On Faith and What It Is Not (Always)
(I haven't done one of these flavor of entries in a while....)
I was having an interesting coffee discussion with two coworkers the other day who each reiterated something I've heard countless times from anti-religious folk -- a very negative view of faith, whether that be that it is foolish, stupid, or even evil.
To me, faith and belief are synonymous terms.
I recognize that -- at least according to the modern editors of Merriam-Webster -- "faith almost always implies certitude even where there is no evidence or proof," but I would argue that this distinction -- belief without proof is a newer one.
The word "faith" itself was borrowed indirectly from Latin fidere, which was "to trust". To trust someone is to believe them without necessarily seeing the proof for oneself, but it doesn't mean that the proof is not out there.
Even if there genuinely is no proof, this is not always a "bad" thing. There are many things believed in mathematics, logic, and philosophy, for example, without any proof -- axioms and postulates, for example -- yet this is not condemned as "foolish," "stupid," or "evil." By even the modern definition then, axioms and postulates must be accepted on faith.[1]
Is it "blind faith"? No, of course not. No mathematician believes in an axiom that is not self-consistent or that is not useful. Axioms are not just randomly drawn out of a hat; they are postulated for very knowledgeable reasons, not blind chance.
It bothers me how many scientists are so blind, ironically, to how much faith they themselves have in the things that they believe.
First of all, a good scientist knows that science is more about disproving things than proving things. As an organic chemist, one of the things we teachers always argue is that you cannot prove a chemical mechanism. If so, then we must believe it on faith -- not blind faith, but educated, intelligent faith that rests in the evidence (not the proof).
Secondly, as I have written about before[2], the vast majority of us gain the knowledge we have by deferment, which is a type of faith, a trust that others observed the evidence and interpreted it correctly when I could not. A good scientist must trust the generations of scientists who have gone before him or her and trust their results and their interpretations.
Thirdly, experience can be a valid form of evidence, can it not?[3]
And it is not just scientists. Everyone in life must believe other people and make assumptions. You cannot "know" anything at all without believing it, without choosing to put faith in someone or something. It's a part of epistemology; it's a part of being human.
I was having an interesting coffee discussion with two coworkers the other day who each reiterated something I've heard countless times from anti-religious folk -- a very negative view of faith, whether that be that it is foolish, stupid, or even evil.
To me, faith and belief are synonymous terms.
I recognize that -- at least according to the modern editors of Merriam-Webster -- "faith almost always implies certitude even where there is no evidence or proof," but I would argue that this distinction -- belief without proof is a newer one.
The word "faith" itself was borrowed indirectly from Latin fidere, which was "to trust". To trust someone is to believe them without necessarily seeing the proof for oneself, but it doesn't mean that the proof is not out there.
Even if there genuinely is no proof, this is not always a "bad" thing. There are many things believed in mathematics, logic, and philosophy, for example, without any proof -- axioms and postulates, for example -- yet this is not condemned as "foolish," "stupid," or "evil." By even the modern definition then, axioms and postulates must be accepted on faith.[1]
Is it "blind faith"? No, of course not. No mathematician believes in an axiom that is not self-consistent or that is not useful. Axioms are not just randomly drawn out of a hat; they are postulated for very knowledgeable reasons, not blind chance.
It bothers me how many scientists are so blind, ironically, to how much faith they themselves have in the things that they believe.
First of all, a good scientist knows that science is more about disproving things than proving things. As an organic chemist, one of the things we teachers always argue is that you cannot prove a chemical mechanism. If so, then we must believe it on faith -- not blind faith, but educated, intelligent faith that rests in the evidence (not the proof).
Secondly, as I have written about before[2], the vast majority of us gain the knowledge we have by deferment, which is a type of faith, a trust that others observed the evidence and interpreted it correctly when I could not. A good scientist must trust the generations of scientists who have gone before him or her and trust their results and their interpretations.
Thirdly, experience can be a valid form of evidence, can it not?[3]
And it is not just scientists. Everyone in life must believe other people and make assumptions. You cannot "know" anything at all without believing it, without choosing to put faith in someone or something. It's a part of epistemology; it's a part of being human.