Faith?

[Jeff250]

What is the epistemological merit of faith? Do you need faith to use faith? Do you need faith to justify it? Why is assenting to something that is not supported by fact or contradicted by current understanding a virtue, not a vice? Or are these the wrong questions?

[TechPro]

\"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.\" (Hebrews 11:1, King James Version)

Faith is like an exercise in trust. For example, suppose a 2 story home was on fire and a young child (a girl) was trapped in an upper bedroom. The Father calls to the child from outside and instructs the child to jump from the window and Father will catch her. The child cannot see her Father very well, but she climbs onto the window ledge and jumps. The child's trust in her Father is a demonstration of her Faith that her Father would catch her.

Faith, as a demonstration of Trust, is a virtue. IMO

[Lothar]

\"Faith\" has two very different definitions. One of them is a virtue, while the other is foolishness.

People often take \"faith\" to mean \"belief in something you want to be true\" or \"belief in something unjustified\". They set it up as the opposite of reason, which is \"belief in whatever the evidence shows\". When bad stuff happens, you're often implored to \"have faith\" that \"it'll all work out\" without any particular reason behind it. When you don't believe in religion X, people will say you \"don't have faith\". This is foolishness -- there's no reason to believe something you don't have reason to believe.

The other definition of \"faith\" is \"trusting that someone/something will continue as it has or do as promised\". If I say I have faith in my wife, it means I believe (and act upon believing) she'll succeed at a task or act in a certain way, because I know what sort of person she is and what abilities she has. Here, faith is set up as the opposite of forgetfulness, and a result of reason/evidence. If I said I had faith in my wife but she was a known [insert bad thing here] you'd rightly identify me as an idiot, because there's no reason to have faith in something contrary to the evidence.

You'll find the second definition of faith is the way it's used in the Bible. Outsiders are never criticized for their lack of faith; it's the people who have seen great things and still don't believe who are criticized. Those who are commended for their great faith are those who have seen God do one thing and believe He'll keep His promise to do more. The contrast is always \"X has not been faithful; X has forgotten.\" It's not \"X is unconvinced\" but \"X has forgotten what was already known\". Gideon is listed among the great \"people of faith\" in Hebrews 11; he is also famous for demanding a sign from God at the end of Judges 6. Quite clearly, \"faith\" (as used in the Bible) is meant to convey an EARNED TRUST rather than a BLIND TRUST.

The next-to-last question you ask is key: \"assenting to something... not supported by [the evidence]\" is a vice. It's foolishness and delusion. (People who have that kind of \"faith\" might end up being right on occasion, but only by sheer luck.) But \"acting upon something you believe to be true because of prior experience\" is a virtue, and that's the good kind of faith. It doesn't require some vacuous \"I wish it to be so\" pre-faith faith, or bogus \"I just believe it\" justifications; true faith should ALWAYS be based on your actual experience.

I consider a lot of atheists, Buddhists, and others \"faithful\" because they act upon what their experience has taught them... and I consider a lot of Christians \"unfaithful\" because they cling to ideas that run contrary to their own experience, and their actions don't match up with either their words or their experience.

[Kilarin]

Excellent post Lothar (good to hear from you again!). And great example Techpro

Faith, as the Bible defines it, is the exact opposite of the way many silly people define it. It's not about the triumph of belief over evidence, but about the triumph of reason over emotion. Allow me to give an example:

In Texas I reckon we do a lot of things better than just about anyone else does. But there ARE a FEW things that we aren't very good at. Right at the TOP of that list has got to be \"driving on Ice\". We don't get a lot of practice at it. We don't build up the right Habits for it.

Just picture a common January scenario. You're driving down the road, there are a few patches of ice, but you're having no trouble. Up ahead you see an intersection. The light turns red. Your foot moves over to the brake and you start to step gently down, and something goes TERRIBLY wrong. Instead of stopping, the wheels loose traction on the ice and you start to slide into the intersection, Right into the path of an oncoming 18 wheeler.

Now, most of us KNOW what the right thing to do is. We learned it in Drivers Ed, or Defensive Driving. Perhaps our parents told us when we were learning how to drive. We KNOW that when you loose traction on ice, the first thing you MUST do is take your foot OFF the brake. Its the ONLY chance you have of regaining control. There is no lack of evidence for it, and if you asked us when we were calm, we wouldn't dispute the fact.

But right now the adrenaline is rushing through your muscles. All of your Flight or Fight responses are running at max, That 18 wheeler is going 60 miles an hour and the ONLY thing you can think is that you want to STOP. And taking your foot OFF the brake seems like the LAST thing in the world you ought to be doing. It's a crisis of FAITH. Do you have FAITH in what you know to be true? Can you do what you KNOW to be right, even when fear drives you away from it? Or will you do what your gut tells you, and stomp the brake down to the floorboard? \"There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death\"

As Lothar pointed out, the Biblical examples where people are chided for lack of faith are all ones where they had been given ample evidence to believe. For example, the Children of Israel on their way from Egypt to Canaan. Miracle after Miracle happens to them, and still each time a new problem came up they grumbled and questioned. THAT was a lack of Faith.

[Spooky]

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[Foil]

Excellent responses (and yes, good to hear from you again, Lothar!)... made me think a bit.

I hadn't heard/read such a clear articulation of the difference between the various meanings of \"faith\" before, so thank you.

[Jeff250]

I agree--that was fairly good.

This conception of faith seems to rule out praising somebody for taking a more conversative viewpoint on a murky issue, which I like. The reason why I prompted this thread was because of another thread's suggestion that young-earth creationists' faith is praiseworthy. It seems to me that, even if both the young- and the old-earth views were equally plausible, the person who chooses the young-earth view is no more faithful than one who chooses the old-earth view (or at least in a praiseworthy way).

Still, it does seem as though faith does involve giving some sort of otherwise unwarranted amount of weight to one side of an issue rather than another. Doesn't one require faith to believe in God, or is this only insofar that this is a reasonable decision anyways?

[Bet51987]

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1, King James Version)

Faith is like an exercise in trust. For example, suppose a 2 story home was on fire and a young child (a girl) was trapped in an upper bedroom. The Father calls to the child from outside and instructs the child to jump from the window and Father will catch her. The child cannot see her Father very well, but she climbs onto the window ledge and jumps. The child's trust in her Father is a demonstration of her Faith that her Father would catch her.

Faith, as a demonstration of Trust, is a virtue. IMO

If your speaking of the religious interpretation of faith, then it doesn't apply here at all. If I was the little girl, and I heard my fathers voice telling me to jump, I would jump without any hesitation because I know he's there to catch me. If I heard a stranger tell me to jump, uncertainty might make we wait until the last possible moment but I would eventually jump. If I heard no one then I would most likely stay and burn to death.

If I was older...and hearing no one...I would jump but have little faith that God would save me. Faith and trust are not the same.

Bee

[De Rigueur]

Still, it does seem as though faith does involve giving some sort of otherwise unwarranted amount of weight to one side of an issue rather than another. Doesn't one require faith to believe in God, or is this only insofar that this is a reasonable decision anyways?

David Hume is famous for saying, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." I think there is a potential problem with this advice because good evidence is not always available. How do you proceed in cases where evidence is lacking, conflicting, ambiguous, private or tainted? You can probably think of many examples of such cases, but how about the case of: what is the ultimate nature of reality? Is it personal or impersonal?

I offer two quotes that IMO describe the human epistemic situation:

Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The universe is religiously ambiguous -- meaning by this, not that it has no definite character, but it is capable from our present point of view within it of being consistently thought and experienced in both religious and naturalistic ways.

John Hick, Afterword in Evil and the Evidence for God by Doug Geivett

Starting with Hick's view, we can ask what it could be that inclines a person to adopt a religious or naturalistic interpretation of reality. According to him, both interpretations can be held consistently so the choice would not be a matter of giving "unwarranted amount of weight to one side." I personally think the choice is more complex and involves the whole person, one's ultimate commitments, who you really are deep down.

[Weyrman]

Bettina, your comment actually highlights a very important part of “biblical” faith

Quite clearly, "faith" (as used in the Bible) is meant to convey an EARNED TRUST rather than a BLIND TRUST.

Faith in your father would have been built up over your relationship with him, from as simple as "he hasn't been bad to me" along with "He caught me!!" at the first time you ever jumped into his arms, along with the day to day interactions that tell you that this person is reliable, dependable and trustworthy. You would then be able to have faith to jump without actually seeing him based on your experiences with him. A stranger you would most likely hesitate at, as you have no reason for faith.

All in all, there had to be a first time somewhere that you took a chance and found that a person was reliable and at that point, trust in them began to grow, and continues and develops as that person remains consistent with what they have shown themselves to be. It is on this basis that we are sometimes asked to have faith in them concerning areas not yet tried and tested or understood. ie. Our parents who try and steer us in the right direction and often say "Trust me, I'm older and wiser than you are."

This also is the same type of faith that God asks of us.

[Lothar]

The reason why I prompted this thread was because of another thread's suggestion that young-earth creationists' faith is praiseworthy.

You've touched on one of the most annoying things about Churchianity. People often encourage one another for their "faith" (by which they mean, arrogance, blind trust, sloppy reasoning, etc.) and discourage those who dare to ask difficult questions or reach conclusions outside of orthodoxy as "lacking in faith". What? You're curious as to whether the King James Bible is flawless? Oh ye of little faith! You wonder why objects in the universe seem to be older than 6,011 years? INFIDEL!

The sort of faith such people are advocating is worthless.

it does seem as though faith does involve giving some sort of otherwise unwarranted amount of weight to one side of an issue rather than another.

Would you say my having faith in my wife is due to giving unwarranted weight to one side of the issue? If not, then why must you assume other forms of faith require the same?

In practice, many people DO give unwarranted weight to one side or the other of most issues, but that's not particularly a flaw with the concept of "faith" so much as with the way humans generally reason.

[Sirius]

Lothar - not to derail the thread but if you have maybe previously posted your take on the whole age-of-the-earth issue I would be interested to read it...

[Spooky]

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[Kilarin]

I really like C. S. Lewis's discussion on Faith in Chapter 11 of "Mere Christianity".

an excerpt:
what does puzzle people - at least it used to puzzle me - is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on earth it can be a virtue - what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid.

Well, I think I still take that view. But what I did not see then -and a good many people do not see still - was this. I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so. For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anaesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. I start thinking I am going to choke, and I am afraid they will start cutting me up before I am properly under. In other words, I lose my faith in anaesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.

The Russion Orthodox Church has put the whole thing online (last section on that page entitled FAITH). I'm assuming they had permisson to do so?

Lothar - not to derail the thread but if you have maybe previously posted your take on the whole age-of-the-earth issue

I was looking for a very interesting essay on Genesis that I remembered being written by Lothar, but I misremembered, its by his wife Drakona. You can find it here.

In the post that I found the link in, Lothar lays out some of his view of Genesis.
(NOT trying to pre-empt Lothar answering the question himself, I was just looking for that essay!)

[Testiculese]

Spooky, what you just described is the exact reason I have no faith in religion or the bible. In this case, you can't go to the source.

[Ford Prefect]

An interesting discussion as is often the case on this board. I did a Wikipedia on faith and ended up with an interesting definition, not of faith but of \"acting in good faith\"

One who acts in good faith, so far as the violation of positive law (or even in certain junctures of natural law) is concerned, is said to labour under an invincible error, and hence to be guiltless. This consideration is frequently applied to determine the degree of right or obligation prevailing in the various forms of human engagements, such as contracts (common law) and the law of obligations (civil law). In fact, good faith has been identified as the key essence of a contract, and the parties are expected to act in good faith in their dealings.

Here faith obligates you to be truthful and to make every effort to do as you claimed you would and has it's negative counterpart as \"acting in bad faith\" or being dishonest.
Good faith,bad faith. A slightly different take on the word.

[Lothar]

The words \"faithful\" and \"unfaithful\", in certain ways, are similar to \"good faith\" and \"bad faith\" from Ford Prefect's post. One is said to be \"unfaithful\" when they go against their promises (wedding vows and the like), and \"faithful\" when they hold to them. A faithful person is a person who is worthy of trust -- worth of having faith in.

You'll notice that, of all the definitions and all the common usage we find in this thread, in only one case is \"faith\" a bad thing.