tell me what you guys think- TOK Paper
I have strong faith in God. I also know that Isaac Newton’s law of gravity tells me that if something goes up it must in the end come down. I decide to see if God is in fact real by jumping from the roof of my high-rise, and if he is real then he will save me from falling to my death, right? I decide to proceed and I jump from the building. Who won Isaac Newton or God? I will never know because I am now a pancake on the sidewalk. Does this refute my faith in God? This makes us ask ourselves as a knower, to what extent is faith a legitimate basis for knowledge claims, and in what ways if any does this impact other areas of knowledge such as Mathematics, Science, or in areas such as Religion?
Webster’s Dictionary defines faith as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Knowledge on the other hand is defined as “an acquaintance with truth, facts or principles through study or investigation.” Faith seems to be a very subjective term and therefore is widely interpreted as so many things that it is hard to explain exactly what faith is. Yet as knowers we know that knowledge is something we know that we can prove. “Only clear knowledge can show us what is actually real, whereas feelings alone can distort reality. Faith is what one wishes to be true-not what is necessarily true. Knowledge is what one knows to be true (Faith vs. Knowledge).” This quote from Faith vs. Knowledge gives us a one-sided view of what knowledge and faith mean to them. Yet other people disagree with this stance. Personally I believe that faith is the basis of knowledge and reason because it does not matter what we know if we don’t have the faith to believe it. Faith is the deciding factor on what a person will believe and so without faith we would never really know what we actually knew. Faith and knowledge seem to have a symbiotic relationship and therefore both share in furthering the other.
Religion is usually the most thought of area when the word faith is mentioned. Religious faith can be fought from at least two perspectives: One in which the person is religious and tries to justify their faith and Two is when someone who does not believes gives reasons in which people who believe are incompetent knowers. A person can have faith that God is the creator of the world and a person can have faith that God is not real and that the world evolved from prokaryotic cells. Both of which can be proven to a certain degree. But who says that both of these knowledge claims are not right? Both of these knowledge claims are rooted in faith and knowledge and how can both be right? That leads back to the point that faith is subjective and that in certain cases faith can be the belief that faith is not a belief. Brad Bromling insists that:
“Some have made the mistake of thinking that faith is to be set in opposition to knowledge or evidence, as though the more one knows the less faith he needs… This is a false concept of faith. Faith is knowledge-based! … When one gains knowledge of the truth, he is then in a position to engage his will and commit himself to the requirements of that knowledge.”
Religion is the most important area to study when looking at faith because religion is founded upon knowledge and faith, knowledge that what we believe in is true and faith that we will believe in something that at this point in time we can not fully understand or physically see. In the case of Religion, knowledge leads us to our faith in other areas the basis of the study is faith.
Mathematics is a great example of how a study can be based on faith first and then in knowledge. Mathematics is a very important area of knowledge because it is so widely used in every day life. An example of faith in math is the use of postulates and theorems, things which are believed to be true but are not actually rooted in common knowledge. I do not know why in an isosceles triangle that the angles at the base are equal to each other, I just have faith that when my math teacher told me this that she was correct, and that the person who formulated this knew that this was indeed true. So by faith I believe that theorem will prove true so I can then prove that the theorem is in fact true by calculating the two base angles. But then that leads us to ask why people are so receptive to mathematical reasoning but in religious areas they are not as open to believe what the do not directly understand. Albert Einstein formulated that E=M(C^2) is the formula for relativity and you do not see people openly showing disdain in the fact that we openly by faith believe that he was right. Yet if I were to bring a bible to school and read a passage from the bible I would be confronted with other peoples disdain and their tactics to disprove my faith. Why in mathematics are faiths not questioned but in religion they are?
Another cross-disciplinary conflict is with Science and Faith; seeming at first glance to be polar opposites. Yet if you think about how a scientist performs an experiment he has faith that the experiment will reach some satisfactory conclusion and he also has faith that the outside surroundings of the experiment will remain constant. For instance the existence, orderly nature, and know ability of the world; the reliability of our senses and intellect in discovering truth; the existence of truth itself; and the uniformity of nature. Scientists are considered to be some of the most critical knowers, due to the fact that scientific study is a precise science in which evidence outweighs any type of bias or outside influence. But this does not totally refute the existence of faith in the scientific world because similar to mathematics science is built on faith that things that are improvable are true. Scientists know that the scientific make-up of Oxygen is O2, but can they splice air open and see what its contents are? No, they can not; they just have to believe without reason that if Oxygen were able to be spliced open that one molecule would contain two oxygen atoms and no other substances.
In a society where most things are delegated by what religion you are, faith plays a large role in things that we do everyday. Most people do not consider Math or Science to be areas that would be affected by faith, but then people do not think that faith is a part of everything. Faith is a way of knowing because without faith we would know things but we would never be knowers. We would lack the structure of not overlapping postulates or in non-mathematical terms not believing in things that are contradictory. That is what faith does it strengthens our knowledge. Faith and knowledge are not separate ideas but yet faith is a processor and predecessor of knowledge. It is better to know nothing than it is to know everything but believe in nothing.
Webster’s Dictionary defines faith as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Knowledge on the other hand is defined as “an acquaintance with truth, facts or principles through study or investigation.” Faith seems to be a very subjective term and therefore is widely interpreted as so many things that it is hard to explain exactly what faith is. Yet as knowers we know that knowledge is something we know that we can prove. “Only clear knowledge can show us what is actually real, whereas feelings alone can distort reality. Faith is what one wishes to be true-not what is necessarily true. Knowledge is what one knows to be true (Faith vs. Knowledge).” This quote from Faith vs. Knowledge gives us a one-sided view of what knowledge and faith mean to them. Yet other people disagree with this stance. Personally I believe that faith is the basis of knowledge and reason because it does not matter what we know if we don’t have the faith to believe it. Faith is the deciding factor on what a person will believe and so without faith we would never really know what we actually knew. Faith and knowledge seem to have a symbiotic relationship and therefore both share in furthering the other.
Religion is usually the most thought of area when the word faith is mentioned. Religious faith can be fought from at least two perspectives: One in which the person is religious and tries to justify their faith and Two is when someone who does not believes gives reasons in which people who believe are incompetent knowers. A person can have faith that God is the creator of the world and a person can have faith that God is not real and that the world evolved from prokaryotic cells. Both of which can be proven to a certain degree. But who says that both of these knowledge claims are not right? Both of these knowledge claims are rooted in faith and knowledge and how can both be right? That leads back to the point that faith is subjective and that in certain cases faith can be the belief that faith is not a belief. Brad Bromling insists that:
“Some have made the mistake of thinking that faith is to be set in opposition to knowledge or evidence, as though the more one knows the less faith he needs… This is a false concept of faith. Faith is knowledge-based! … When one gains knowledge of the truth, he is then in a position to engage his will and commit himself to the requirements of that knowledge.”
Religion is the most important area to study when looking at faith because religion is founded upon knowledge and faith, knowledge that what we believe in is true and faith that we will believe in something that at this point in time we can not fully understand or physically see. In the case of Religion, knowledge leads us to our faith in other areas the basis of the study is faith.
Mathematics is a great example of how a study can be based on faith first and then in knowledge. Mathematics is a very important area of knowledge because it is so widely used in every day life. An example of faith in math is the use of postulates and theorems, things which are believed to be true but are not actually rooted in common knowledge. I do not know why in an isosceles triangle that the angles at the base are equal to each other, I just have faith that when my math teacher told me this that she was correct, and that the person who formulated this knew that this was indeed true. So by faith I believe that theorem will prove true so I can then prove that the theorem is in fact true by calculating the two base angles. But then that leads us to ask why people are so receptive to mathematical reasoning but in religious areas they are not as open to believe what the do not directly understand. Albert Einstein formulated that E=M(C^2) is the formula for relativity and you do not see people openly showing disdain in the fact that we openly by faith believe that he was right. Yet if I were to bring a bible to school and read a passage from the bible I would be confronted with other peoples disdain and their tactics to disprove my faith. Why in mathematics are faiths not questioned but in religion they are?
Another cross-disciplinary conflict is with Science and Faith; seeming at first glance to be polar opposites. Yet if you think about how a scientist performs an experiment he has faith that the experiment will reach some satisfactory conclusion and he also has faith that the outside surroundings of the experiment will remain constant. For instance the existence, orderly nature, and know ability of the world; the reliability of our senses and intellect in discovering truth; the existence of truth itself; and the uniformity of nature. Scientists are considered to be some of the most critical knowers, due to the fact that scientific study is a precise science in which evidence outweighs any type of bias or outside influence. But this does not totally refute the existence of faith in the scientific world because similar to mathematics science is built on faith that things that are improvable are true. Scientists know that the scientific make-up of Oxygen is O2, but can they splice air open and see what its contents are? No, they can not; they just have to believe without reason that if Oxygen were able to be spliced open that one molecule would contain two oxygen atoms and no other substances.
In a society where most things are delegated by what religion you are, faith plays a large role in things that we do everyday. Most people do not consider Math or Science to be areas that would be affected by faith, but then people do not think that faith is a part of everything. Faith is a way of knowing because without faith we would know things but we would never be knowers. We would lack the structure of not overlapping postulates or in non-mathematical terms not believing in things that are contradictory. That is what faith does it strengthens our knowledge. Faith and knowledge are not separate ideas but yet faith is a processor and predecessor of knowledge. It is better to know nothing than it is to know everything but believe in nothing.