Intuition and Reason in Religion

Abstract

In all religious experience both in East and West the contrast between the time-bound experience of reason and the transtemporal perspective of intuition are of crucial importance. In this paper I wish to approach the problem from the standpoint of the Western thinker Charles Hartshorne comparing it with the ideas of an eastern seer, S. Radhakrishnan. For both transition from the world of space and time to that of the divine constitutes the essence of religion. Each would hold that an adequate metaphysics or theism seeks a balance between intuition and reason. Yet the balance is a tenuous one and each man can be caught leaning toward one side or the other. Radhakrishnan leans toward creative intuition in religion whereas Hartshorne leans toward critical reason. A brief statement of the arguments on both sides will help us to focus the issue more sharply.