Faith

Faith.  It's simultaneously one of the most beautiful words there is among spiritual people, and one of the ugliest there is among ardent secularists. 

But what is faith, really?  Simply, it is "the certainty or confidence of something not seen."

Faith is how we live and make decisions with incomplete knowledge.  And, as we saw in the last post, basically every question and corresponding decision is based on incomplete knowledge.

How do you know when you crack open that can of Coca-Cola you're going to get the most delicious elixir known to mankind (in my opinion!) and not something else?  Faith.  How do you know your car is going to start and continue running to be able to get you where you need to go?  Faith.  How do you know your spouse or your parents love you and haven't just been faking it the whole time you've known them?  Faith.

None of these questions would require much faith for most of us, but faith is required nonetheless in order for action to take place.  When evidence is the 99.9%, faith is the 0.1%.  When evidence is 50%, faith is the other 50%.  Without a full 100%, uncertainty remains and a decision is not made.  Most decisions we make in the course of our day, we don't even recognize the faith that covers the gap in uncertainty because the gap is relatively small.

Faith can be well-founded or poorly founded.  You may have all the faith in the world that you can flip a coin ten times and have it land heads every time, and I may have faith it won't land heads every time.  Neither of us knows for sure, but my faith is more likely to be vindicated, because it is supported by more evidence (laws of probability, experience, etc).

I suppose another way of looking at this is faith is only as good as its object.  I like the analogy of stepping out over a precipice to cross a huge canyon.  There are two ways across.  One is a rickety old rope bridge with rotting planks and frayed cords, and the other is a large highway supported by huge concrete pillars stretching all the way to the floor of the canyon.  A friend and I are trying to get to the other side.  He is a rather brave fellow and has always liked rope bridges, so he confidently sets out over the creaking planks.  I am terrified of heights, and even though I'd rather not cross at all, we have somewhere we need to go, so I timidly pass down the center of the highway.

Who had more confidence in their bridge?  Who was the one more likely to make it across alive?  Faith is only as good as its object.

Faith in religion becomes a tricky matter because the stakes are much higher than coin flips or soda cans.  Many people disagree over just what percentage the evidence covers in supporting any particular religion, but that only matters to intellectually-minded people who try to arrive at truth through reason. 

Many "religious" people don't worry about evidence too much because for them, faith has covered all the gap that evidence will ever leave.  The size of the gap doesn't matter.  Intuition and feeling often trump reason.  Also, in many cases, religions prize great faith, and great faith is more than capable of closing sizable gaps in evidence.  This kind of thought process is why you will hear many people (even from contradicting religions) claim that they know theirs is "the right one."  It's not that evidence has demonstrated it 100%, but rather that their faith has helped them reach the 100% to assert it with confidence.

Ok, so where does that leave us?  If we can't have 100% evidence to be able to decide conclusively on any system of faith, why bother choosing one?  Well, that option does remain open, and it's called agnosticism, a state of perpetual uncertainty on matters of faith.  However, I would propose that agnosticism, the inability to place faith in any cohesive worldview, is in itself a choice, and perhaps the most foolish choice of all.  We'll analyze agnosticism as well as some other worldviews in the next post...