Types of faith. What variations are there?
How many types of faith are there? Is religious faith special in that what is believed is taught systematically to many and reinforced versus faith an individual can have based on their own observations of how things tend to play out?
Comments (93)
Faith is correlated with belief in that they relate to things being true or coming true according to that individuals world view especially concerning the supernatural such as Gods etc or other scenarios where theres uncertainty involved.
"Faith that..." versus "faith in x..." is the most popular distinction in philosophy of religion. "Faith that..." applies to propositions and facts, whereas "faith in," is about persons or groups or persons. "I have faith that it will rain, the garden will be fine," is saying a different sort of thing when compared to "don't worry, she'll come through, I have faith in Edith." Faith in persons entails a sort of regard and respect for the "trustworthiness of an agent."
Effective distinctions:
Demonic Faith: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19). This would be faith in a self-evident or well supported fact, rather than a personal "faith in/regard for." "Belief in the obvious is to no one's intellectual or moral credit," is the point. This is a default, rather than radical skepticism.
Dead Faith: "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:17) This is faith insufficient for producing more than sentiment or desire, but without directing one's life. I've seen people call this incontinent faith following Aristotle as well
Justifying/Saving Faith: Trust in/that which motivates life changing/defining action and strong emotion
Indwelling/Supernatural Faith: this one is more unique to the Christian tradition. It is faith pouring from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and is connected to the ideals of catharsis, illumination, theosis, and deification.
Levels of maturity in faith - faith AND reason
In a number of places Saint Paul makes a distinction between those who are "babes in Christ," who must have a soft and nurturing faith, and be given "spiritual milk," those who have moved on to vegetables, and those who must chew over "spiritual meat." Origen has a fairly common view of how to interpret this, which is that new faith is largely emotional and experiential, not grounded in knowledge or practice. Over time, faith develops like a virtue (habit/skill) and is challenged and deepened by the intellect and reason.
The babe might need the milk of the fairly straightforward expressions in the Gospel of Luke. Those of developed faith must chew over the meanings of the Pentateuch, Canticle or Canticles, etc. These books confuse novices of weak faith who read in a fleshly way, in a literal manner, whereas the deep faith is informed by analogical, typological, and anagogic interpretation ("the sprit gives life, the flesh profits nothing" John 6). The unity of being hangs together in the Good, the Beautiful, and the True (Plato - Good only Plotinus, Augustine, Bonneventure, Aquinas, Eckhart, etc.) and the unity of faith encompasses gnosis and logos as well as pathos. In this view, faith is not opposed to reason, but rather fused into it ever more deeply, as is practice/techne. There is a blend of techne, episteme, phronesis (discernment), nous, and sophia; whereas faith today is often understood primarily as nous/intuition.
I think the main philosophical thing to draw out here is the idea of faith as habit/practice/techne in addition to initial nous, the natural role of reason in techne, and then the progression from techne to a blend of techne and sophia (Aristotle's uses of these terms). We could also think of the progression in explanation in Plato from mythos to logos, and particularly the "unity of reason," and primacy of the whole in true knowledge.
This is not how Saint Paul and the author of Hebrews is always interpreted. Medieval fideists rejected this view, opting for a more intuitionist faith separated from logos. Luther builds on this, and has some rough things to say about reason. However , this blended, progressive view remains strong in Catholicism, Orthodox, and Coptic/Oriental thought, and is certainly not absent in Protestantism, but is less ubiquitous there.
Obviously, of can be applied outside of theological settings, in terms of how skepticism is overcome, particularly in terms of circular, falliblist epistemologies.
You could also consider the idea of faith as being necessary for beginning any inquiry (faith in your ability to learn, faith in the intelligibility of the subject, etc.) found in Saint Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury.
Quoting TiredThinker
I discern three "types of faith": (1) trusting the impossible was the case, (2) hoping the impossible will be the case and (3) imagining the impossible is (always) the case; and by 'the impossible' I understand that which is rational to deny, or negate (e.g. contradictions ... incoherent objects, inconsistent things, unconditional events ... reified ideas aka "idols"). :halo:
I'm gonna take a controversial position as someone who is anti religion and pro science, and say that I think that's a misunderstanding, the average persons scientific belief IS largely faith based, but it's based in epistemically better faith than religion.
They are both faith based, but the two types of faiths are as different as faith can be
Religion and science both involve trusting people, first and foremost. They have that in common. What they don't have in common is why they trust the people they trust.
Well, consider a statement made during the Korean War such as, "the situation is extremely dire, and the UN forces have collapsed into a chaotic rout. However, I have faith in General Rigeway to sort the situation out. He's an excellent commander and he's pulled a rabbit out a hat before."
The person making the statement doesn't, and wouldn't claim to "know" that organization will be restored and the Chinese offensive halted. However, their assessment isn't blind either. They have a faith in the character and abilities of the general, and this is not "blind" but based on past experiences.
And perhaps we could say that the general benefits from "faithful officers," who have "faith in" him and so execute his commands even if they do not understand or agree with them.
The "faith in," and "faith that," distinction targets persons and propositions respectively. The problem with discussions of faith, particularly in religion, is that these two uses end up mixed ambiguously.
There is a similar distinction between "knowing how," and "knowing that." Knowing how to ride a bike doesn't seem to tie neatly to propositions. But religious [I]practices[/I] sometimes fit the "knowing how" distinction better, and this seems to lead to confusions when religion is thought of in terms of a set of propositions.
Would it be fair to say this is more a "faith in" institutions, rather than a "faith that," given claims are true?
Exactly. Only the most trivial and mundane of things can be known without doubt. The volume of water in that glass is 300 ml. As soon as you begin to contextualize a fact, uncertainties begin to accrue. Will 300 ml quench my thirst? I have to do a long drive, will I have to take a bathroom break? The notion that "science" eliminates uncertainty is ludicrous. Human contexts are rife with uncertainty, which means that there must always be a certain element of trust in our own beliefs demanded of us in living our lives. So what some people derisively call faith is obviously both real and crucial.
I think your example of courage is also an excellent one.
It might be that this way of thinking comes out of libertarian intuitions. Given libertarian free will, we cannot "know" how a person/persons will act because they are "free" to choose between possible courses of action. Truth values about future acts are indeterminate, not probabilistic in such a view, hence "faith in," generally applying to choice/persons.
But this might highlight some of the coherency problems in naive libertarianism, because our ability to have such "informed" faith presupposes that choices are determined by things that exist prior to them, in which case free will would not seem to be wholly undetermined.
No idea. Outside of religion the word is used metaphorically and IMO wrongly.
I've heard it said that faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they have no good reasons to beleive it.
As per Hebrews 11 - "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Religious apologists will often try to bend the definition of faith to include science or daily activities in an attempt to normalize the magical thinking.
The common ones - 'You have faith that the plane you catch will fly safely." "You have faith you can cross the road safely."
I think it's inaccurate to use the word faith in those instances. They are actually reasonable expectations, not faith. They are founded on experience and knowledge. For instance, we know planes fly safely. We know there are trained pilots. We know there are engineers who maintain the equipment on planes. We know there's a demonstrable physics which explains how planes fly. We know that almost all flights take off and land safely. To use faith here is absurd. We can have a reasonable expectation that plane flight is safe. But we don't have access to certainty.
Ditto crossing the road. If we cross with care we can be reasonably confident we can cross without being hit. Faith would be crossing the road wearing a blindfold and marching straight into traffic.
To argue, as some might, that we have faith in science is a specious argument. Science is a model that provides reliable results we can test. It's empirical, so faith is superfluous. I think we can be confident in science as a tool which provides tentative models for understanding the reality we know. Science is not a synonym for certainty.
The point of religious faith is that is concerned with salvation (in Semitic religions) or liberation (mok?a or Nirv??a) in Eastern religions. (They're very difficult to compare.)
In the context of ecclesiastical Christianity, the central role of faith is on account of the role of Jesus Christ as Saviour. 'Faith in Jesus' is the sole criterion for salvation in those religions. Faith is the actual means of salvation.
There are very different conceptions in Eastern religions, not to mention in gnostic religions and other religious forms. For instance early Buddhism is oriented around self-reliance, 'by oneself one is purified, by oneself one is defiled'. But that is against the background of the Eastern concept of Sa?s?ra, the eternal wheel of death and re-birth, meaning that the journey to eventual Nirv??a might occupy many lifetimes. Christianity doesn't endorse anything like that (some of the Gnostic sects such as Cathars do, but they are designated as heretical.)
Hindu faiths are likewise set against the background of acceptance of sa?s?ra. So in both Buddhist and Hindu religions, faith is significant, but it has a rather different meaning than in Christianity. The 'saving grace', at least in the early Buddhist texts, is liberating insight, actual understanding of the mechanism which causes repeated rebirth. Similarly for Vedanta, which is the philosophical school of Hinduism. They both rely on the cultivation of insight, which is distinguished from faith, because it comprises wisdom (Jñ?na).
That said, it is understood that at the outset, the aspirant will not possess that insight, and so must have faith that it is realisable. Faith in Buddhism is 'sradha', meaning 'to place one's heart upon'. It is more like faith in the efficacy of the Buddhist path. (Although the largest east Asian Buddhist school is Pure Land, which requires faith in the saving grace of Amida Buddha, and in that respect, is rather like Christian faith, although of course the belief system is completely different.)
Furthermore, in Christian Mysticism there are many parallels with the wisdom schools of Eastern traditions.
Another point is, that in Eastern faiths, for example, there is recognition that there are many different kinds of individuals with differing levels of adaptation and personality types, requiring different kinds of religious or spiritual models. See for instance Swami Vivekananda's Four Types of Yoga and also the 84,000 Dharma Doors of Buddhism. Western conceptions of this issue are very much a product of Western cultural history, which is very different to Eastern.
Jeremiah 17:9
"The heart is deceitful above all things"
Matthew 6:24
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other."
"Man prefers to believe what man prefers to be true." - Sir Francis Bacon
Well, religion can just as easily involve trusting a story teller as a preacher. Science involves trusting people that can propose a way to verify what they're talking about independently.
Basically, there are only two types of Faith : Familial Trust or Rational Belief. All of us take certain things for granted, based on either a> repeated personal experience or b> other's experience via hearsay. Of course, type a> is specific and limited to the senses of a single person, and is implicitly accepted as true*1. But type b> is more general and combines the broader more-inclusive knowledge of many people, who may range from reasonable to irrational. However, Type a> may be expanded to include b> when defined as those of "like precious faith"*2. Since we have no way to verify those varied hearsay experiences, our acceptance of Reported Facts requires Trust in the Veracity & Authority of the source of information. Hence, the development of Scriptural Authority and Empirical Science.
The inherent uncertainty of limited personal experience, may be why the gossip-grape-vine (including modern Mass Media) is so important to most of us. But also why Blind Trust can leave us mis-informed. Apart from sensory illusions, we have little reason to doubt our own direct impressions of what is real & true. But, gossip combines the feelings & opinions of several observers, resulting in diluted quality of scrutiny. So, any form of mass observation needs to be filtered through a rational screen to weed-out extreme subjective views in favor of the moderate average, which, for unverifiable philosophical questions*3, may be closer to Objective Truth.
For those who are uncertain of their own rational powers, Familial Trust may be projected onto a Virtuous Person (Reverend), or Technically-trained Person (Scientist), or Authorized Scripture (Bible). But for Philosophers, trust in one's own personal reasoning abilities is essential to informed & vetted beliefs. :smile:
Familial Trust : unquestioned Self-confidence or Social Trust (extended circle of familiarity)
Rational Belief : tested & verified facts that are flexible, non-extreme, and logical.
Hearsay : information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor. Social media.
Grapevine : informal communication spreads throughout the organisation in all directions without following the formal path of communication. Social media.
*1. Chico Marx in Duck Soup :
"Well, who ya gonna believe me or your own eyes?"
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/07/31/believe-eyes/
*2. 2 Peter 1:1-8 King James Version : "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us"
*3. Aristotle : "The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom."
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/aristotle_148491
I have faith in what I know.
I think you have that backwards. Believing works vis faith. It seems simple enough that faith is generally what we rely upon when it comes to beliefs regarding the unknowable. When it comes to believing that which can neither be proven true nor false, believing either way must of necessity require faith. For beliefs of a non-empirical nature, what other metric could there be?
I understand confidence in plausible things happening, but religion asks people to have confidence in things that quite possibly never happened before.
yes it does
Here's what will likely be a controversial post for many regarding the issue of faith.
All which follows will assume that faith is here interpreted to signify ones firm, or else complete, belief in something for which one has no proof:
To my mind there is first and foremost an umbrella dichotomy between these two types of faith: a) faith in that which directly contradicts the basic logical reasoning which one otherwise upholds and a) faith in that which doesnt do this.
An example of (a): in certain cases, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is valid and true, i.e. conforms to that which is real (this being the typical interpretation of the Christian Trinity)
Firm belief in a plethora of common sense tenets for which there is no proof will be a vivid example of the second type of faith: from faith that what we experience as time and change is not fully illusory, to faith that the sun will once again rise tomorrow (rather than the planet being destroyed by a meteor or an alien laser beam in the meantime), to faith in what is technically termed free will and the praise and blame this allows for, to faith that everyone else is not a p-zombie, to faith that the goodness which humanity has so far imperfectly exhibited with not all go down the drain in the blink of an eye, and so on and so forth (examples could get far more outrageous in terms of things which typical common sense denounces but for which one holds no proof of so being erroneous).
For a good number of people, questioning (b) type faith will be just as reflexively taboo as questioning (a) type faith.
Also, those who proclaim to not live their lives via any faith whatsoeverthis as faith is defined abovewill, for example, either not hold firm belief in others not being p-zombies (this being commonly considered a sigh of less than optimal mental health) or, otherwise, will profess to hold proof that others are not p-zombies (this being bullshit, or else the proof could be readily shared with all others upon request).
Going by the just expressed, all sane people will to some extent live their lives via faith (irrespective of whether it is consciously recognized or else strictly unconsciously maintained), faith which is often enough required to engage in life-sustaining actions and reactions. The principal difference, again, being that some live their lives by reason supported, and thereby justifiable, faith (this being faith-type (b)) while others will uphold their faith in manners contradicted by the very reasoning they otherwise support (this being faith-type (a)).
Though a controversial stipulation for some, to my mind, none of this should be in any way surprising to any fallibilist out there. (For one thing, in honest fallibilism, there is no definitive proof for anything, for nothing epistemological is infallible. But this does not preclude firm, or else complete, belief in fallible conclusionsconclusion for which there thereby is no proofthis just in case these conclusions are consistently justified by reasoning such that they cohere into ones total body of justifications without any contradictions.)
How did you arrive at that? Isn't faith certainty?
If @TiredThinker had something else in mind, he can of course provide a different answer. For my part, though:
Certainty comes in different degrees of strengthe.g., from being fairly certain to being extremely certainand so it need not be absolute, by which I here understand unshakable and complete.
Faith, however, is unshakable and complete, and so it is more than mere psychological certainty. It is unshakable psychological certainty. Via the dichotomy Ive just expressed in my last post, this either because ones logically consistent justifications upon which ones faith rests do not warrant ones questioning ones own faith, or, otherwise, because one is dogmatic about ones faith in manners impervious to any reasoning evidencing it erroneous.
As an example of the first, I personally have full-fledged faith that solipsism is false precisely because this a) is an unshakable belief/certainty which I hold despite not having any infallible proof for it and b) because it is fully in-line with the body of all justified beliefs which I hold such that no contradictions unfold by my holding this unshakable belief/certainty. Here, the stated faith remains for me unshakable until the time contradictions in my holding this faith arise.
As an example of the second, were someone to have faith that the pink elephant they saw in their own house when they were drunk actually exists (rather than being a figment of their imagination) despite all reasoned arguments to the contrary (e.g., the house doorways needing to be damaged were an elephant to walk through the house from room to room), then this would be one example of a logic-impervious unshakable belief/certainty. Here, this faith remains unshakable regardless of the contradictions that might or else do arise.
But both will be faith in that they are unshakable and complete certainties regarding facts for which no proof exists.
My question came about because of the use of the word 'confidence', which I had laid out in a different context earlier, as an alternative to faith.
In relation to degrees of certainty, I have no particular view on this. Generally I either believe something or I don't. As far as I can recall, I don't often ascribe probabilities or degrees of confidence to anything. I don't think I am absolutely certain about anything.
The only time I use the word faith in conversation is to describe someone's religious views. I try to avoid using this word to describe quotidian matters.
Sorry. I missed that connection.
Quoting Tom Storm
OK, but, as you well know, you are not the only English user of that word. Other people do use it in wider contexts than just the religious, even if you might consider such usage inaccurate.
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't know. Religious matters can well be quotidian (i.e., commonplace and everyday) in certain populaces, which seems to fully sidestep the distinction you're trying to make. For instance:
Especially in relation to all the radical relativism discussions that have been going about, that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is upheld by some as sometimes being valid and trueeveryday/commonplace and so quotidian though this issue of the Trinity might be for manyseems nevertheless significant to this discussion regarding types of faith. Namely, is the presented summation valid and true on account of it being socially constructed by those who have faith in its so beingthis as radical relativism would have itthereby making this arithmetic justifiable? Or would this be an article of religious faith that is reason-impervious regarding matters of fact and thereby wrongheadedquotidian though it is in most aspects of western cultures?
Yes, and as I have said on this site many times, I consider it a bad use of the word. I will always be happy to point this out in my conversations with others.
Quoting javra
My point is that 'faith' is best used to describe certain people's justification for gods. To use 'faith' to describe plane flight or crossing the road is a rhetorical tool used by apologists who like to equivocate on language to help them smuggle in their ideas.
I am well aware that people use language differently, which is why I enjoy having my say when there is an opportunity. We're not trying to change the world here, just have conversations and share our views. :wink:
I don't think it's some sneaky rhetorical tool. The dictionary defines it in ways that have nothing to do with gods. Do you think your narrow use of the word is the norm or are you trying to promote a new norm?
For the purposes of this OP I'm trying to promote a more precise use of the word. Whether you or anyone else don't care to use it my preferred way doesn't matter - we're just having a conversation about using the word faith, right?
Quoting flannel jesus
I didn't say it was 'sneaky'. It's an obvious rhetorical tool. When apologists say things like - 'Don't knock faith, you use it all the time, like when you catch a plane.' I say this is an equivocation. You can't compare faith in god with a 'reasonable confidence' in a quotidian matter, for reasons spelt out ad nauseam earlier in this thread.
Your position on this looks a lot like those odd people who turn up here sometimes, loudly calling for the end of belief. They seem to think belief only pertains to belief in God.
Quoting etymonline.com
Sure you can compare them. Not only can you, you SHOULD. You should be able to clearly articulate why confidence in one thing is more reasonable than confidence in the other, and you should be able to articulate that, I think, without just resorting to arguing about the definition of faith.
I think it's completely reasonable for you to say "they aren't the same thing", I just don't think the argument about why they're not the same thing relies on defining faith in a super narrow way such that they're only tautologically not the same thing
Ok. I'll mull over this.
Really? Perhaps you formed this view because I was discussing 'faith' in god (as per Hebrews 11) and not belief more generally. Say some more so I understand your critique.
Seriously? You are going to use a dictionary to throw down the gauntlet on a philosophical forum? :-)
The thread is entitled Types of faith. What variations are there? (Emphasis added).
If you had initially identified your variation as a commonplace dictionary-type variation, then I would not have bothered to respond to the notion that "semantics here don't matter." Perhaps the below variation on faith would be more philosophically fruitful.
It is commonplace to treat belief and faith as synonymous. . . but there are important
differences. . . Faith involves reliance and trust, and it endures in the face of doubts,
whereas belief is simply something we take to be true. - Simon Laraway paraphrasing Mark Wrathall.
https://hum.byu.edu/difference-between-faith-and--belief#:~:text=Faith%20is%20a%20different%20thing,we%20take%20to%20be%20true.
Simply put, when it comes to the less commonplace variations on faith, semantics here do matter.
Not every belief is faith, but every faith is a belief. How can belief work through faith if some beliefs are not faith at all?
I remind you that what you choose to hear as "blah, blah, blah" is my response to your criticisms that I had not done my "due diligence" and that perhaps I should "consult a dictionary". I chose not to hear your criticisms as "blah, blah, blah."
The "blah, blah, blah" you choose to hear will become a deeper understanding if you instead choose to hear that common-place definitions are inadequate to uncovering meaningful variations of faith as solicited by the title of the OP, i.e., "Types of faith. What VARIATIONS are there?" (Emphasis added by me.).
Quoting Vaskane
You'll notice you "equated the two to be the same" by declaring "semantics here doesn't matter" and by subsequently offering commonplace definitions that either equate "faith" with "strong belief" or equate both as synonyms of the Latin word "fides". Consequently, my listing of their differences is in order.
In closing, I took your criticisms seriously and responded by offering a VARIATION in the concept of faith (as solicited by the title of the OP) that unequivocally asserts significant semantic differences between "faith" and "belief" and that is not encompassed by the common-place definitions you offer. Presuming you would give my criticisms the same good faith consideration I gave your criticisms is a mistake I will not make again.
I wish you nothing but the best.
Instead of proving the above by example, you could actually discuss the philosophical issues presented. Either way, your dictionary definition, your ad hominem skills, and your deeply profound contributions regarding the variations of faith are noted.
Quoting Vaskane
What do moderators have to do with anything? Are you afraid I am going to tell on you? Though dealing with you would be more pleasant if you were not a bully, that is your problem to deal with. I have no desire to silence you or to adjust your poor behavior. And how un-philosophical of me to actually dig for the meaning of your words.
Quoting Vaskane
Though I appreciate your concern for my psychological development and emotional well-being, you are not my mother. You have no reason to believe that the fear of coming across as a dumbass (or any other fear) will silence me. It certainly hasn't silenced you.
Quoting Vaskane
I again remind you that the discussion began in earnest when I took seriously your suggestions that I exercise "due diligence" and that I should "consult a dictionary." I make no claim to be any more or less ignorant on the subject than anyone else. But you have said nothing to indicate your ignorance is any less complete than mine.
I wish you nothing but the best.
That is an interesting notion. Yet if we think about the way people use the words, I would expect someone's confidence to be more easily eroded than their faith. And couldn't one lose their and still have faith?
I often think of faith as a measure of how deeply a belief is held. Isn't faith what we cling to when our beliefs are under serious attack and our confidence is waning? When it comes to our deepest beliefs, maybe faith is just the last thing we let go of.
Perhaps faith as opposed to confidence a person is more likely to put something at stake to represent the sentiment?
Like a person sky diving and trusting their god and religious beliefs with protect them. They literally put their life at risk. I suppose thrill is the main reason for sky diving so maybe an example more along the lines of joining the military is better.
Meanwhile confidence that isn't faith is making conclusion about the odds, but without really risking anything to make a point?
I agree.
Though I suspect "confidence" and "faith" are related, I would not consider them synonyms. Generally, one's confidence is more easily eroded than one's faith? And people having the same degree of faith may not necessarily have the same degree of confidence? And wouldn't people be more likely to rely upon faith when their confidence wanes than to rely upon confidence when their faith wanes? They are not the same.
This is a philosophical forum. This matter began when I had the temerity to challenge your claim that "semantics here does not matter." How dare I! But instead of arguing the issue, you chose to bully, demean, and spew ad hominem in each and every one of your responses.
You can either attempt to persuade me that I am wrong regarding the issue or you can carry on bullying, demeaning, and spewing ad hominem. But doing the latter will not make you right.
Either way, Nietzsche will not help you and I ain't goin' nowhere.
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
You are nothing if not consistent (bullying, demeaning, spewing ad hominem).
It is bad faith to an absurd degree to declare my point to be anything other than the only issue I have argued and the only issue to which I have repeatedly pointed, i.e., your claim that "semantics here does not matter." And since you have chosen to not even engage on the issue to which I have repeatedly pointed, there would be no point to moving the goal posts.
As for being a pushover, since you have yet to even engage on the issue in a reasonable, manner, you may rest assured that I am still standing. And it will take a lot more than anything you have shown to push me over. Seriously, a dictionary?
So I reiterate, you can engage on the issue or you can carry on bullying, demeaning, and spewing ad hominem. But you will not persuade without argument
Either way, I am still here and I am still standing.
You are using the claim for the purpose of your argument.
If the matter is as inconsequential as you suggest, your insult is equally stupid.
If something is far enough beneath you, why bother with it?
Who made you the one who corrects?
Like @Tom Storm, I'm someone who doesn't usually use the word faith, unless it's a religious context, and even then usually only when a believer brings it up first. Tom Storm said the following:
Quoting Tom Storm
I relate to this. There's a bit of a difference with me, since I usually don't have to deal with apologetics. Austria, where I live, is a fairly secular country, so the you-have-faith-too line is something I've only ever encountered on the internet. It's not a thing around here.
But the point is this:
Atheist: I don't believe in God, that's all.
Theist: But you have faith, too. For example, everytime you [insert examples, say the ones from Tom Storm's post].
And, my intuitive response to this is pretty similar to Storm's: that's just not faith. But other than him, I don't see "confidence" as an alternative. I'll have to backtrack a bit at this point:
When I read your opening post, my immediate question was: what is faith to you in the first place? I can't talk about types of faith without having a clear idea of where you draw the line. My own concept of "faith" is fairly narrow: a type of trust in a person (or person-like entity to account for the religious use) backed by some sort of commitment to that person (or person-like entity).
In that sense, I could actually sort of go with the apologetic usage "but you have faith, too," to some degree. It's helpful to understand how they relate to god, in a metaphoric way. When I cross the street I put my faith in the drivers; they will not run me over. When I get on a plane, I put my faith in lots of people: engineers and pilots come to mind. And so on.
Except I don't think that's actually happening. One crucial element of faith, trust-in-a-person and religious version alike, is that the commitment to trust backs me up in a moment of doubt. But the thing is this: if I walk across a street and suddenly a car speeds towards me, I'll do my best to get out of the way. Whatever I supposedly have faith in, it's certainly not that particular driver in that particular moment. If this were a type of faith, I should just be walking across the street as always. I have faith in the traffic system. It cannot fail me. That car will stop. The traffic light's green, after all. Faith, in this sort of situation, would cause me to act like a self-endangering idiot.
If the but-you-have-faith-too rhetoric targets me, I could accept that and use it as basis of definition of what faith means to the believer. So, when I get on a plane or cross a street, do I think I can never be hit by a car, or that planes never crash? Obviously not. That which I put my faith in is fallible; I know it to be fallible; and that faith is predicated on that fallibility. I need to put my faith in say a pilot or car drivers, precisely because I know they could mess up and harm me (or even deliberately harm me, who knows?). This works for person-faith, too: you commit to your relationships; you don't let go of that trust easily. And in turn you attempt to act trustworthy, too.
But abstract enough, apply it to God, and I, an atheist, am left with... nothing that makes sense. What it looks like to me is this: From early on, you put your trust in God the way you put your trust in your parents. And by the time you differentiate between fallible people and the triple-omni God, that faith is in place and it needs a target. The meaning of the concept is quite literally what you put your faith in. Basically, faith constitutes God by way of the trust-people metaphor.
But obviously that's not going work very well as common ground between me and a believer. So now we can have alternative concepts that - to some degree - does serve as common ground; at the very least we'll know where we part ways if we can figure this out. "Confidence" though doesn't do the trick for me, mostly because I think it's a red herring.
What I think happens when we cross a street or board a plane is that we have implicit working assumptions which are based less on confidence than on habit. We just don't think about what can go wrong until there are signs that things might go wrong. I think that's just basic human behaviour. How we react to having these habitual working assumptions challenged depends on the person. Me, personally? "Shit happens" is more likely to calm me down than "everything's going to be all right," for example. Other people might find that putting faith in the pilot might calm them down. Either way, the plane's either going to crash or not.
This where we segue into you example: Sky diving. A repeat quote, more selective this time:
Quoting TiredThinker
They both literally risk their lives. Risk isn't the difference.
In my experience, putting faith in God usually doesn't mean that theists feel safer. The Christians I know, were they praying for a save landing, wouldn't few the prayer as some sort of petition. They take the risk, and they take the responsibility. It's not about being safe; it's about re-affirming the relationship. If things go wrong, maybe God will save them, or maybe He won't. He'll know best. Sky divers don't want to die. Sky divers likely won't die. Most of them don't. But should the worst happen? Well, they can only hope they lived the best life they could, and there's always heaven (actually, the details are up in the air). People who put their faith in God affirm a relationship, not some sort of confidence in an unknown outcome (like surviving sky diving unhurt). Christian sky divers might risk their life, but their faith protects them from risking their relationship with God, should things go south.
Atheist sky divers certainly risk their life in the same way. And should they put faith in their own abilities, they might risk their pride (and that faith could lead them to blame, say, manufactures of equipment and prevent them from seeing their own short comings; which won't matter much if they die, but could be disastrous if they survive with wounds and go on to make the same mistakes again). But they can't (from their own perspective) risk their relationship with God; they don't have one.
So up until now I've treated faith as trust in a person or person-like entity; but you can actually direct a similar energy towards your habits (like, say, rational thought). It's served you well until now. It's, I think, a variant of putting faith in yourself: when I do this I succeed, and if I don't it's not my problem. (I'm a rational atheist; those are irrational theists... and such.) Come to think of it, this is where "confidence" comes in after all. I have no trouble of thinking of that as some kind of "faith". The difference seems to me mostly... rhetorical?
I think what faith and confidence have in common is that they can help you stay calm when your habits show signs of failing you. Faith is the ultimate skill in that respect; I suck at it. I don't mind much, though, since faith tends to lower you perception skills when in use. I do mind some, since anxiety - what happens to me when my habits are failing me - also lowers my perception skills. The trouble with the faith skill is that it activates when not needed, too.
Maybe I could express the difference between confidence and faith like this (I couldn't tell what the sentence means, though):
It's quite easy to be overconfident, but you'll never have enough faith.
In that case, why assume a point of view above the arguments, where your judgements regarding others are given special regard?
I figured something like that was underway.
With that metric, you can sort all things with little effort..
I was referring to your efforts. But the example provided is interesting.
You have made your point of view clear. Your descriptions of other points of views are arrogant.
You are using your bullying, demeaning, and spewing of ad hominem in place of an argument in support of your claim that "semantics here does not matter." Fortunately, philosophy does not work that way.
So if I may reiterate, you can either make an argument in support of your claim that "semantics here does not matter" or you can continue bullying, demeaning and attacking me. It matters not to me.
Either way, I will wait here.
Impressive: bullying, demeaning, and spewing ad hominem all in a single sentence.
Again, this is the Philosophy Forum. Instead of providing a dictionary as support for my position, I responded by providing you a synopsis of the supporting views (including a link thereto) of Oxford Professor of Philosophy Mark Wrathall. (he may have retired recently.). I presumed you would find the views of an eminent philosopher more persuasive than a dictionary. Silly me.
Of course, it is possible that you did not understand what Professor Wrathall had to say. After all, I believe that is the point at which you said all you were hearing was "blah, blah, blah." I am pleased to note your hearing seems to have improved a bit.
I use dictionaries as needed. But their necessarily colloquial nature renders them ill suited to philosophy. I have never used one as a primary (let alone only) source of support. Indeed, my experience suggests that people who do use dictionaries as a primary (let alone only) source of support within the context of philosophy usually do not know what they are talking about.
And that is how dumb I am.
I wish you nothing but the best.
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Thanks for the recommendation on Nietzsche. Though Heidegger is the philosopher I tend to read most, you may rest assured I have read far more Nietzsche than the average person.
I wish you nothing but the best.
My point is, I don't agree with the sentiment that one must know God exists, or prove the existence of God, or even have sufficient evidence to warrant belief in God to believe. That feels like us testing God, rather than the other way around, and I think belief in God would be diminished if it could simply be proven or shown to be true as a fact. Personally, I simply can't put faith in something without reasoning my way towards it as I feel faith in God requires, so I don't think I'll ever follow a religion. That said, I am agnostic and have been able to reason my way to the potential existence of some God-like being. But if I do find myself believing in some God, it will be through reason, not faith.
But why do we require faith? Why aren't gods simply present in our lives and why this:
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
This seems crazy to me. Why would gods be invisible and why would testing gods not be ok?
Why is divine hiddenness a thing? Why would gods, who in scripture interact with humans - whether Islam, Judaism or Hindu scriptures - now only be available through faith or some old books or via a priestly caste?
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
I am an atheist by feel or intuition. The god hypothesis never helped me to make sense of anything and the idea of a deity felt absurd to me from the age of 7 or 8. Of course as a good atheist, I have had to deal with a range of apologists and many times had to run through the various well-worn and shop-soiled arguments, which for me come post hoc. As I've often said, I think belief in gods is often similar to a sexual preference - you are either attracted or not.
Quoting Arne
I find both dull and unreadable, but that's on me. Can you say something about what Heidegger thinks about god or theism?
Philosophically, Heidegger had little to say regarding God or theism. He was born a Catholic and much of his higher education was financed by the Catholic church in one manner or another. He converted to Protestantism following his marriage. It is my understanding that he took more than a passing interest in pantheism in his later years. Despite what some may say, Heidegger was absolutely not an atheist. And unless something else comes to mind, I believe that is all I can say about Heidegger on this matter. I hope it helps.
Interesting. Sometimes I think it is "fashionable" to diss on Dreyfus. When it came to American Heidegger scholars, there was a time when he was essentially a lone voice in the wilderness. It is nonsensical to hold any person under such circumstances to contemporary standards of adequacy. I suspect there is no philosopher who did more to mainstream Heidegger to American universities.
And many of the most pre-eminent Heidegger scholars of the 21st century studied under Dreyfus, including Mark Wrathall now at Oxford, Sean Kelly now at Harvard, William Blattner now at Georgetown and the late John Haugland who spent most of his teaching career at Pittsburgh. And every one of them loved Dreyfus. I defer to them on the issue of adequacy.
Quoting Tom Storm
I disagree. Nothing in his thinking precludes a personal God. Though he was far from being a humble man per se, it would not surprise me if he considered no philosophy to be lofty enough on the issue. And I am confident the least he would say is that it is an issue for theology rather than philosophy. But more than anything, I have come across nothing in his history or in his work to suggest he ever had any significant philosophical interest in the issue.
And my experience is not that Heidegger is difficult to understand because his thinking is lofty (which I don't think it is). Instead, I find it extremely dense and jargon dependent. And my solution is to just keep reading it over and over again.
All the Dreyfus class lectures (N=28) on Division One of Being and Time can be downloaded at:
https://archive.org/details/Philosophy_185_Fall_2007_UC_Berkeley
I believe I also found, downloaded, and still have copies of the syllabus for the Dreyfus lectures and it does list the pages that one is expected to read prior to the lecture. It was pretty cool being able to read Being and Time in sections and then listen to the Dreyfus lecture on that section. I still listen to the lectures from time to time but generally as background while I wander around the house or around the yard tending to matters.
Sean Kelly's class lectures were once available for download on Harvard's website but I do not think that is still the case. I am glad I downloaded them when I did. But they were recorded early in his career at Harvard and so his approach is recognizably and understandably modeled on Dreyfus. Still, the audio quality of his lectures is superior.
We have similar experiences. As a good non-atheist, I have had to deal with a range of apologists and many times had to run through the various well-worn and shop-soiled arguments, which for me come post hoc. It can be exhausting. But I am just too lazy to stop. :-)
Quoting Arne
i didn't mean to argue that his ideas preclude a personal God, just that his thinking had been somewhat too lofty to focus on this narrow subject, given that Heidegger seems to regard the project of being as significant enough to be getting on with. If I had paid attention to philosophy 40 years ago, then perhaps I might have developed some useful understanding of H's critique of onto-theology and more fully apprehended how we are situated in the reality we experience and how being might take us beyond notions of god. Or something like that.
Fascinating. Faith in entities you know to be fallible and faith in entities you believe to be infallible. If these are different varieties of faith, then the non-believer would subscribe to the former while the believer would subscribe to both? That in and of itself strikes me as a sufficient response to the idea that "you have faith too."
I might chip in here to say that in some contexts, or in some respects, what you can see depends on the kind of person you are, or perhaps the kind of life or experiences you have had. People will see things differently, in a loose sense, depending on the kind of sensibility we bring to it. In the case of religion(s) there are the factors of prophecy and of revealed truths. They would claim that the prophet sees things that we don't see. Obviously a contestable claim and not one that I'm actually defending, but in the context, I think it's relevant. Perhaps there is a real meaning to the old word 'seer'. But our culture has no criteria to judge those kinds of utterances other than the scientific or empirical (although bear in mind, that is the subject matter of the tradition of hermenuetics). I have noticed in my reading of early Greek philosophy, that the very early philosophers, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Pythagoras, were all said in some sense to have had a kind of 'vision of the Gods' or to 'see as Gods', in other words, to see beyond what us mortals are able to see (which presumably has something to do with the fact that their names are still known to us after millenia.)
Customarily, in religious traditions, the idea of the salvation is linked to the belief that the ordinary human, the hoi polloi, the common man, will be generally precluded from reaching that plateau of understanding, so we are forced to rely on the grace of God or another supreme being (depending on cultural context.) But in some cases, especially early Buddhism, 'faith' was taken as a kind of quality of confidence in the Buddha, but that it would eventually be supplanted by certain knowledge (Jñ?na) when the conditions were fulfilled and liberating insight acheived. But then, that general understanding is also conveyed in the Apostle Paul's 'we see through a glass, darkly', the implication being that in the fullness of time, we will see clearly. Faith is, in that context, eventually vindicated by knowledge, not by our narrowly-defined 'falsifiable hypotheses'.
Quoting Tom Storm
There was his notorious exclamation in a very late interview in the German media, 'only a God can save us now'. Courtesy of Google, I can now reproduce it, and it's oddly consonant with the remark above:
Quoting Heidegger, Der Speigel interview
I don't know what commentators have made of that, but it is a telling comment.
Philosophy strikes me as "fools gold" for both the theist and the atheist. And Heidegger's philosophy is no exception.
I still can't see how you got there. Sorry.
My focus is primarily on the reality (or not) of the entity (gods), not upon the reasonable confidence.
Quoting Dawnstorm
I don't see how these relate since we can demonstrate the existence of parents and interact with them and easily assess whether they can be trusted or not. Lots of children don't trust their parents because experience has taught them not to. We can't gauge trust in the same way for any gods I am aware of. We can't even demonstrate if they are real. How are they the same?
Quoting Dawnstorm
I would focus less on the putting of faith and more on the reality of the physical experience. When I cross a street I am interacting with physical processes which I can demonstrate to be true and which is more or less identically shared with others. I only cross at lights (if at all possible) and I practice vigilance, looking to see if the road is clear. I believe I can have reasonable confidence that empiricism and the fact that I seem to inhabit a physical reality will allow for a safe crossing.
I don't see quite how putting faith in an invisible being, which is likely unknowable and about which there is not much agreement or good evidence can compare to the physical process of crossing a road or catching a plane.
What am I missing in your analysis?
And consistent with his notions of technology as the cat that has been let out of the bag or the genie that has been let out of the bottle. Control is an illusion.
Interesting. I've heard a number of atheists make the same point. Mainly that only magic can get us out of the shitstorm we seem to have created for ourselves.
Hard to know what he meant, the old enigmatic devil...
Quoting Arne
Say some more on this.
Agreed.
It's partly because I misread you. For some reason, I thought you suggested "confidence" instead of "faith", when you just had a question because someone else suggested it. This is the paragraph I misread:
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't know how or why. It's clear enough on a re-read.
Quoting Tom Storm
This, though, is a very real difference between us. My focus is on understanding what people do (in their heads) when they "believe in God". It's not easy when the concept is not native to your world view. Many of my intuitions will work against me.
Whether or not God exists is a topic that, I think, mostly comes up when theists and atheists cross paths. But the existence of God is usually something of a background assumption for theists, when it comes to having faith in God. Their "relationship with God" is the focus. If you focus on the background assumptions, you might miss the core.
Which is why, when I read the opening post, about "types of faith", I had no intuition at all. What's the concept we're supposed to subdivide here? Like you, I tend not to use faith outside of the context of religion.
Quoting Tom Storm
They're not the same. I've said (or implied) multiple times that I see the relationship between "faith in person" and "faith in God" as metaphoric (or figurative in some other way), meaning that the cognitive/emotional behaviour will be the same in some, but different in others. I don't have the details.
Quoting Tom Storm
That's not something I disagree with, but again my focus is different. I think most social behaviour is habitual, but open to modification to adapt to situations. Questions of confidence tend to be relevant in exceptional situations only.
If I cross at a traffic light and zebra crossing, I mostly do so out habit. Questions of confidence seem to come into it when I'm, say, in a hurry: it's late at night, the traffic light's not green yet, but the traffic lights for the cars in both directions are already red, so I'm fairly confident in starting to walk a little early. That's a show of confidence a step above the usual habit; it's a recurring situation so it's also prone to habit, but at the very least I need to gauge if it's the sort of situation that allows for the less common habitual sequence.
Atheists and theists have very different thought habits when it comes to God, which is why - when they clash - both of them tend to be in fringe situations. That complicates mutual understanding, but it's hard to get around this.
Based on all this I might summarise my position as the following? Faith in God is a habit transfer from faith in people to something that that habit transfer creates in the first place: faith in God is a modified faith in people that creates its own target: faith constitutes God as that which is necessary for the tranferred habit to stick. Of course, I don't expect theists to agree, and thus this isn't a good theory if my goal is understanding. So what am I to do?
I watched a recording of a recent lecture and discussion session featuring a US anthropologist called Tanya Lurmann (mentioned in another thread). She's done a lot of anthropological work among American evangelicals, asking them questions, surveys, etc. Her book on it is How God becomes Real. It's worth reading the jacket copy as it actually is quite close to what you've suggested here. Important to emphasise she's not an evangelical herself, she says she's an open-minded agnostic on the actual question. But she presents a vivid case and is quite a persuasive.
That's an interesting book. "How God Becomes Real," sounds like a great title to describe what I'm interested in, too. Thanks for that.
Quoting Dawnstorm
Understand. I generally highlight faith in this way just to make a point. When it comes to Christian traditions, I do consider the various categories of believer and their faith, from the literalists to the sophisticated theologians - who inhabit totally different worlds.
I grew up in the Baptist tradition, so god stuff is not alien to me. But we were taught that the Bible is allegorical. The stories were understood as ways to teach people, they are not to be taken as (forgive the pun) gospel. I was soon aware of Paul Tillich's more mystical notion of God as ground of being and have read a fair bit of Christian thinking. Nevertheless, I still hold the idea of gods to be an unnecessary fiction and can't find any way to make use of the idea of a deity or the notion of faith as a pathway to truth.
Faith is really a complex word. Faith be it religious or ideological is kind of a blind belief. One of the important features of it is probably how it's followers add adhoc hypothesis to support their belief. It is accustomed by fear when it comes to most theistic religion and bounded by rules when it comes to athesitic one. If it is a philosophy or ideology it is ethical need to follow it without questioning it. Faith is trust with a twist.
I don't think this is right. People have their faith challenged all the time, and there are times when one has higher or lesser degrees of faith. Perhaps the ideal is that one would walk with absolute certainty in whatever their foundational beliefs are, but I don't think describes most people who think things through. What I'm saying need not be limited to a religious context either, but I'd assume that whatever secular beliefs you hold foundational are occassionally self-questioned. I would also suppose that the committed atheist might have times in the foxhole where they question their previously held beliefs.
I also think this discussion misses an important sort of faith related to deciding to believe not based upon empirical evidence, but upon the consequences the belief tends towards your conduct and success. This pragmatic basis for faith might not be what some mean by faith because it offers a justification for the belief, and some take faith to be just blind acceptance that nothing could shatter.
What I hear from the many accounts here is that a good number have stories of loss of faith, where they began in childhood with a rigid form of faith that amounted to subservience to parents and other adult religious authority, to finally be freed from it in adulthood, finding comfort in sites like this where reverence to such beliefs is not expected.
What might have held those folks closer to their faith was some evidence of its purpose, meaning, or at least utility. It is a type of faith to believe whole heartedly that faith will lead one in the right direction, but it's important too to realize you have to have faith in the correct thing. That means faith is a meta concept, not just a list of rules and regulations. It is the idea that belief in something bigger than one's self is what faith is, with the goal in looking for that, but in being able to abandon the particulars if they don't meet that objective.
Even if my view on faith is peculiar to just me, I still think it responsive to the OP, which was a question generally of what sorts of faith there are. I just reject the idea that faith is best described as what children in Sunday school believe as they just repeat back what they're told.
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
Quoting Vaskane
No. I will not shut up.
I wish you nothing but the best.
But it does reveal the truth of you.
I wish you nothing but the best.
Fair enough. I'm no expert on degrees of faith, since I've never had the experience in any form. Nevertheless, most of the Muslims and Christians I have explored this with describe it that way.
But I generally don't raise certainty as an aspect of faith and your response is useful. I usually define faith as the reason people give for believing when they don't have a good reason. And only then when faith is presented to me as the same thing as that the plane they will catch will not crash. And of course believers challenge the 'no good reasons' as you would expect.
Quoting Hanover
Those with 'certainty' are not always naive fundamentalists - they may not be any kind of literalist and accept science and do not have a cartoon god in their sights. And I'm not sure it is fair to describe this type of faith an unthinking, child like Sunday school style faith (Islam aside) but I get what you mean.
I also suspect that some people's faith is performative and not deeply held. Having worked in palliative and end of life care, I have met many dying people (including priests) for whom the faith vanished as they discovered they were dying. God provided no comfort and heaven receded the moment mortality presented. The opposite of a deathbed conversion is also a thing.
Quoting Hanover
I think this is a useful point. Faith can be complicated and I wouldn't associate it with rules as such. Even if rules are justified by using appeals to faith. I would imagine that faith is more of a 'non-rational' foundation.
But 'bigger than one's self' seems super vague and rather pointless to me. I have no doubt that there are trillions of things bigger and more important than me (depending upon the perspective), but I've never been able to get from this to any varieties of theistic meaning, no matter how sophisticated.
It is always this "slave morality" talk from people who faithfully follow a man :rofl:
It took you that and one more hour to do your own diligence instead of asking rhetorical questions when you have no business doing so.
Yeah, one has no connection with the other, nice display of philosophical literacy.
Quoting Vaskane
That is very cute. If I am going to read Nietzsche, it is not going to be some English translation. You don't speak German, know that you have not read Nietzsche, but an academic's rendition of him. Your understanding of Nietzsche does not come from he said but from what someone thinks he has said:
You are putting more spheres between you and your "mentor" by not being bothered to learn German.
Quoting Vaskane
No because I am not illiterate. It is funny that the thread is still on the back of your mind though.
Quoting Vaskane
Yeah, I am the one remembering stuff from months ago :mask: Don't be calling other people ugly when your best angle is nothing beyond it.
Quoting Tom Storm
Quoting Tom Storm
:up: :up:
:up:
Quoting Wayfarer
Thanks for this. :mask:
and dragging @Lionino with you.
I implore both of you to save time, blood pressure and reputation by ending this pissing match and walking away.
I listen to dogs barking ever since I was a toddler, I must be fluent in dog too!
Quoting Vaskane
Should the reason to believe ought to be verified? What if that reason is "wrong" but that is all they know...until made "right" or corrected. What if no one questions a "wrong" reason to believe? "Dont stop believin''" Hmmm...is faith something that is stop and go? Can you just stop believing? I think yes. Can you just remember to start believing? Should faith be questioned at all? Especially should faith be questioned against or for what it is you KNOW? and Why? Who is bothered enough to question faith without wanting to KNOW more? Was faith born from the blind or to the blind or in the blind? With it? A "knowing" might be involved when it is/can be measurable. Through hope, perhaps?...Ones hope in a claim could be questioned or observed further, and verified as credible or not before doing anything further via believing....but knowing THAT alone now is no longer of the blind believer, but from knowing they are that....