The Nature Of Faith Wright-Up
So this isn't
going to that interesting to read. This more for me to have summarise all the
key ideas to do with the faith side of our syllabus in one place. (it's
(really) really long). Also sorry about how its got all compressed I'll try and fix that.
Propositional
Faith
·
Propositional
faith is the view that there is an objective reality to which we can ascribe
the term God to.
·
Within
this reality we can make claims about this God which can be objectively true.
For example; Despite not having firsthand experience it would still be possible
(within propositional faith ) to say 'I believe that God is an objective
omnipotent being'
Non-Propositional
Faith
·
Non-propositional
faith describes a trust in God that may be held even when evidence or
experience seem to point against it.
·
This
is often faith which must be based in some personal knowledge of God and not
simply in the acceptance of the facts about him.
This would
suggest knowledge of God that has come through a religious experience
(revelation ? ) as opposed to simply following the religious doctrine.
·
Some
would say that this is the most meaningful type of faith , since faith is not
just believing things to be true but rather participating in a relationship
with the object of faith i.e. God
·
Non-Propositional
Faith means taking a risk, this is a risk characterised by subjective knowledge.
Religious faith after all requires speculation about the matters beyond that of
which science can prove.
Kierkegaard-
Postponement Theory
·
Postponement
theory maintains that religious faith depends on a commitment that requires
religious believers not to abandon their faith even when it is seriously
challenged. For example challenged by the problem of evil.
·
When
rational arguments to support their belief fails the believer must take an
intellectual leap of faith that enables them to hold onto their faith. This
also applies when experience challenges the faith of the believer.
·
Kierkegaard
used his idea of an intellectual leap of faith idea for belief in God in the
first place. He believed that we can
only intellectualise God so far at the end of the day we have to take a
intellectual leap of faith with our reason and come to believed in God.
Kierkegaard believed that religious experiences are something that helps us
take this 'leap of faith'
Kierkegaard is saying that we should not postpone our belief because of
contradictory evidence or to not believe because of a lack of evidence but
rather take this leap. The postponement theory could also be seen as a
'suspension of judgment, since in our contingent mortal life's the existence of
God cannot be decisively proven we should not live sceptically as if God
doesn't exist.
This leads us to
Fideism
·
Fideism
is the view that religious beliefs
cannot be evaluated by reason, the believer must be take a risk on order to
accept the paradoxical nature of faith.
·
This would be a counter point to the arguments of Anselm and
Aquinas who try to prove and provided evidence for Gods existence. Indeed
Anselm uses reason ( A- Priori ) alone to try to prove Gods existence . Anselm
representing faith seeking understanding
uses reason to try to make belief in God more reasonable.
Kierkegaard
-Passion Theory
·
Passion
theory of faith is meant to illustrate that reason is not an appropriate
foundation for faith.
·
Kierkegaard
argues that religious faith is not about having the required knowledge but
instead having an intense passion. Kierkegaard said that the more risk and
sacrifice involved, the greater the passion of faith.
For example
If Gods existence was
strongly probably then the faith would be inevitably weakened, and in
Kierkegaard's eyes less valuable.
Certainty is therefore
not desirable for a life of true faith.
Again
Anselm would disagree with this (I think ) I don't think him seeking reason
would undermine his faith after all wouldn't reason give rise to more faith in
scholars like Anselm.
Bliks
·
The
term blik sounds like a south African saying black and was created by R.M. Hare
a an English moral philosopher.
·
A blik is a way of
looking at the world that is neither verifiable nor falsifiable.
·
Normally a blik
would be meaningless but it influences the way in which we interpret the world
and how we live our lives. For example I expect my TV to turn on when I push
the power switch and I expect that my Mum is in fact who see claims to be.
R.M. Hare uses the 'parable of the lunatic don'
to illustrate this theory.
A don one day comes to believe that all the
other dons are out to murder him. No matter what the other dons do to try to
convince him otherwise fails, if they try to be nice to him and make him a cup
of tea he instead sees it as they have poisoned his tea and are trying to kill
him that way .No matter what the other dons do they are unable to convince the
mad don that they are not plotting to kill him, the mad don always view what
they do as part of the plan to kill him even if they are being kind to him.
What Hare is trying to show is that nothing
will no matter how hard the dons try will count against the lunatics belief.
Hare argues that nothing will count against
that of the religious believer. The believer will see any evidence no matter
what in a religious way just the same as a non religious believer will see it
in a non-religious way.
Ludwig Wittgenstein-
Language Games
·
Wittgenstein
understood faith as a process of 'seeing as' or 'experiencing as' (very similar
to bliks )
·
Just
as one human may see a piece of art as representing the primeval subconscious,
trapped in a post-modern society another human may see the piece of art as a
panting of a can of beans. This is similar to how humans perceive the world
differently .
·
A language game is the view that when we speak
we play these language games, each games has its own set of rules and each word
within in the context. For example the word 'weed' may have a very different
meaning to a Gardner, scientist and teenager.
·
As
a result of this neither the atheist nor the theist will be able to conceive
each other that there evidence is more reasonable and as a result will promote
the evidence quite differently
·
As
a result it does not seem to matter which side has what facts, faith reason or
evidence as in the end neither side is able to fully conceive what the other is
saying. That feeling you have that tells you that the evidence definite is the
same feeling someone of a completely polar view possesses.
·
This links to the A02 questions of the quantum physics and
Taoism on weather science and religion can ever be viewed the same. My answer
remains the same ; while scientists can be religious and vice versa the
actually intrinsic qualities of each discipline only appear similar as a result of cosmetic
similarities the way reasoning happens between the two are however far to
different for either to have anything in common .
Anti-Realism and
Non-Foundationalsim
A Realist approach to
faith is the assumption that a statement is true because it corresponds to the
state of affairs that it attempts to describe in an objective reality. Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only
an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to
understanding reality (I assume what it is trying to say is that the more we
observer the closer we get to understanding what is actually there ). Realism can be seen as the doctrine that believes
the objects of scene of perception have existence an existence independent of
our act of perception. I.e. The universe has,
does and will exist independent of our obsevation of it. This appears to be yet
another school of thought that quantum mechanics has put its middle finger up
to.... since experiments such as the
double slit experiment has shown that the act of observation has an effect of
the state that the partial resides in.
Anti-realism on the other
hand does not attempt to make statements cohere with an objective reality but
claims 'truth depends on what is agreed within the community- which in turn
depends on the language game being played.
I think this view is crap as we just have to
look to scientist history to see that just because lots of people (i.e. the
scientific community ) thought something to be true it didn't necessarily mean
that it was objectively true. The most recent example being the 'neuroplasticity '
of the brain despite its almost complete
rejection in the 50's and 60's by most neuroscientist. I guess though when you
think about it in terms of a large group of people something. As far as that group is concerned in
that time what they believe to be true (contingently) might as well be true
objectively as they are not aware of what the objective truth actually is.
Religion belongs to its
own language game. As a result to submit religious claims to scientific testing
would represent a misunderstanding of how those claims are used and of their
context
After all language games
are self contained and with its own claims do not require justification
However to then apply
religion to anything scientific in turn is also wrong for example teaching creationism
as a scientific theory or religion having influence upon things such as law
When atheists say 'God
does not exist' they are not contradicting the theists who say that God does exist
but are instead saying that they are not playing the same language game. It is
not the question of right verse wrong.
While I
think this whole language game thing is kinda cool and could be right (just as
it could be wrong ). I don't believe that even if it is right that it is a way
that we can think as a society. Beyond the arm-chairs life is not so simple
(although Wittgenstein famously subjected students to deck chairs in his office ) , language
games are hard to distinguish with many multiple subdivisions within that game.
Language games to me appear to be what sub-genres of metal tell us about music
as a whole, music like society just doesn't work as a term if we segregate each
specific genres. What I'm trying to say is that life may (or may not ) be made
of language games but we shouldn't life our lives as if it is as it stops much
needed dialog between the two and leaves us with a society unable to communicate
on key issues independent of what is objectively right .
If religious faith is a
blik or language game, it cannot therefore be verified or falsified, it is not
dependent upon philosophical justification, This is the principle of non-foundationalsim.
(yes there is
more still, actually I wonder if anybody reads this far if at all I doubt it...) hears a picture of a catbeard
Also has anybody ever
noticed at the beginning of NWA's video to 'Straight outta Compton ' there's a
guy walking with his shoes on fire ? It's really strange they never explain
it....
It's also interesting to
see how over a decade how rap went from peaceful hippies protest 'we love each
other lets all get along' to really violent angry ' things are bad and need to
change. also fuck the police' kinda like the hippy movement into puck I guess.
Anyway
Foundationalsim
Foundationalsim is the fascinating
view that religious beliefs must be justified by reference to other beliefs.
This could mean that our belief
must be backed up with evidence for example St Thomas Aquinas' cosmological
argument. His belief that could existed was reference to his belief that : God was the first cause, Infinite regress is absurd
and so .
Form the Stanford
encyclopaedia of philosophy
A
little reflection suggests that the vast majority of the propositions we know
or justifiably believe have that status only because we know or justifiably
believe other different propositions. So, for example, I know or justifiably
believe that Caesar was an assassinated Roman leader, but only because I know
or justifiably believe (among other things) that various historical texts
describe the event. Arguably, my knowledge (justified belief) about Caesar's
death also depends on my knowing (justifiably believing) that the texts in
question are reliable guides to the past. Foundationalists want to contrast my
inferential knowledge (justified belief) about Caesar with a kind of knowledge
(justified belief) that doesn't involve the having of other knowledge (justified
belief). There is no standard terminology for what we shall henceforth refer to
as noninferential knowledge or justification.
Non-Foundationalsim
Non-foundationalsim is
the view that foundationalsim itself cannot itself be justified because by reference
to other beliefs. Religion is as a result a basic belief which itself provides
the foundation for which other beliefs rest upon . Religion to
non-foundationalists does not need to be proven or demonstrated.
William James
James understood faith as
'the will to believe'. We do not apply scientific methodology to every aspect
of our lives and James argued that this is particular true of religion.
Religious beliefs to
James where unavoidable whether we believe or don't believe and significant to
our life's (Momentous).
Pascal
Choice
|
If
Correct
|
If
Incorrect
|
1)
Believer that God exists
|
Eternal
Bliss
|
Extinction
No Gain No loss
|
2)Believe
that God does not exist
|
Extinction
No gain No loss
|
Eternal
loss
Punishment
|
The problems with this are obvious
1. Eternal punishment linked to the
problems of the Augustine theodicy suggest that evil has a place that is built in
the very matter of the universe.
2. It would be wrong to live our life's
in a moral way simply because of a reward at the end of it. Our worship of God
is not through any real passion or desire to come to know God but to rather
avoid eternal punishment (then again is
it possible to make a truly selfish act ?).
Its over !!!
