Examination of Steis's View on Relation of Thought and Intuition in his Time and Eternity

On the assumption that science and religion, as well as reason and mysticism, are incompatible, Walter Steis in Time and Eternity made an attempt to remove the incompatibility and reconcile them in one way or another. According to Steis the statements of science and reason as well as those of religion and mysticism cannot be regarded as relating to and true of the same wolrld, since their contents are incompatible. If each of these two statements, however, is taken as looking to a world different from each other, the conflict is resolved. Accordingly, scientific propositions and rational laws are related to the world of nature or spacio-temporal world while those of faith and mysticism are concerned with supernatural world that is eternal. The realm of science and, in general, any rational knowledge is the world of nature with no access to world of eternity which is only accessible through faith and intuition. Now if we are going to obtain knowledge of eternal world, the result will be statements incompatible with experience and logic and as result they cannot be literally true. These statements as mythical and symbolic ones can refer to a truth deeper than what they apparently indicate. But this attempt by Steis is in vein and inclusive. For it implies an ontological dichotomy and discontinuity as well as an epistemological gap, which is incoherent with the demands of reason and heart of faithand mysticism that consistently put stress on unity of existence and coherence of knowledge.