“…faith is what its all about…but is that true?”
It might be the case that, in a sense, faith is at the core of our experience. That there is experience, we cannot doubt, but as to how our experience is interpreted, i.e., as to what we make of our experience, perhaps faith does play a fundamental function.
While I’m sympathetic towards the idea that there is faith in science as well as in religion, I think that there is a definite qualitative distinction in such faith. To me, this distinction runs along the axis of most general to most individual with respect to interpretations of human experience. Now, it seems to me that science investigates the realm of the most general, i.e., it’s methods, presuppositions, and theories are derived from what is most common to our experiences. Thus, the faith of science reflects either implicit or explicit—relative to the individual—beliefs about what is universal to a human being. These beliefs appear to include consistency-constancy: sometimes referred to as “the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature”—that we all generally expect the sun to rise in the morning, that we all generally expect that a dropped object will fall to the ground, etc. Put differently, science seems to investigate the human experience at points that are common to each individual human life—it explores the intersection of all human experience; therefore, the faith of science reflects a general faith about certain elements of phenomena as experienced by human beings.
On the other hand, the faith of religion appears to manifest itself further away from what is most general to human interpretations of experience. We see this by the fact that there is no universal religious faith, but many particular formulations of religion. So, the faith of religion is more specific to sub-sets of people, as opposed to the faith of science being that of the set of all humans. The faith of religion can run from large collections of individuals to that of the particular individual. Of course, in discussing the faith of the particular individual, this is where some people will shift the discussion from ‘religion’ to ‘spirituality’.
So, while it appears that faith plays an important function in making sense of our experiences, there seems to be a difference in the way such faith manifests itself. This difference, as we have seen, is a function of the elements in the intersection of experience relative to the totality of the specific collection of human beings.
Thus, since the faith of science is a function of its wide domain, it is a faith that can give us very little beyond the mechanics—the “how”—of human experiences. This is why it is generally held that the structures and models of science can do very little beyond analogy and metaphor in working towards explaining things like morality, religion, spirituality, etc.. The faith of science doesn’t appear to give us much ground in our want for explanations as to “why.” Put differently, the quality of faith qua science is most general, and thus, most personally vapid; whereas the quality of faith qua more particular groups of human experiences is itself more particular, and thus, more personally meaningful.
So it seems to me that there is a reasonable definition of faith to be derived from what Nick and Ganesh have said: ‘faith’ “…is the ability to invest in a belief-system” and “[i]t's the subjective conviction that X is true…”; however, I think the notion of evidence is separate from faith in the sense that ‘evidence’ is itself going to be relative to the particular methods and scope of a specific investigation. Put differently, the evidence for belief qua science is established differently than the evidence for belief qua a given religion (although, conceivably, these can also intersect—but again, the acceptance of such an intersection will also be a function of what is counted as evidence qua the mode of investigating our experience). Therefore, while it seems that all our beliefs are, in some sense, “faith based,” notions of ‘evidence’ are external to our definition of ‘faith’. As we see in the definition that SMatthew provides, ‘proof’ is only marginally involved (in 2b), and from what I have said, somewhat misleadingly.
I think that ‘trust’ is the touchstone concept of ‘faith’ and if we can trust the etymology (ha ha), then we see that trust is at the root of faith. We trust in the doctrines of science and we trust in the doctrines of religion. It is important to remember that for a large part of our history science and religion were not separate but one. It is only relatively recently in our history that science and religion have severed ties, and so, it seems reasonable that we would want to view ‘faith’ as associated with ‘religion’ and science, of course, wants to do its best to efface any notions of ‘faith’ from its investigation of human experience. However, it still seems to me that, since we are dealing with ways of interpreting human experience, there is at the core of both science and religion our belief and trust. Again, it is merely a matter of a qualitative difference as to what those beliefs and trusts are about; however, both are faith based.
I think that Ganesh’s statement, “Problems only really arise when one insists that one's faith-based beliefs are objectively true, and others should believe them also,” is somewhat mistaken or at least, doesn’t quite capture the situation. I feel that it is clear that problems do arise when people have conflicts of belief. Yes, problems occur when we try to “derive an ought from an is”—that others ought to believe so and so from what becomes established as being, i.e., what is, relative to a specific mode of interpreting human experiences. However, it cannot be about what is objectively true, because there is only truth that is internal to a specific mode of interpretation. At best science only tells us about the barest of our most general intersubjective experience. Religion, on the other hand, appears to concern narrower collections of intersubjective experience.
So, in conclusion, faith does appear to play an important function in interpreting our human experience. It seems to me that what we can say, metaphorically of course, is that the more general the interpretation, the more shallow the faith and the more specific the interpretation, the more deep the faith.
One final comment: from what’s been said, we are now in a position to see how if faith is “what it’s all about,” then questions about truth qua faith are irrelevant. We can see the paradox embedded in the question that we began with. |
