Notes for 11/25/2025

 

11/25/2025

[Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")]

[Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]

 

Is there anything you would say you believe only on ‘faith’?

 

 

 

What, exactly, is faith?

 

As with many concepts, there isn’t a single universally accepted answer.

 

 

The dominant view has been that faith is belief that is not evidentially or even rationally justified.

 

 

William James uses the following definition of faith as a foil: “Faith is when you believe something that you know ain't true."

 

The following account from the Bible is better known:

"…[T]he assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1)

 

This appears to mean: S has faith that B iff

a)   S believes B

b)   S hopes that B is true

c)   S is convinced that B despite lacking evidence that B

 

Many treatments of faith have focused on b (as wishful thinking) and c (as some kind of “non-rationality” or even, critically, irrationality).

That is:

S has faith that B only if S believes B despite having no good epistemic reasons for thinking B is true.

 

This implies that:

If S has good epistemic reasons for thinking B is true, then S does not have faith that B.

 

There is no doubt that some people do accept this account of faith. While critics use the term “blind faith” in a condemnatory way, some believers suggest that blind faith is a sign of devotional virtue.

Expressions like “Take it on faith” clearly imply a contrast with accepting on the basis of reason.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” (attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.)

 

James attempted to expand the justification of faith to include passional or prudential considerations. I think a strong case can be made to put Mavrodes, Kant, and even Hume in the same camp. (In addition to epistemic rationality, there is also such a thing as “prudential rationality.”)

 

But most uses of “faith” don’t connote mere blind belief. Another vital element of faith is trust.

 

An Internet troll posts, “sugar causes schizophrenia”. S believes this because S is prone to embrace health conspiracy theories. But it seems wrong to say, “S has faith that sugar causes schizophrenia.”

 

 

The role of trust is built into most definitions of faith (it appears on some definitions to be an analytic truth).

OED: “The quality of fulfilling one's trust or promise; faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; trustworthiness.”

So, roughly, faith = belief + trust

 

Again, critics have suggested that there is (or should be) a difference between well-placed and ill-paced trust, and that this difference is made by reason.

 

 

The critic’s complaint is that S ought to trust that B is true only if it is rational for S to believe that B is true.

(“Trust me, bro” isn’t or shouldn’t be good enough.)

 

Note the “ought” here, which takes us back to the question of epistemic obligations (is unevidenced trust culpable, or merely inferior to evidenced trust?)

 

 

 

William James’s suggested revision is something like: S ought to trust that B is true only if either a) it is rational for S to believe that B is true, or b) it is not irrational for S to believe that B is true and believing B is a genuine and passionally supported option for S.

 

James’s view doesn’t involve putting trust in what someone SAYS. It involves putting trust in the truth of some claim, where that serves a pragmatic interest.

Another approach is to suggest that faith DOES involve at least some rational justification.

 

Consider:

“Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

 

If we have already accepted that God exists and is good and has revealed various directives for us, then faith consists in being faithful in our relationship with God.

But nothing here rules out that such acceptance can (or even must) be based on good reasons.

Roman Catholicism has traditionally rejected the view that reason cannot justify belief in God, or that “blind faith” should be rejected.

So, on some accounts of faith, the following are entirely consistent:

S has good epistemic reasons to believe B.

S has faith that B.

 

I can have faith in a bridge BECAUSE I have good epistemic reasons to believe it is safe.

 

The question is whether having good epistemic reasons to believe B is NECESSARY for faith.

 

The most influential views suggest not.

They also generally reject the view that faith is contrary to reason.

 

 

Is faith belief (rational or non-rational, but not irrational) + trust?

We have been accepting that “S believes B” is part of or presupposed by any account of faith. But must this be granted?

Daniel Howard Snyder (DHS) argues not.

 

DHS distinguishes doxastic (propositional (faith that)) and non-doxastic (relational (faith in)) senses of faith.

 

He poses 3 arguments in defense of non-doxastic faith.

 

Argument 1:

1.   It is possible for S to have faith regarding B while doubting whether or not B is true.

2.   If S doubts whether or not B is true, then S does not believe B.

3.   Therefore, it is possible for S to have faith regarding B and not believe B.

 

DHS addresses criticisms that focus on whether “faith” is being used correctly in the examples he gives in the paper by appealing to common usage.

 

Another possible criticism: Presumably DHS means (1) to mean that S either suspends judgment about B or believes B is likely not true.

The latter seems problematic, but the former may be, also. Perhaps the problem isn’t “faith” but “doubt”. It isn’t clear that in the examples S’s doubt amounts to actual epistemic neutrality. It may be that S merely has very low (but still >50%) confidence. It is plausible, though, that while S hopes that B, S does not believe B.

This first argument may correspond to James’s view? That is, S cannot accept B on epistemic grounds, but can accept it on prudential grounds.

 

The difference is that James and DHS differ on what counts as belief. For James, belief is not propositional acceptance, but includes attitudinal and actional aspects. But DHS seems to think all belief is propositional acceptance.

 

It seems one can choose either:

A)        S has faith that B but does not believe B.

B)        S believes B for non-epistemic reasons (despite epistemic doubts).

 

 

Argument 2:

1.   If doxasticism is true, then belief that B is the only positive cognitive attitude needed to “bet” on B.

2.   Belief that B is NOT the only positive cognitive attitude needed to “bet” on B.

3.   Therefore, doxasticism is not true.

 

(DHS doesn’t use “bet” but rather, “satisfy faith that B’s demand to take a stand on behalf of the truth of B”.)

 

This argument seems to counter the suggestion above that S believes B for non-epistemic reasons. (Rather, S doesn’t believe B at all.)

 

 

Either i) belief includes non-epistemic acceptance and faith can include this kind of belief, or ii) faith includes non-propositional acceptance and does not require belief (one can have faith in B without thinking that B is true).

 

Instead of expanding belief to include non-epistemic justification, DHS thinks it is preferable to drop belief as a necessary condition for faith.

 

Argument 3:

1.   It is possible for it to seem to S that B and for S not to believe that B and for S to lack faith that B.

2.   It is also possible for it to seem to S that B and for S not to believe that B and for S to HAVE faith that B.

3.   If (1) and (2), then non-doxasticism is true.

4.   Therefore, non-doxasticism is true.

 

That is, DHS thinks the following is coherent:

It seems to me that B but I do not believe B, but I have faith that B.

Examples are desirable here:

S has faith in their own abilities but believes a situation is rigged against them. Nevertheless, S has faith that their abilities will see them through. S does not believe “I will prevail” but S has faith that “I will prevail.”

 

 

This seems to be Jamesian. S’s determination is born of passion, not reason.

 

Again, the whole question comes down to whether we should expand the definition of belief (James) or drop belief as a condition of faith (DHS).

 

But this is interesting because in a case like this, the situation may be evidentially decided against B. It isn’t that S can’t succeed, but the odds are against it. Evidentially, S should believe that not-B. Here faith and reason push in opposite directions.

 

But is this right? Or does S actually believe in the possibility of success through effort?

 

James seems to hold:

S is justified in accepting B on passional rather than rational grounds only if B is not decidable on rational grounds.

 

In DHS’s last argument, though, it seems possible for S to have faith that B even where B is decidable (negatively) on rational grounds.

 

Even so, DHS’s view seems to require that B not be certainly false on rational grounds. That is, S is taking a risk of B’s being true despite SOME contrary evidence, but where S is trusting that the evidence is wrong.

 

A (possibly) similar example:

When asked whether S believes in life after death, S says, “I cannot see how this is possible given what we know about the brain. But I have faith that somehow I will survive death.”

 

Martin Luther offers the following account of faith:

“Faith is a vital, deliberate trust in God’s grace, so certain that it would die a thousand times for it. And such confidence and knowledge of divine grace makes us joyous, mettlesome, and merry toward God and all creatures.” (Formula of Concord IV.10-12)

 

 

Luther creates a major problem. He argues that after The Fall, humans no longer have true free will (because we are “in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves”). Specifically, we cannot reason ourselves into faith. Rather, faith is a gift given to us by God (= grace).

We have only the freedom to embrace or reject divine grace, but this is not a rational choice.

 

Also, Luther’s definition implies that faith DOES entail belief, and that this involves denying reason. (Kant was Lutheran. “I have found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”)

 

But Kant was only denying the adequacy of reason to provide KNOWLEDGE. He didn’t think that knowledge and faith could be in genuine conflict.

 

Next week we will look at Soren Kierkegaard’s approach to faith inspired (so I claim) by Luther.

Was Kierkegaard a “flaming irrationalist”?