Faith -- Let's Discuss It

Great Debates
1

There was an interesting side comment in my thread riposting Amazing Grace’s witness thread, now closed, about faith:

I thought this was touching and moving – and didn’t require comment. As it turned out, I found out that my not commenting made her(?) think she’d offended me. Meanwhile, the Rational Quest for Certitude Campaign had a few posts denigrating faith as inferior to reasoned analysis, William of O’s shaving apparatus, and the problems with Blaise’s gambling addiction.

For me, faith has nothing to do with rational thought; discussing it in those terms is like arguing about the blueness of justice or the tallness of Strict Constructionism.

I am aware of the potential for obtaining facts and working with them rationally. And I am aware of the capacity for forming opinions, and defending them.

And faith is neither one.

It’s placing assurance, trust, in another. I believe in people. I am confident that Siege will always treat me with the kindness and affection of siblings – which we are, in spirit, even though we are no relation by law or genealogy. I know that gobear and Fenris and Liberal and RTFirefly are man on whom I can count. I know that Scotticher is a lady whose kindness knows no bounds save her own physical limits. I know that my 10-year-old honorary grandson Brandon loves me, and has amazing intuition and compassion for someone so young, and will find a way to give me solace when I am hurting if it’s at all within his capacity.

I have faith in these people. It’s not a rational certitude that I can prove to Roger Thornhill or Sample the Dog by means of formal logic – it’s a deep-seated awareness of the sorts of people they are, and an inner assurance that my trust can be put in them and they won’t let me down.

That is the feeling I have towards Jesus Christ, and His Father and the Holy Spirit. I know I can count on them – that whatever happens, they will make it work out well in the end for me.

Both the main creeds begin with “I believe in God.” That’s the main statement of them, the independent clause. Everything else is in apposition, subordinate clauses, assertions regarding Who this God is that I believe in. In a thread three years ago, someone once pointed out that it did matter who your reference was to when you said something about the Name of Jesus – if the Jesus you mean is Jesus Rodriguez, who runs the landscaping service, you’re SOL. The creeds do nothing more than define the God in whom one believes. They’re not, in original intention, avowals of doctrinal orthodoxy, but explanations about that God, hung on the end of that single short-and-sweet statement of faith: “I believe in God.”

This sort of assurance is quite real, though (I don’t believe) unprovable by means of logic (and likewise unfalsifiable, except by proof of the non-existence of the God in whom that faith rests). And it’s the source of the comfort of which Fessie speaks.

“Blind faith,” used pejoratively to dismiss the lack of rigorous logic behind one’s belief in God, is nearly as out of place as suggesting that all children be taught to masturbate when they reach their teens, and make that the extent of their sex lives for the duration of their lives, because any romantic liaison they may make cannot be proven to be completely safe and of no injury to them, so they should never risk such heartbreak, but rather turn to what’s guaranteed never to touch their emotions. Most emotionally healthy people will take the risk of making themselves vulnerable in a love relationship, for the benefit of sharing love with another, and after surviving a couple of traumatic breakups, they will find someone they can love and trust to love them, and share their lives with – even though that’s not the logical thing to do, if you wish to avoid emotional harm.

There’s a good reason why English uses the same word to describe the relationship of God and man and the relationship of a courting or married couple. And it’s based in that faith, that trust in each other, that characterizes why each relationship is in fact possible.

Discuss.

2

This makes perfect sense to me–the analogy I’ve used is that they’re basketball players criticizing Tiger Woods for not dribbling the ball. Faith, as this atheist sees it, has a lot more in common with poetry than with mathematics.

I don’t feel any particular lack in my life due to my lack of faith; indeed, the idea of feeling faith terrifies me in a visceral Gregor Samsa way. If I woke up one morning with faith in my heart–well, it’s hard for me to imagine that I’d be the same person that I went to bed as. And the only times faith has ever tempted me in my life is when I was going through an emotional hell, and my longing for faith at those times was akin to longing for a fifth of Jack Daniels. Faith ain’t me.

But there’s nothing generalizeable about that. I imagine that for you, Polycarp, the idea of waking up one morning without faith is equally appalling.

Daniel

3

Except, you are basing those feelings on logic, aren’t you? You’ve formed beliefs about these people based on your experiences with them. You’ve seen that these people are loving and generous and trustworthy, and so you’ve made assumptions based on that evidence…that you can count on them, that they’ll try to help you if you’re in pain, etc. I’m sure you’re right about this, but it’s different than being Blanche DuBois, who “relies on the kindness of strangers”.

4

But how did you develop this confidence? You did it through observation and experience. You used your rational faculties to probe the depths of their character. Are you saying it would be impossible for someone to con you?

Sure you could. You can give examples of things they’ve done, converstaions you’ve had, etc.

That sounds more like hope to me than anything else, since you have no direct experince with Jesus Christ. You can show me things that your friends have done. You cannot show me something that Christ has done.

5

I’ve often thought that the word faith really should be replaced by hope. Faith comes from a track record. And sorry but it’s not really shown that Jesus has ever done anything since his death. Faith that the Bible is the true word of God is like defining a word with that same word.

6

Here’s a pasage from Hebrews 11:1 that might be helpful:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
(Always seems odd to me when I see a discussion of Christian beliefs that doesn’t reference the Bible at least once.)

What I think Poly is trying to do is to separate faith from credulity. ‘Blind faith’ would be an example of credulity, imho. A thinking Christian’s faith would indeed be based on something that they define as real. And that’s where the discussion usually breaks down. Because the unbeliever can’t or won’t comprehend that the believer feels they have defined it well enough for them, and vice versa.

7

Not being able to prove to another what God has done for him doesn’t mean Polycarp can’t use that unprovable knowledge to reason with–it just means he won’t be able to prove his reasoning to others.

Ultimately, that’s what I think faith is: Believing something to be a fact even if you can’t prove it. What I don’t understand is how the definition I just gave differs from the one in the OP. Polycarp can’t prove that gobear won’t con him, but he goes about his life as if “gobear will never con Polycarp” is a fact; just like he goes about his life as if “Jesus will always be there for me” is a fact. In both cases, he’s recognizing something as true that he can’t prove.

8

Daniel, this Christian sees it the exact same way. I’m both a programmer and a poet and quite good at both. To me, a faith which did not transcend logic wouldn’t have much worth. I mean, if God is so simple I can prove Him with logic alone, how can He be complex enough to handle all the contradictions in this world?

Things have happened to me which could be rather remarkable coincidences or evidence of God. They’ve comforted me, sustained me, and, on at least one occaision, saved my neck. John Mace, you spoke of confidence based on past experience. My past experience with what I perceive as God has been positive and reassuring, including that notable moment when I was nearly completely catatonic with fear, pain, and severe clinical depression. There was an incident a number of years ago when I came to work only to face an unexpected round of layoffs. As word spread through the plant, I whispered a prayer, “God, I’m scared,” and heard/felt/sensed the reply “It’ll be all right.” I had reason to be afraid. Within half an hour of that, I was laid off. That was Friday morning. On Sunday morning, there was an ad for a job which looked suitable. Two weeks later, I started a different, better job which paid a full $10,000 a year more than the old job with the company which placed the ad. It was all right.

As some of you know, I’ve been coping with my grandmother’s death for the past week. I have turned to my Christian faith for comfort and assurance. Now, I’m not concerned for her soul – one advantage of being a liberal Christian – but I have been concerned for my mother, her daughter, and for the rest of the family because this is a painful thing. We’ll miss her. On the other hand, my faith assures me she’s well, happy, and she knows I love her. I assume, based on no evidence whatsoever, that this would have been a lot harder for me if I were an atheist.

Douglas Adams once said the art of flying was to throw yourself at the ground and miss. That’s what faith is to me. By all logic, I should have impacted, and hard enough to make a fair-sized crater. Instead, I found myself flying, however disconcertedly, then capable of flying. If God could be proved by logic alone, then faith would be irrelevant. Faith takes me beyond the limitations of the merely physical, tangible world. It is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard, music I cannot resist. It is hope in times of absolute despair, and light to my soul when the darkness of depression threatens to overwhelm me. It’s the love – no, make that Love – which touched an outcast, lonely, lost little girl and gave her a hope of belonging and acceptance; it’s the Peace which can reach a mind inclined to fly in seven different directions at once. I have a tendency to tilt at windmills, to the occaisional despair of those who love me. If I am riding hell-for-leather at the latest injustice to be defeated, faith is the horse beneath me, steady, reliable, and something I can lean on when I pick myself up out of the dust. St. James once wrote “Faith without works is dead.” I say, “Siege without faith is dead.”

I know I can’t explain this in a way which will make sense to some of you out there; I wish you could experience what I have, but I also understand that’s not to be the case. My faith is irrational, unprovable, and yes, even illogical. It is also solid, sustainable, more trustworthy than anything I know, for my logical mind contains an irrational streak, and every bit as real as anything I know. The love I hold for my grandmother or a gentleman of my acquaintance holds for me are intangible and unprovable. Nevertheless, they are real. So, to me, is faith.

Respectfully and humbly,
Siege

9

Faith baffles me. I don’t think I ever had it, and doubt I ever will. When I see other people make expressions of faith, I’m completely bemused. I don’t know if there’s a God, or what He/She/It migh want from me. What I do know is folks who think they do give me the creeps. All of them. I wish I had a more positive reaction to witnessing and such, but honestly, I find it frightening. It’s like something alien has jacked into peoples’ minds and taken over, filling them with odd but highly specific delusions; yet it somehow leaves all of their other faculties and perceptions perfectly intact. I honestly wonder if it’s something broken in them, or in me. I haven’t the foggiest clue, and really can’t be bothered to figure myself out, because I don’t feel bereft. Perhaps, to flatter the faithful, I’m like a person blind from birth, unable to miss my sight because I never had it; so instead I have developed my other senses as best I can, and in so doing have found that I’m highly functional and really quite happy despite my “deficiency”. I sometimes wonder at the sympathetic condescention of some of those with “vision”, and why they wonder how I can bear it in a world so dark. But I get a great deal of satisfaction feeling about with my hands and smelling the air for clues, and in quiet moments of contemplation, I sometimes feel a little bad for them, as it seems they’re often missing the tree for the forest.

10

  1. Nicely said, Polycarp; more in a moment.

  2. NoClueBoy, it’s no reflection on you, but that’s the most inelegant version of that scripture I’ve ever seen. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

  3. As an atheist and a skeptic, faith is something I seldom speak of. However, I regard my unprovable conviction that there is no god as a sort of faith. There is no evidence that I can point to, only the comfort I find in knowing that our suffering in this vale of tears is neither intentional, nor planned, nor the best of all possible worlds, but simply the world that is.

11

No offense taken. That site has about 30 versions available. I chose the non flowery one simply so the point wouldn’t be obscured by lovely prose. :slight_smile:

Personally, I like the NLT’s version:

“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.”

12

I both agree with you and do not.

My experience is that of a convert: much of my life was spent (religiously speaking) considering religious systems and evaluating according to a variety of criteria to see which I wanted to adopt. Much of this process was entirely rational, though largely grounded on subjective perceptions:

  • I was seeking a system whose basic precepts I did not consider obviously false.
  • I was seeking a system that described the divine in terms that were in accord with my own experiences thereof.
  • I was seeking a system whose prescribed actions struck me as effective, rather than silly or counterproductive. (Those effects could be limited to personal satisfaction.)
  • I was seeking a system that would encourage me to become a better human being, providing correcting for my flaws and support for the use of my strengths.

For additional positive points, I was looking for a system that inspired beauty in and for me, and one where the established lines of thought (and terms of art) were such that I could build upon them rather than having to derive them from my own work. I found such systems, and adopted them, and found the results that I was looking for; further, I found additional supplementary material that was compatible with those systems.

Faith – the non-rational thing – comes in in the seeking of these things in certain sorts of systems, in the trust that the experiences are as I interpreted them rather than some random happenstance of biochemical events, in the belief that cultivating relationship will continue to be mutually beneficial, in the confidence that the ritual actions will remain satisfying and conducive to personal growth and development, in the feeling of guidance and the confidence that that guidance will serve me and the world well (even when it goes in directions that are more work than I truly wish to do on my own). Faith is not merely resting in trusting that certain experiences are manifestations of the unseen, but in doing the work that I would not do otherwise – both in terms of self-improvement and the acquisition of skills and in terms of dedication to the improvement of the religion and its goals.

13

It’s not a case of being unable to prove what God has done for him, it’s a case of lack of evidence of God’s actions upon which to base faith. Polycarp can show me evidence of what gobear or Fenris has done for him, and with that evidence, I may or may not agree that they are persons that can be counted upon, but at least there’s evidence that can be presented that they have done good actions, and it makes faith in these people appear more reasonable.

If Polycarp were to state that he lives his life as if gobear would not con him, he can point to evidence backing that statement up. He can testify to positive actions that gobear has taken, with firsthand knowledge. He can introduce me to gobear and I can meet him myself and find him an overall good fellow. On the other hand, what evidence is there that Jesus is reliable? Can you show me persons who will testify with firsthand knowledge (or at least fairly recent knowledge) as to the positive actions of Jesus? Can Polycarp come to my house with Jesus and introduce me to Jesus as he would introduce me to gobear?

14

Well and good. But I have a few questions.

What happens when your faith is not in things not seen, but things seen incorrectly. Don’t creationists operate out of faith in the Bible, and close their eyes to all evidence against their faith?

And what does faith lead to? Internal worship, of course. Poly’s faith leads only to good deeds, no doubt, but what about the man whose faith leads him to evil deeds? The only argument against him must include rationalism. How is one person’s unproven and unprovable faith better than another’s?

15

Faith is a choice.

I choose to believe that there is good in people. I can’t prove it or disprove it. But I would rather live my life believing and acting as if it were true.

To connect with Voyager’s question: of course some people make bad choices. They put their faith in the wrong things. I doubt that many here (or anywhere) would say that any faith is better than no faith.

16

This is interesting to me, and I wonder if it’s a major difference between theists and non-theists. For me, nothing I believe is a choice: I look at the world around me, think about it, and reach conclusions.

Given the thoughts I have, the evidence I see, I reach a certain conclusion inevitably. If I eat a piece of fish and believe it’s been seasoned with rosemary, it’s absolutely impossible for me to choose to believe instead that no rosemary went into its seasoning. Similarly, if I conclude that there’s no God, I can’t choose to go out and believe that there is a God.

I’ve heard theists say that they can choose to believe in things. Maybe faith can be defined as “a chosen belief”?

I can pretend to believe in something if I want; when I read a good novel, I pretend to believe it’s all happening for real, and I can forget that I’m pretending–but if someone asks me whether I believe it’s for real, then I’ll know that I have no such belief. I’ll know that I’m pretending.

Faith seems to be, not about pretending to believe in something, but about choosing to believe in it.

Is this accurate?
Daniel

17

I don’t know if it’s a major difference between theists and non-theists–I’m a theist and I don’t think that belief is a choice, and it follows that I don’t think faith is a choice.

You can choose to think about something or to try and acquire knowledge, but, if you’re being honest with yourself, you can’t make an a priori control decision about what conclusions you’ll draw: An intellectually honest person can’t say “I’m going to read the Bible, and afterwards I’m going to believe in Jesus.”

18

Strike “control” from the phrase “a priori control decision.”

19

I think the argument being made by atheists is that there is insufficient evidence in the bible (or torah, or koran, or any other religious manuscript for that matter) in order to provide substantive proof to support a faith in a deity. At best, the arguments within these texts are circular and don’t stand up to strict logic.

Faith, as theists see it, doesn’t require proof nor does it need to stand up to rigors of logic. Faith must grow from one’s own willingness and desire to accept certain concepts as personal truths.

20

I don’t see how the second sentence follows from the first. I may not be able to prove to you that something exists, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had experiences that I can internally reason with, even if I can’t prove or demonstrate the underlying conditions of that reasoning to you. I can have a religious experience or make a subjective decision, and I can “prove” neither of them to another, but I can still conclude from them that there’s a God (or whatever).