Religious faith is a concept that has been defined in various ways, from trust to the biblical definition found in Hebrews:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
The elusive nature of its definition makes it unclear as to what religious faith truly is. Can anyone shed some light on its true nature? Furthermore, according to the bible, why should it be considered better evidence than things that can be seen?
I’d like to say 40ish years on earth reinforced my faith in anything but… sadly I see it as a tool to separate people from their money, time and self interests. It’s a tax on people’s hope for something more.
It’s belief without evidence
Also it’s a song by George Michael
Faith isn’t just a religious term, you can also have faith about secular things, like the justice system or an ideology.
This article does a decent job explaining religious faith. Basically, it claims faith is made up of three parts:
- knowledge - observations, like what the Bible says about Jesus
- assent - reasoning about which parts of knowledge are true and what aren’t
- trust - testing the concepts Jesus taught
The sum of that is faith.
why should it be considered better evidence than things that can be seen?
Just as an illusionist misdirects, so should we be careful about trusting what we see.
Think of it like the theory of relativity. Einstein didn’t just make it up, he developed it as an explanation for observed phenomena and prior work. He followed essentially the steps above, he gathered evidence (knowledge), distilled that evidence through reason (assent), developed a theory to explain it, and tested the theory through experiments (trust).
So for me and probably most other religious people, faith is the religious analogue to the scientific method. But instead of limiting ourselves to secular explanations, religious faith is based on religious explanations for phenomena, and it can be tested in a similar way as a scientific hypothesis.
So for me and probably most other religious people, faith is the religious analogue to the scientific method. But instead of limiting ourselves to secular explanations, religious faith is based on religious explanations for phenomena, and it can be tested in a similar way as a scientific hypothesis.
This is where I’d say no. Faith is in no way an analog to the scientific method as faith can not only lead you to a correct answer but it can also lead you to an incorrect one just as easily. The scientific method doesn’t do that.
As to your Einstein illustration, he gathered evidence THAT WAS SEEN NOT UNSEEN, and tested his theory NOT TRUSTED IT.
The scientific method leads to incorrect answers all the time. Sometimes your data is poisoned, other times your random sample isn’t truly random, etc. Your model can hold up given your observations, but you can’t know what you haven’t observed.
And that’s where faith comes in. The more evidence you have supporting a theory, the more you trust it, and the more you’ll scrutinize any competing theories. If I presented an alternative to the theory of relativity, scientists would rightly scrutinize it because Einstein’s theory is so well established.
The problem with any kind of faith, be it religious or secular, is trusting it in spite of evidence to the contrary. It’s fine to scrutinize alternative explanations, it’s not okay to reject them altogether. A lot of religious people do the latter, such as rejecting evolution in favor of intelligent design, when there’s absolutely space for both to coexist (i.e. maybe God used evolutionary processes and “day” in Genesis was a long period of time, not a literal 24h window). But a lot don’t, and there are plenty of religious people actively involved in the sciences who have to adjust their religious views as new scientific evidence corrects some assumptions.
If your faith is edged out by evidence, you need to reevaluate your faith, taking in the new knowledge, assessing how much you trust it compared to other evidence, and then testing it to gain trust in that faith. It’s the same idea as the scientific method, but with things that cannot be seen. Unfortunately, a lot of people (secular and religious) exercise “blind faith” in their pastor, college professor, or some other influencer. That’s unreasonable, regardless of the type of faith.
So faith is intended to be the religious equivalent of a scientific theory, something refined and tested as new evidence comes out, not some hard and fast truth that must push against competition.
The scientific method leads to incorrect answers all the time Which is ALWAYS corrected by more science and never by faith.
You are missing one HUGE difference between scientific theory and faith. That is falsifiability. Scientific theories are useless, they are not scientific, if they can’t be falsified. Faith can’t be falsified and is in no way any equivalent to a scientific theory. Of course, you are entitled to believe faith is whatever you want it to be including the equivalent of a scientific theory, but you are wrong in this case.
As far as religious people in the sciences go, some adjust their views along with the evidence and often do not end up too religious much longer. Then there are those like Kurt Wise.
Faith can’t be falsified
Not necessarily. Faith is in something, and many of those somethings are falsifiable.
For example, young earth creationism (since you brought up Kurt Wise) is falsifiable with the abundance of evidence we have on the subject. The proper response here is to take the creation story as either more abstract (“days” are instead some creative period) or a metaphor (e.g. God’s ways are orderly).
Another more general belief is that the Bible is infallible, despite there being a ton of consistency issues, both within the text and between the current translations and the “original” (at least older) source material. Anyone who has done any form of serious study of the history if Bible should know there’s not a good reason to believe the current Bible is anything other than a cherry picked group of books written by normal people, so the value is in the message, not specific passages (biblical literalism is particularly silly imo).
Both of those are pretty core, falsifiable aspects of faith. The problem here isn’t faith, which should be based on all available evidence, but “blind faith,” which isn’t faith at all, but a form of brainwashing.
Faith covers the things science cannot, and should be replaced by good science where available.
often do not end up too religious much longer
Sure, that does happen, and so does the reverse. It seems the trend lately is less religiousity, at least in Western cultures, but that’s not true everywhere.
Faith is in something, and many of those somethings are falsifiable.
Yes, but faith in and of itself is not falsifiable. If it is. It simply isn’t religious faith as per the biblical definition in Hebrews 11:1.
Young Earth creationism is falsifiable but it isn’t a faith. Kurt Wise still believes in YEC despite the evidence as that is what his faith in the bible tells him DESPITE EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. That is even what famous Christian apologist William Lane Craig says, I’ll paraphrase, where evidence contradicts biblical faith, faith wins out.
I do agree that blind faith is a form of brainwashing and I will say you are so close but I think you are missing the point. Faith does not cover the things science does not. That is a ridiculous statement. What science doesn’t answer is simply unknown (NOT UNKNOWABLE), nothing, not even faith can answer it until science does. Yes, you can take a leap of “faith” and guess what the answer may be but you can be wrong as well as you may be right. The scientific method will eventually end that dilemma. Faith is not nor has it ever been a way to truth since an answer derived from religious faith can be easily correct or incorrect. To equate it with the scientific method is some Deepak Chopra-level bullshit.
Young Earth creationism is falsifiable but it isn’t a faith
I guess we have a different definition of faith. Faith has multiple definitions:
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty
lost faith in the company’s president
b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises
(2) : sincerity of intentions – acted in good faith
2 a(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God
(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion
b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof – clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return
(2) : complete trust. 3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction
especially : a system of religious beliefs
– the Protestant faithI’m referring mostly to 2a (and to an extent 2b1), not 3. 2b2 is an issue with fanatics, as in the type of people that commit terrorist attacks in the name of religion, even if those attacks by their very nature go against their religion, but justified because the target is threatening their religion.
where evidence contradicts with biblical faith, faith wins out
I guess that’s where Mr. Craig and I disagree. If the quality of the evidence is high, then faith should be adjusted to account for the evidence. In almost every case, the religious doctrine could be reinterpreted taking the new evidence into account, such as creation not necessarily being 7 literal days, but 7 creative periods (and other cases where the same term is used should probably also be reinterpreted). Religious doctrine is often vague enough WRT overlap w/ science that it’s rarely an issue (i.e. can’t really disprove the existence of God).
If you take the position that faith wins out, you’re opening yourself up to brainwashing. If faith and evidence contradicts, that’s a time to carefully look at both.
What science doesn’t answer is simply unknown (NOT UNKNOWABLE), nothing, not even faith can answer it until science does.
I disagree with that. For example, is murder okay? Science can’t decide that, because morality is outside its purview, but it is absolutely in the realm of religion and philosophy. In fact, I take religion to be a form of philosophy that appeals to a higher power instead of man’s reason, and a lot of philosophies look a lot like religion.
Faith, imo, is merely your dedication to whatever philosophy you think explains the world best. Sometimes that’s religious, and sometimes it’s secular, it just depends on the person.
Yes, you can take a leap of “faith” and guess what the answer may be but you can be wrong as well as you may be right.
If we go on the assumption that there exists a higher power and that higher power communicates with people in some way, then it’s not just a guess, but an alleged message from the divine. That’s what scripture is, and usually the overlap is limited to where we come from (i.e. creation stories), why we’re here (morality, but sometimes touches on science), and where we’re going (eternal punishment/reward). That’s a pretty limited cross-section, and usually religion and science can peacefully coexist.
If we reject that assumption, then the whole idea of religion makes no sense and we’re better off sticking to secular philosophies.
Whether a higher power exists is, AFAICT, unknowable, but the implications of that can be tested. For example, if this religion promises that if I do X I’ll get Y, then I can do X for some period and see if I get Y. Most religions make some kind of promise like that.
The question is about religious faith and the elusive nature of its definition. As if to prove my point you post a dictionary definition of faith that isn’t limited to religious faith. You claim that non-religious people have faith. That isn’t true. Non-religious people have trust, and if you want to define non-religious faith as trust that is fine but there is already a word that fits perfectly and that is TRUST. so why muddy things up with religious mumbo jumbo?
Religious doctrine is often vague enough WRT overlap w/ science that it’s rarely an issue (i.e. can’t really disprove the existence of God).
You Have that backwards. God can’t be 100% disproven but that isn’t the point. god hasn’t been proven to exist and until it has it isn’t reasonable to believe in one. but like you say we go on an assumption and you know what happens when we assume.
If we reject that assumption, then the whole idea of religion makes no sense and we’re better off sticking to secular philosophies.
And what is wrong with that?
Whether a higher power exists is, AFAICT, unknowable, but the implications of that can be tested. For example, if this religion promises that if I do X I’ll get Y, then I can do X for some period and see if I get Y. Most religions make some kind of promise like that.
And whenever a test was made, they have always failed. For example, look at the double-blind experiment into The Efficacy Of Prayer that was done in 2006.
“Religious faith seems to involve believing that you know something that is impossible to know. In fact, if you substitute the phrase ‘making believe you know something you can’t possibly know’ for ‘religious faith’ in any sentence, the meaning remains the same.”
