The Nature of Faith

In my previous post I advanced the premise that every one of us, without exception, lives by faith.  We believe all kinds of things for which we have no proof.  It amazes me that some would attempt to deny this, because it is true at every level of analysis.  To revisit the plane example, I may be able to cite all kinds of statistics that show that the odds are very low that my plane will crash (which is true), but that does not mean that I know that the particular plane I'm about to board will land safely at the desired destination.  I have statistical evidence that strongly suggests the odds are in my favor of landing safely, but those are just odds - they are not proof or knowledge.  And I then board because I believe that those odds will likely hold true for me on this particular flight.

In other words, I have, in my own mind, good reasons for believing that boarding this plane is a good idea.  Some people are dreadfully afraid of flying, though, and what constitutes enough of a reason to believe for me may not be sufficient for those that simply will not board a plane.  I might think their lack of faith in the airline industry is unfortunate, but nonetheless, they are simply not convinced.  As I said in my last post, we all have our standards, but none of us lives only by absolute knowledge or proof.

Some may argue that the airplane example is not analogous to God, that it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.  That's a fair and yet unfair criticism.  It is fair because clearly God is not an airplane.  One (the airplane) is a tangible object with physical characteristics that can be measured, while the other (God) is not.  But we're not discussing whether we have faith in the existence of the airplane versus the existence of God.  We're discussing the nature of faith and proof.  Nobody can prove - until after the fact - that the plane you will board will land safely at the desired destination.  And so you have to make a decision based on whatever information is available to you whether or not you will board the plane.  And that decision must be made before the plane lands at the destination you desire to go to, obviously.  So your decision is based on whatever information and reasons you have without the absolute proof that it will land safely.

When we choose to believe something without proof, that is faith.  The very definition of the word is, "belief that is not based on proof" (see dictionary.com).  But there are varying degrees of faith, and there are certainly different objects of faith.  One may have a little bit of faith (I kind of sort of think that my team will win the game tonight, even though the starting pitcher usually gets clobbered by that other team) or a lot of faith (I'm leaping off this bridge with only a giant rubber band attached to my ankles, trusting that it will keep me from splattering on the ground 250 feet below me).  But the nature of faith itself is the same.

Moreover, the nature of the object of our faith does not change what faith itself is.  I can believe in the love from my mother or I can believe that Siberia is a real place (never having been there) or I can believe that the universe came into existence from nothing in an instantaneous explosion-type event or I can believe in a Creator of the universe or I can believe that Attila the Hun actually crossed the Alps with elephants.  I can believe in all those very different things, and I have very different reasons for believing those things, but none of that changes the nature of what faith is.  We all live by faith, since we all believe many things for which we have no proof.

And that brings me to the question of the existence of God.  Let's assume that each of us possesses a certain amount of knowledge, and we pooled that cumulative knowledge together.  Let's call that amount of knowledge X.  Now let's ask how much total knowledge is possible.  Let's call that Y.  Given that there's so much we don't know about the universe, it's safe to say that X<Y.  By a huge margin.  Here's a picture to demonstrate.  The large circle is Y - the total possible knowledge that could exist - and the small dot is X - the cumulative knowledge of all humans.

Clearly, there's so much more that we don't know than that we do know.  With respect to God, we do not have proof of His existence or proof of His non-existence.  We do not know either way.  So it is entirely possible that outside the current cumulative knowledge (proof) of humans that God exists.  That does not mean that such knowledge will always and forever remain outside the totality of human knowledge.  We must, therefore, leave open the possibility that God exists as a logical necessity.  In other words, if we are intellectually honest, we must conclude that it is possible that God exists.  Simply because God might be outside the realm of our current knowledge is not sufficient reason to conclude that therefore He does not exist.  After all, there are so many things that once were outside the realm of human knowledge that have, over the course of time, become part of the human knowledge database.

And, as an aside, it's not enough to say that if something exists outside our current knowledge that therefore we shouldn't be bothered with it.  There would be no human progress whatsoever if everyone adopted this perspective.  We would not have philosophy, technology, space exploration, medical advances, chemistry, calculus, engineering, air travel, you name it, if we simply said that if we don't know it, its not worth exploring.  Human progress exists in every area because we seek to increase our current knowledge base, which of course means exploring areas where we currently lack knowledge.

So if we are going to be intellectually honest, we ought to agree to several key points:

(1) We all live by faith.  That is, we all believe in things for which we do not have "proof".

(2) Everyone's threshold for believing in certain things is different.  What constitutes sufficient reason to believe for you may be different than it is for me.  This is normal and expected.

(3) The fact that there are wildly different objects of our faith does not change the nature of faith itself.  It may simply mean that for me to believe in A will require better reasons than it would for me to believe in B.

(4) In a sense, we must all be agnostic about God.  That is, His existence may well be outside the knowledge of humans, but since we possess such a tiny percentage of all possible knowledge, God's existence may very well be real, but just outside our current knowledge base.  (the same may be true for Invisible Pink Unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, but I'm not interested in them right now; if someone wishes to advance an argument for their existence, be my guest)  Thus a hard atheism ("I know God does not exist") is necessarily false.  A soft atheism ("I do not believe God exists") may be valid, and certainly agnosticism ("I don't know whether God exists or not") is valid.  But hard atheism is not.

As we move into potential reasons for believing in God, keep these points in mind.