I have never regarded "skepticism" as the necessary enemy of "faith".
Instead, I see the two as potential friends, for without skepticism how will the person of faith ever know the true extent of their faith?
Indeed, someone with genuine faith should value skepticism and be deeply concerned as to what can be established without resorting to faith.
For me, there are three relevant propositions here:
1. There are beliefs which do not require faith
These are the beliefs of the genuine skeptic and secularist, using critical reasoning and an evidence-base approach.
For example, there is a book called the Bible and it contains accounts of a person called Jesus.
2. There are beliefs which require faith to take you further than what can actually be established - to fill the gap
These are the commonest beliefs of many with faith, a sort of complementary faith. A critical and evidence-based approach will only take a believer so far, so faith is required to take them to their actual beliefs.
For example, the accounts of Jesus refer to the actual Son of God; or there "must be something there".
3. There are beliefs which contradict what can otherwise be established
These are the beliefs of those who will believe things to be true despite - and in the face of - any evidence or critical thinking. This is a sort of contrarian faith.
This is the most impressive form of faith and is rather beyond my own comprehension.
For example, the miracles described in the Bible and Saints' Lives are literally true, or there was indeed a decree that all the world be taxed, or Earth is only 6000 years old, or water retains a memory, and so on.
Curiously, such contrarian believers tend not to cherish skepticism as the means by which they can understand and measure that incredible leap they require their faith to undertake.
I would have thought, perhaps naively, that any person of faith would be keen and enthused to know what does not require faith; a few do, but most do not. And very few contrarian believers will engage with a skeptic.
Perhaps they do not take their faith that seriously?
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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5 comments:
As ever, Jack, v. interesting stuff.
Your first proposition appears to deal with facts which exist irrespective of whether anyone believes in them (as in your example that there is a book called The Bible, and the contents thereof).
From many kinds of fact one may draw a range of possible conclusions (or "form beliefs"), religious or not, some of which are more readily supportable than others. And certain things are simply not readily amenable to proof to the standard that a scientist or perhaps a lawyer would require.
The need to test ones ideas against objective criteria ought to be central to any belief system and as such, skeptics and believers ought to enjoy far better dialogue than they generally seem to.
Perhaps it's got more than a little to do with the way that many self-proclaimed skeptics express themselves and can't help themselves from treating those with whom they disagree with that most back-getting-up combination of pity and contempt?! I do not include your goodself in that category, of course..!
Most so called skeptics are really true believers in drag.
True believers in the "authority" of the dogmas and the doctrines of scientism, which is the currently ruling paradigm that gets to define what is true, real and possible.
The underlying "faith" in this time is that "It is the word of science--and therefore, it is true", is exactly equivalent to the medieval "faith" that "It is the word of the church--and, therefore, it is true."
In both cases what is or was being promulgated is DOCTRINE and DOGMA, and not Truth.
Whatever the prevailing doctrine may be, it is always kept in place by institutionalized means, to be reinforced by propagandistic authoritarian efforts, over and over again.
As in this case by the benighted advocates of "counter-knowledge" and "bad"-science.
The post by Anonymous above shows how one can place as much faith in the power of "inverted commas" and CAPITALS as a Christian can place in the efficacy of prayer.
Dear Helen of Essex, I concur that more faith/skeptic dialogue would be a good thing and also, sadly, there are skeptics who adopt such an awful approach to debate.
Hi Jack,
As ever an interesting post.
I'd like to ask a question of your first statement.
1. There are beliefs which do not require faith
In statements of this kind we never seem to clearly define what these terms mean in our everyday use of language.
Looking at that fountain of knowledge that is wikipedia;
"Faith is the confident belief in the truth of or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. It is also used for a belief, characteristically without proof."
"The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true."
The two definitions above reflect how I understand and try to use these words and will in this post. Others may disagree with these definitions, but the point I wish to make reflects MY understanding of them (if you disagree we'll happily have a different argument).
My point therefore is using the word belief is ambiguous and so should be avoided.
There appear to be four belief possibilities:
Belief ................... 1 ......... 2 ...... 3 ......... 4
Is it true .............. Yes ..... Yes ..... No ........ No
Can you justify it . Yes ..... No ..... Yes ........ No
Your belief is ..Knowledge . Faith . Knowledge . Faith
Any belief whether true or false where the believer does not have "a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true" is the same to me as faith.
These beliefs may be interesting for inspiring further investigation in to how the world works, but should not attract any deference from us as ideas about how the world (i.e. the complete system we live in) works (I’m not discussing morality here).
We have to be careful of course how we think about those beliefs where we think we have a justification for belief that they are true, i.e. what we call true beliefs that are therefore also considered as knowledge.
It is possible that we have erred in our understanding of the facts, made mistakes in our application of knowledge, mistaking correlation for causality, making errors in application of logic. (Number 3 above)
We must keep Karl Popper close to hand, reminding us to give the facts a good shake to see what is left standing.
I therefore agree that it is possible for a "non true” belief or faith to actually be true (number 2 above), but we are unable to determine (as we have no justification, by definition) to decide which of these faith positions (2 or 4) is the true one. If we did, they would cease to be faith positions but then become knowledge.
This for me leads to the crucial point, is faith a virtue and or requirement for salvation. I have heard some religious people claim this to be so (maybe they are minority). To them faith is an end in itself.
When this is the idea that is being defended/promoted my respect for religious/faith ideas dissolves.
Sorry for the long post (more fun than reading about International Financial Reporting Standards).
See you on Friday, Peter.
I can't hope to be as eloquent as your previous respondents, but hopefully as/more lucid. I'd like to say that as a Christian exploring the extent and reason for my faith I found your exposition very helpful, cutting through the dogma found on both sides.
I'm nowhere near done exploring yet, and never expect to be, but one or two things have recently become apparent, in part thanks to hearing a 'Cafe culturel' talk by Simon Singh last night in Nottingham (Tue.) on his latest book. (Sorry about those inverted commas!) This led me to your blog.
Firstly, may I define faith as I see it - that is some means by which you act, which is beyond, and not supported or contradicted by truths, although I think can be rational. I think this fits with Peter's suggestion, and doesn't require dogma.
The acting upon is important, and subject of many talks & sermons I've heard. If you don't act on it it is an impotent faith (Book of James in the Bible).
Having said that, people - all people I would suggest, create their own world view based on their beliefs, only some of which are grounded in truth, and they justify them by many means, often irrationally - this isn't usually referred to as faith. Of course under this definition, religious beliefs, often subject to scrutiny, are only some of many. People live by many non-religious beliefs / world views, and don't appreciate it - e.g. the belief in consumerism.
Those beliefs are built up by many things, the most fundamental of course being experience and the consistency of the world around us. A lot are created by culture, religion, society, some on reason, and it seems fewer on scientific method, which is not available to us all, of course.
One other thought I have for now about being a sceptical person of faith (oxymoron?). That is that I am continually testing whether my faith, and the way I live, stands up to the rigour of modern life, scientific knowledge, and my relationships. In my experience many Christians do this, not starting wth dogma, but with a faith perspective. That's why I have a great suspicion of dogma, where-ever it comes - something I think I share with Jesus.
OK, you could say that faith is dogmatic position by definition, but (my) faith does call me to be better, and acknowledge that I have faults - a good starting point.
Finally, through following your other christianity post - As for what we humans have built on the foundations Jesus gave us - well, not altogether great, but not unexpected given what we are (i.e. Human), and when considering the way individual Christians live, not at all bad...
So - scepticism - friend of faith - enemy of dogma....
You could check out some liberal Christian web sources...
Thanks again.
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