
- Newton - Needs no introduction...
- Copernicus - Copernican Revolution ring a bell?
- Galileo - The father of observational astronomy, refined & championed Copernicus' theory
- Paley - Natural Theology at Cambridge
- Edwards - "America's great mind"/ philosophical theologian- Yale/Princeton
- C.S. Lewis - Narnia... Classics - Oxford
- Tolkien - The Hobbit/LOTR - Oxford
- Robert Jastrow - Nasa Scientist/ Theoretical Physicist/ Geophysics Professor at Colombia
But those are all dead guys...
- Alvin Plantinga - Ph.D. Yale, Professor at Notre Dame, World class philosopher
- Alister McGrath - Ph.D. Molecular Biophysics Oxford, Public Intellectual/Oxford Prof.
- William Lane Craig - Ph.D., Th.D., World class philosopher/apologist
- William Dembski - Ph.D. Mathematics, Ph.D. Philosophy University of Chicago
- Ian Hutchinson - Ph.D. Engineering Physics, Prof. of Nuclear Science & Engineering M.I.T.