Re: Faith: rational or irrational?

On 25/08/06, Luis Johnstone <luisjohnstone@onetel.net> wrote:

Greetings,

Two quick lines of thought:

Doesn't faith entail belief? I mean I don't just 'have faith' I 'have faith that...'.
So, suppose that I have faith that 'god exists'.
If I had evidence for the belief then wouldn't it simply be a justified belief?
Indeed, if I had poor evidence we would say that my belief was unjustified.
So, I think, if we are to successfully distinguish faith from justified/ unjustified belief we must drop the criterion of evidence.
Some might well prefer to simply say that all faith was unjustified belief but I think that this does disservice to the intuitions of many.
However, providing that we DO want to distinguish faith from mere unjustified belief I think that we must entertain the possibility that faith may not be the kind of thing that can receive justification.

On the other hand supposing we accept the criterion of justification (my second point):
I wonder to what extent religious experience will play in issues of faith. This is an area I'm very interested in.
Thus far I've come to the conclusion that an epistemic standard which excludes the evidence of religious experience would be hard-pressed to avoid excluded many everyday beliefs which we take ourselves to know. Personally, I'm happier with lowering that epistemic bar because in doing so we are not opening the door to a proof of god's existence. All we are doing is acknowledging that it MAY be rational to believe in god. And, until there is evidence to the contrary, the POSSIBILITY of a belief being rational is always open.
In my view, the issue has nothing to do with whether the belief in god can be rational (in other words, justified) but, rather whether the belief is IN FACT justified.
And we can then run this one of two ways:
1. We can say that thiests whose faith is based upon religious experience are justified in their belief that god exists.
- we can also say that athiests whom believe that god does not exist are also justified in their belief that god does NOT exist.
The reason being is that evidence is required for justification and the theist with religious experience has access to that evidence while the athiest does not.
which leads on to point 2,
2. we can say that the theist with religious experience CAN know that their belief is justified while the athiest can NOT know that their belief is justified.
- that's because although religious experience does not entail sufficient justification for the belief that god exists, it does, in this context, constitute a necessary condition of the justification of the belief (and thus, of knowing that-P).
In essence, one can be an athiest even in the face of religious experience. If religious experience is POSSIBLE evidence for the existence of god (the justification criterion) and knowledge requires, at least, a true justified belief then on the assumption that god does exist (the truth criterion) then religious experience would imply that the theist knows that 'god exists'. Where I think the atheist (sorry to use such a broad brush) might go wrong is in asking the question, 'but how do you KNOW that religious experience justifies your belief?' In other words they are asking 'how do you know that you know?' Unfortunately, as we've seen with the discussion on Moore et al. it appears that at some point asking how or whether someone knows something is either a case of a category mistake or a question that simply cannot be answered (without circularity).
In the end we may have to appeal, as it seems Moore does, to doxastic practices. But once we do that I think that it becomes even harder for the atheist to justify their position.

Anyways, sorry for the rant.

Regards,

Luis.
Elaine Yeadon wrote:
To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org Apologies for the question marks everywhere. Tried to avoid it this time. Below is the ammended version...

-- Original Message -- Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:07:17 +0100 From: "Elaine Yeadon" <elaine.yeadon@lineone.net> Subject: Faith: rational or irrational? To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org 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 :-) ] ___________________________________________________________ Tiscali Broadband from 14.99 with free setup! http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/ Browse or search the BUPS-DIS archives, or unsubscribe from the mailing
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___________________________________________________________ Tiscali Broadband from 14.99 with free setup! http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/ Browse or search the BUPS-DIS archives, or unsubscribe from the mailing list at: http://www.bups.org/mailinglist.shtml