"Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted"
About this Quote
Pike’s line isn’t a tender hymn to belief; it’s a jurisdictional boundary dispute. “Reason” arrives like a lawyerly instrument meant to work a case until the evidence runs out, then “sinks exhausted” from sheer overuse. The phrasing makes rationality feel muscular but finite, a tool that can be pushed to its limits and still fail. That verb choice matters: reason doesn’t get refuted, it gets tired. Faith, then, isn’t positioned as anti-intellectual so much as post-intellectual, the next procedural move when cross-examination can’t reach the witness.
The subtext is an argument for surrender that keeps its dignity. By casting faith as something that “begins,” Pike implies an ordered sequence: you try reason first. That’s a savvy concession to the modern prestige of rational inquiry, especially in the 19th century, when science, industrialization, and Enlightenment aftershocks were reshaping what counted as truth. The sentence flatters skeptics while recruiting them: go ahead, reason hard; when you hit the wall, there’s an exit ramp that doesn’t require calling yourself irrational.
Context sharpens the intent. Pike wasn’t a clergyman trading in grace; he was a lawyer and a prominent Masonic thinker in an era when fraternal orders and esoteric spirituality offered educated men a way to keep mystery without abandoning respectability. The quote functions like a bridge between courtroom logic and metaphysical longing. It tells the ambitious rationalist: your methods are valid, your exhaustion is inevitable, and meaning is waiting on the other side.
The subtext is an argument for surrender that keeps its dignity. By casting faith as something that “begins,” Pike implies an ordered sequence: you try reason first. That’s a savvy concession to the modern prestige of rational inquiry, especially in the 19th century, when science, industrialization, and Enlightenment aftershocks were reshaping what counted as truth. The sentence flatters skeptics while recruiting them: go ahead, reason hard; when you hit the wall, there’s an exit ramp that doesn’t require calling yourself irrational.
Context sharpens the intent. Pike wasn’t a clergyman trading in grace; he was a lawyer and a prominent Masonic thinker in an era when fraternal orders and esoteric spirituality offered educated men a way to keep mystery without abandoning respectability. The quote functions like a bridge between courtroom logic and metaphysical longing. It tells the ambitious rationalist: your methods are valid, your exhaustion is inevitable, and meaning is waiting on the other side.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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