Reason and belief are two spiritual phenomena with different characteristics in human society. The difference is that reason emphasizes reality and science, while faith (especially religious belief here) emphasizes "heaven" and blind obedience. From the relationship between reason and belief, the development process of ancient European philosophy can also be summarized as the spontaneous affirmation of the role of reason in ancient Greece and Rome, the dominance of medieval theological belief, and the new consciousness of Renaissance and modern reason. The debate between reason and belief was very fierce in the Middle Ages, and it was also during this period that reason and belief showed a certain degree of integration. Medieval Europe is regarded as a "dark age", which is characterized by political corruption and cruel killing, economic oppression and crazy plunder, spiritual deception and foolish rule. Engels pointed out when evaluating the social consciousness of this period: "Only one ideology was known in the Middle Ages, namely religion and theology." In this era, the philosophy of "loving wisdom" has put on the coat of religion. The dispute between reason and belief runs through the development of medieval philosophy. I. Debate between reason and belief 1. The debate in the period of godfather philosophy was formed at the end of slave society and was popular in the process of feudalism in Europe. It is the spiritual pillar of the ruling class during the great historical change and the dominant thought in the early Middle Ages. During the period of Godfather's philosophy, the dispute between reason and belief was mainly manifested as "the authority of belief" or "the authority of reason". It was Augustine who established the theoretical system of belief authority. He thinks that God is big and boundless, good but without quality, there is no space for existence and no time for eternity; Only through love for God, that is, absolute belief in God, can people know God, get inspiration from God and know the truth. When discussing the doctrine of the Trinity, Augustine pointed out: "If this cannot be grasped by understanding, it must be embraced by faith until the Lord who said,' If you don't believe, you will never understand' gradually emerges in your heart." In other words, faith comes first and has absolute authority. Only through blind faith can we understand God. Contrary to Augustine, the medieval philosopher Perseus praised rationality with a kind of philosophical positive and realistic comfort, and thought that knowledge without philosophical rational thinking was just a kind of blind obedience. As a theologian, he also advocates that "the root of all things is God", but he believes that God can only be understood through reason. He pointed out: "rationality proves that God is good in this way and makes people believe that God is the best. If not, he can't be the first of all things, and there will be people better than God. " Boisius put forward that man "takes rationality as the essence", and human rationality makes him above all things, and further pointed out that because man is rational, he is intellectually similar to God. This idea of promoting human reason and wisdom has a distinct anti-belief tendency. Irina, known as the "Charlemagne of medieval philosophy", regards the unity of reason and belief as the guiding principle of philosophical epistemology, and holds that both revelation and reason are the source of truth, and religion and philosophy have the same authority. When there is a contradiction between belief and reason, reason should be adopted. This actually affirms that reason is higher than faith. He wrote in "On the Differentiation of Nature": "Authority comes from real reason, not reason from authority. Because authority without real reason is weak. On the contrary, true rationality, because it is reliable, permanent and based on its own strength, does not need to compromise with some authority to prove itself. " This thought of praising reason and despising blind obedience is in sharp contrast with Augustine. 2. Debate in Scholasticism. Scholasticism is essentially theology, and its basic task is to demonstrate the rationality of God and the authority of the Bible and the church. In order to prove it, we need rationality. Without rational form, we can't demonstrate. Therefore, paying attention to rational knowledge has become a fashion. In this case, the two sides arguing about the relationship between reason and belief, giving in to each other and no longer being hostile, all attempt to dominate each other through argument and make the other side obey themselves, thus achieving the purpose of understanding Christianity from their own point of view. The focus of the debate has also changed from "authority" to "understanding", and then developed into a debate about "double truth". "Believe and then understand" is the slogan put forward by Anselmus, the last godfather philosopher and the first scholastic philosopher. He always insists on the supremacy of faith. In Argument, Anselmus clearly put forward the idea of belief first. He pointed out: "I never believed it before I understood it, but only after I believed it can I understand it. Because I believe' I will never understand unless I believe' "He believes that Christians should progress from faith to rationality, not from rationality to faith; Faith is the premise, scope and purpose of rationality. When discussing the role of reason, Anselmus asserted that knowledge is the slave of faith, and reason should serve faith; He pointed out that rational proof "does not gain confidence by rational means, but gains inner joy by thoroughly understanding what they already believe." At the same time, they can also answer the questions raised by those who require reason as the basis of our belief as effectively as possible. "He also suggested that only rational conclusions that conform to the Bible can be adopted. Contrary to Anselmus, Allard put forward the slogan of "understanding before believing" in Introduction to Theology. Abarad believes that the first thing that is not understood is "not enough to believe"; It is absurd to preach to others what he or the people he teaches can't understand. "Faith must be based on human reason" and must have a reliable factual basis. On the question of how to get the truth, he strongly opposes blind faith and thinks that people have no obligation to accept it without doubt. Abalad strongly advocates the spirit of doubt, and believes that "the best way to solve problems in learning is to persist and constantly doubt." He pointed out: "Because of doubt, we ask for proof, and because of proof, we get the truth. "Abalone's thought of advocating rationality and full of dialectical thoughts frightened the church forces. He was called "Peter who cursed God". "It is this skeptical spirit of" understanding first and believing later "that makes Allard a banner of" endless struggle against blind faith "in medieval Europe and a model for promoting rationality. Judging from the argumentation of rationality and belief in the period of Godfather Philosophy and Scholasticism, rationality and belief have a certain degree of integration. Medieval theologians tried to prove the existence of God in a rational way. For example, Thomas Aquinas's Complete Book of Theology tries to turn blind faith into people's conscious behavior in a rational way. (Liu Bo, 2000) Second, the essential need for human beings to know the world-the harmonious unity of reason and belief. From the development history of reason and belief, reason and belief are not synonymous with opposition and conflict. In the field of cognition and truth-seeking, scientific rationality is needed to confirm those subjective speculations in religion, so that people can rely on pursuing something trustworthy or falsifying to decipher the existing code. Secondly, religion can make up for the lack of human nature in scientific rationality, because some emotional expressions and sustenance of human beings cannot be logically demonstrated by scientific rationality. After all, human beings are emotional animals. 1. The essence of scientific rationality The essence of science is to explore and reveal the development law of things, which contains the spirit of doubt and criticism, enlightening people's thoughts and wisdom. People live in an unpredictable and complex environment. In the face of all this, if people want to survive, they must learn to control the environment by reasonable means and deal with these problems rationally, which requires us to rely on science. As a science characterized by rational thinking mode, it endows people with logic, rigor and accuracy of thinking, and becomes an extremely useful tool for people to understand and transform the world. With it, people no longer make unconscious guesses and deceive themselves, but fight for their own survival rationally. This attitude explains people's spirit of seeking knowledge and seeking truth. In this spirit, people gradually get rid of subjective self, upgrade themselves to a universal concept and relationship, consciously distinguish people's image of things from objective things, and objectively examine these things, clarify the existence of the world and discover the existence of self. With the vigorous development of science and technology and the expansion and deepening of understanding of the world, people have mastered objective laws, improved technical means and mastered themselves in the process of transforming the world. Great changes have taken place in the way of human existence. People's material life has been satisfied and their spiritual life has been enriched. It can be said that we have given our destiny to scientific reason, because it has given us a confidence in life. In other words, scientific rationality improves people's quality of life on the material level. In addition, scientific rationality also provides conditions for people's ideological freedom and equality. Because once people hold this rational spirit, they will not affirm or deny everything unprincipled, they will not be superstitious and blindly obedient with a clear conscience, and they will not habitually succumb to some authority. In this way, we can position people from personal value and social value, gain some vitality and vigor, and make people have a healthy, reasonable and positive mental state, and ask, analyze and solve problems independently with their own rationality. 2. The significance of religious belief To some extent, we can disagree with religion's pursuit of spiritual nothingness, criticize the bondage of religious variation to human spirit, and criticize the rulers for using religion to imprison people's souls, but we can't deny the care for people, the support and comfort for human spirit, the transcendence and yearning for the other side, and the hope and pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty contained in religion. Now when we shout "people-oriented", we need to look at religion with a peaceful mind, an objective eye and a clear mind, and pay attention to people's religion and people in it. Scientific rationality is a metaphysical knowledge, aiming at exploring objective truth and laws, while religious belief is a metaphysical knowledge, exploring an eternal existence in the pursuit of "who is man". Man is not only a kind of existence, but also an eternal existence, so man needs both scientific and rational analysis and religious humanistic care. At least at this stage, it is man's grasp of the world and himself, and man should find his own way of dependence in science and religion.