“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

A rhetorical dismissal of philosophy's role in faith put forward by Tertullian on the tension between reason (Athens) and faith (Jerusalem). A tension Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason and subsequent Critique of Practical Reason, aimed to solve. Across these two works, he argues that in some areas it is necessary to reason about things with our own human faculties, but for the realm which we cannot reach with those faculties, faith is necessary. Why must we pretend as if we are rationalising about the existence of God when his very nature, to us humans, is completely unknowable? These things must be left to faith (on moral grounds, that is). Therefore, according to Kant's ideas, there is a “partitioned epistemology”. The first is a domain of rationale (Athens): one that contains things that can be known a priori—like mathematics, via empirical inquiry such as the sciences, or via observable things within our world. The second is a domain of faith (Jerusalem): moral duties, existential meaning, and the supernatural. For Kant, this faith domain retains its superiority without the need for empirical backing, while also allowing the exploration of the natural world on its own terms without the need for faith. For Kant, faith here isn’t blind. Moral necessity compels us to assume God and free will for practical purposes, all of which are prerequisites for coherent moral action.

Religiosity in contemporary society, however, has exploited this partition. For Kant, faith is a necessity for morality. Now, however, a more extreme fideistic approach is widespread—one where the faith domain has been used as an epistemic landfill for the unknown, especially when it comes to contradictions in scripture, theodicies, and the like. This approach is not localised to religion, though. The fideistic habit to defer non-rational certainty spills into critical thinking as a whole. Think of cognitive dissonance. While uncomfortable, over time you may expect a reconciliation or perhaps an update in belief given new evidence. Rarely does this happen. No need to enquire or reason about contradictions in the actions of God and his nature; we can simply attribute it to his divine plan, or the lack of our knowing of his will. Neither is cognitive dissonance felt in religious discussions, but in sociopolitical ones and in discourse about anything conflicting.

Trumpism is a brilliant example of this. A “Trumpian Fideism” where Trump supporters remain devoted despite the overwhelming evidence from Nobel Peace Prize economists as to why his tariffs are detrimental, that he is a convicted felon who paid hush money to Stormy Daniels—a porn star (something you would expect the “party of law and order” and “traditional Christian values” to see as the final straw)—that he was convicted of sexual assault, that he lies continuously. This is all dismissed, as there is faith that he is the chosen one to fix the country and “save America”. “It is all part of his plan” – fideistic dismissals of critical judgements and events that should have cut his race for the presidency short.

In his Political Theology, Carl Schmitt makes the claim that “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception”. This could not be more true now. In 2016, when Trump pledged that “[He] alone can fix this”, it cast him as the messiah, and therefore sovereign. Even if his tariffs backfire, or he’s convicted of numerous crimes, his sovereign status exhumes him from any accountability. Just as Christians espoused the phrase credo quia absurdum (I believe it because it is absurd), so too do Trump's contradictions become proof of his purpose. The more irrational the loyalty, the stronger the faith. In a crisis like the supposed destruction of the nation brought on by the left (crisis), the sovereign (Trump) is able to act unilaterally to restore stability by waving his pen and enacting things like executive orders. Because of this sovereignty, he is able to say things like—his words—“[He] was saved by God to make America great again”, and because of the beliefs his base holds and the divine claims made about him, his talks of extending term limits to three years, or imposing tariffs on allies, are attributed to his great plan for the country (in which we simply must trust him and may never know why he takes such measures, a retraction to fideism). For Trump: “When somebody’s the president of the U.S., the authority is total”. Just as God himself suspends natural law through miracles, so too can the sovereign suspend legal or even national norms through his authority. These sovereign actions, then, are achieved through decisive action rather than rational deliberation. “Trusting the plan” here replaces critical engagement with these actions. No need for discussion.

This doesn’t end at Trump, as I have said earlier; these consequences are far-reaching: when presented with conflicting and even complicated ideas like evolution or vaccines that may contradict already-held beliefs, the default is to do things like immediately dismiss the scientific consensus as coming from the corrupt elite, to believe QAnon conspiracy theories that are unfalsifiable but held to 100% truth via faith, or to simply tell people to “do their own research”. After all, why trust these institutions if they are owned by deep state elites? Hell, why worry about climate science when God controls the weather? And if he does so, and hurricanes devastate hundreds of people, it is surely because he has done something to anger him. It is a lack of epistemic agency and a strong trust in groupthink that prioritises feeling right over being right.

This is not an attack on religion or even faith as a whole, but on the widespread fideistic reflexes that develop when an enormous amount of faith is utilised in all aspects of someone’s life. It’s on the bastardisation and exploitation of Kant's idea of how reason and faith should be separated. To critique this fideistic approach to epistemology is not to downplay faith or even religion. It’s to see how its weaponisation has taken shape and to resist it. For Kant, his partition was meant to protect reason and morality. He sought for individuals with faith to acknowledge the limits of reason without falling into the trap of anti-intellectualism where dogma is prioritised over data. If we don't, we risk (and are already seeing) a world where such dogma justifies tyranny and oppression.

References

• CHURCH FATHERS: The Prescription Against Heretics (Tertullian). (n.d.). Retrieved 5 March 2025, Access Here
• Rohlf, M. (2024). Immanuel Kant. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Access Here
• Schmitt, C. (2006). Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (G. S. a F. by T. B. Strong, Ed.). University of Chicago Press.  Access Here