Philosophy DB

Read Chapter 1 from the book (Introduction to philosophy: Christianity and the big questions) is attached and this is the citation for it (Wilkens, S., & Padgett, A. G. (2018). Introduction to philosophy: Christianity and the big questions. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.) 

Wilkens wrote “The most fundamental intellectual virtue necessary for philosophical thought is rationality” (p. 4).  An important part of rationality is distinguishing between rationality, irrationality, and non-rationality.  A rational statement can be supported by experiential or logical facts.  For example, “A sum of two positive integers is a larger positive integer” is a rational statement.  An irrational statement may make no sense (“My brother Bill is a tomato”). An irrational statement may make some sense but may be proven to be false by means of citing experiential or logical facts (“I met President Harry Truman at Target last Sunday.”)  Non-rational statements are expressions of opinion or statements that are not subject to factual verification, such as “My love is like a red, red rose.”

You are a minister and counsellor, and a young couple has asked you to perform their wedding ceremony.  You require that you meet with them and counsel them prior to agreeing to perform the ceremony.  When you meet with them, they make clear that they are “deeply in love.”  In the counselling process, however, you come to realize that the couple has not had serious conversations about finances, long-term personal goals, in-laws, communication styles, etc.  You share with the couple that “being in love,” while important, should be accompanied by a more “sound” basis for marriage before agreeing to perform their ceremony.  Their response is that their love will “conquer all.”  To get them to understand the importance of both non-rational and rational bases for marriage, what explanations and illustrations would you use to clarify for them the qualities of and the distinctions between 1.) “irrational” infatuation, 2.) “non-rational,” but real, sense of love, and 3.) “rational” grounds for making a life-time commitment?