The Compatibility of Faith and ReasonComparing WK ​​Clifford and William James's two selections on the compatibility of faith and reason, I believe that the Both arguments make very valid points. However, I believe, after careful reading and based on my own experience, that William James has the strongest argument: say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay William James The Will to Believe argues that our passionate nature not only legally can, but must, decide on an option between propositions , each time it is a real option which, by its nature, cannot be decided on intellectual grounds. James' argument is that in certain circumstances it is perfectly legal for a person to go ahead and believe something for which scientific evidence is lacking. This is not unreasonable. This argument proves useful in the religious hypothesis of the existence of God. James himself believed that there is a consciousness greater than that of human beings to which we are connected. Among other things, this Great Consciousness cares for and preserves many things we hold dear like love, truth, and justice. This is done so that the values ​​possessed by these things continue to exist in the world rather than perish with us when we die. James's claim in this regard was that his beliefs on this matter were perfectly legal even though there is currently no scientific evidence for the existence of a Higher Consciousness. He claimed that if we had an infallible intellect with its objective certainties, then going ahead and believing something without scientific proof would not be legal. However, this is certainly not the case, so it is our intellectual duty to regulate what we believe through science, according to James. Coming back to the argument for the existence of God, because the existence of God is not a matter of scientific fact, why should we suspend our belief in God? James believed that modern science is a kind of organized nervousness. The tests we put on theories before accepting them as truth serve a kind of human interest: the fear of being wrong or being surprised by the course of events. Another way to avoid this is to constantly hope to discover new things. According to James, because of these different sets of interests, we are not obligated to suspend belief in God simply because to date God's existence has not been proven by modern science. It is a question of which set of interests we choose to prioritize regarding the hypothesis that God exists: (a) out of fear of being wrong or (b) out of our hope of being right. The person who gives in to his hope that God exists is just as reasonable as the person who gives in to his fear that God does not exist at all. Some of James' arguments were used recently by Pope John Paul II. In his Reflections on Fides et Ratio, the Pope affirms that humans are seekers of truth. And during this quest, reason cannot sustain itself. Whether it is a question of truths of immediate experience or of scientific truth, of carefully elaborated philosophical thought or of an existentially experienced idea, the search for truth is always accompanied by an act of faith. In fact, as social beings, humans are incapable of checking and verifying everything for themselves; at all levels, one must have informed confidence in the testimony of others and in one's cultural tradition. As a seeker of truth, man is thereby.