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Re: Faith: rational or irrational?

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Hi there Elaine,

I'm an agnostic and an atheist - and this is a consistent combination as I'll
explain later. (An agnostic says we do not *know* if god exists or not, and an
atheist *believes* God does not exist. As we all know, knowledge has stronger
truth conditions than belief). 

In particular the following hold concerning my beliefs:
1) 'I do not believe that god exists'
And more importantly, a logically stronger fact (careful of the scope distinction):
2) 'I believe that god does not exist'

My disbelief in God is not based on evidence. The existence of God (as a
metaphysical claim) is unverifiable, there is no evidence that could refute or
support it. The Vienna Circle would say that the existence of God is thus
meaningless since it has no verification conditions (but they had their
semantics back to front anyway). In contrast I would say the existence of God is
a genuine metaphysical possibility, and as such there is no way we can decide
whether our world is a God world or not. Therefore I am agnostic, I accept that
there is no way in which I can *know* whether God exists or not. 

Yet I still *believe* he doesn't exist. And as I have already said, this belief
is not based on empirical evidence. Note also this point has nothing to do with
the metaphysical point above, this has to do with rationality. My belief (I
claim) is rational via an application of Ockham's Razor. As Laplace once
retorted when Napoleon queried the role of God in his mechanics, "Sir, I had no
need of that hypothesis". And we don't. It would be irrational to posit tooth
fairies when we already have an explanation as to why leaving teeth under your
pillow resulted in 50p in the morning. 


As for Pascal's wager... I think you're onto something at the end of your
e-mail. Pascal's wager seems to provide a reason to *have* a belief in God,
rather than a reason to believe in God. However, I'm not sure how well this
distinction holds up. "I have a belief in God" and "I believe in God" seem to be
synonymous. 

One thing I will say of Pascal's wager is if you are of my disposition, i.e. you
believe in the metaphysical possibility of God, it would seem you should believe
in him. The loss is 0, and the gain infinite (if gain is measured in years of
'life'), therefore however slim the probability, say it is p, it will always be
the case that p*0 < p*infinity. That is, the expected gain is infinitely better!
Perhaps I am being irrational for not believing in God? I haven't made sense of
this yet.

Anyway, to summarise, I would like to know what other people make of Pascal's
wager. Am I being irrational? Also I would be interested as to whether Pascal's
wager provides a reason to believe in God or not? Does the distinction between a
reason to believe in God and a reason to *adopt* a belief in God stand up to
scrutiny?

Andrew



> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
> 
> 
> Faith: rational or irrational?
> 
> Should faith, which seems necessarily to involve some element of uncertainty
> ? some blindness on the part of the believer ? always be non-rational (or
> even irrational) or does it involve some rational calculation?
> 
> [Disclaimer: I?m often confused about how to read Kierkegaard. I?m aware
> that the following presents just one reading. But it is the idea itself in
> which I?m interested, not really the accuracy of the literary interpretation
> ? heresy, I know?]
> 
> Kierkegaard is famed for arguing that faith defies rationality, for, in order
> to be faith rather than knowledge, the commitment cannot be based on evidence.
> In this sense it is ?blind?. Reacting against the more traditional rationalist
> approach (especially when it was applied to religious belief), he abhorred
> the idea that someone could claim to have a faith in God based on evidence
> or logic, a notion exemplified by Pascal?s Wager, which reasoned that being
> part of a Faith was the safer option. Briefly, the reasoning runs: If you
> are wrong and there?s no God or Afterlife, then you haven?t lost much, whereas
> if you are right and God does exist, then you are rewarded greatly rather
> than being severely punished as those would be who did not follow him. For
> Kierkegaard this was a superficial and selfish way to live based on scientific
> evidence or calculation rather than on character and faith. As a result,
> his writings distinguish between objective truths which he sees as the information
> we gain through science, rationality and other worldly observations, and
> subjective truths, recognized through passion, conviction and faith.
> 
> ?the objective way of reflection leads to the objective truth, and while
> the subject and his subjectivity become indifferent, the truth also becomes
> indifferent, and this indifference is precisely its objective validity; for
> all interest, like all decisiveness, is rooted in subjectivity.  The way
> of objective reflection leads to abstract thought, to mathematics, to historical
> knowledge of different kinds; and always it leads away from the subject,
> whose existence or non-existence, and from the objective point of view quite
> rightly, becomes infinitely indifferent.? Concluding Unscientific Postscript
> 
> Specifically on faith he states:
> 	
> ?Faith does not simply result from scientific enquiry; it does not come directly
> at all?Rather it is the case that in this voluminous knowledge, this certainty
> that lurks at the door of faith and threatens to devour it, [the believer]
> is in so dangerous a situation that much effort will be needed, in great
> fear and trembling, lest he fall victim to the temptation to confuse knowledge
> with faith.? Concluding Unscientific Postscript
> 
> However, another important aspect of subjective truth is that it requires
> a full commitment. It makes no sense to say ?I believe that pigs can fly,
> but I?m probably wrong?, for the element of doubt means that it is not full
> belief. Thus for a truth to be fully subjective, there must be no reliance
> on objective evidence and no element of doubt.
> 
> ?if [the believer] had assumed [belief] by virtue of any proof he would have
> been on the verge of giving up his faith.? Concluding Unscientific Postscript
> 
> Herein lies a problem for me. I don?t understand how one can allow for doubt
> in the certainty of the belief without requiring some rationality, by which
> the doubt can be dealt with or overcome. I fail to see how the ?blind? faith
> so far discussed is anything but tenacity. The believer, to have real faith,
> must surely recognize that his belief is epistemologically uncertain; otherwise
> it would seem (to him) to be in the same category as the objective truth
> which Kierkegaard argues destroys faith. Tenacity lacks the epistemological
> value of faith because it takes into account neither the subjective ?passion?
> of belief nor the objective justification.
> 
> We needn?t only consider religious faith here either. I think that the debate
> can be applied to any epistemologically uncertain or seemingly non-provable
> belief. Many people would accept the rational element of faith in a theory
> for day-to-day, scientific or otherwise academic beliefs, but not allow a
> rational component of religious Faith (capital f). Is this justified? ? many
> people claim to experience God just as clearly as they experience the material
> processes of science. It?s not clear to me that people have less of a
justification
> to look for reasons to believe in God than they do to believe scientific
> theories.
> 
> For the record, I don?t think Pascal?s Wager provides rational reason for
> faith ? it?s more of a rational motivation to try to come to faith. However,
> I think it does emphasize the requirement for recognizing uncertainty and
> acting upon it rationally. 
> So, what do you think?  Must faith involve rationality?  Must it preclude
> it?
> 
> -Elaine
> 
> 
> 
> [I?m eager to avoid the following discussion becoming a theist-bashing exercise,
> so could we focus on the question of whether or not faith should be rational,
> not whether people are correct to believe in God? Thank you :-) ]
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Andrew Bacon
Lady Margaret Hall
07830048336
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lady1900



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