The Vital Lie

I'm a guy interested in faith in God, and in philosophical rigour - what follows is an excerpt from a philosophical reflection piece I wrote on the rationality of faith:

Is faith in God rational? I believe that it is.

I certainly do not want to write an apology for faith in God, nor do I wish to use recovery as a center piece for an argument to the rationality of religious pragmatism. But, I do want to be able to make three points about the rationality of faith in God. And these points come about related to the discussion above. First, faith as such can only exist in a world where a (G)od is not empirically present. If some omnipotent, good, creative force were to be isolated and identified in the natural world such that the tenets of science and reason were satisfied as to its existence then faith as we understand it would cease to exist. I think this is the central tension to the arguments surrounding the rationality of faith. If the object of faith cannot be proven to exist, is that faith rational? Interestingly, if the object could be proven to exist, then we wouldn’t be having a discussion about faith – we would be worried about why I still don’t believe that the earth is round. More on this thought later.

Second, I want to say that faith is personal. This is to say that if I do have a faith in a (G)od, the object of my faith will be culturally recognizable to me, and may be unrecognizable or not understandable to some one from outside my culture. While this feature of faith may present some great difficulty to a philosophical acceptance of the rationality of faith, I don’t see it as such a great epistemological hurdle. At last count, there are currently 6,912 living languages being spoken on this planet. Native language speakers can, and do, learn to speak other languages, but they initially learned the language native to their childhood culture. I most assuredly could investigate other cultural objects of faith, but the fact that my current object of faith arises from my particular culture is not a weakness. Again, should a divine, omnipotent object from one culture or another be scientifically proven, all discussions about faith – regardless of culture – are at an end.

Finally, faith in a (G)od, for it to be counted as a valid faith, should be operative. Said differently, faith should be considered more as a verb than as a noun. Faith should inform and guide the actions of one’s life. As William James holds in his Will to Believe, “As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use.” While this may be too critical of a standard for measuring belief in the current corpus of facts and theories, it is true that I pay little or no attention to those facts or theories that do not guide my actions.

So my argument for the rationality of faith in God proceeds as;

1) The object of faith must remain empirically or philosophically unproven.
2) The object of faith is always relative to the individual.
3) Faith must equate to demonstrable action toward eudaimonia.

Therefore, (1)(2)(3),

4) Faith is rational to the degree that it supports eudaimonia.

Faith in an Unproven Object

Max Planck spoke of things we cannot prove. “Metaphysical reality does not stand spatially behind what is given in experience, but lies fully within it. ‘Nature is neither core nor shell – she is everything at once.’ The essential point is that the world of sensation is not the only world which may conceivably exist, but that there is still another world. To be sure, this other world is not directly accessible to us.” In this comment he provides room to develop beliefs, faith, in processes that occur beyond the experience of sense – in allowing for this other world he makes claims about it. “…there always remains a gaping chasm, unbridgeable from the point of view of exact science, between the real world of phenomenology and the real world of metaphysics.”

Taking Planck at face value, that there may indeed be a world beyond human sense, I wondered if faith might be one approach to relating ourselves to that world. When I looked up Faith in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy it referred me to “Bad Faith” and “Philosophy of Religion.” The entry “Bad Faith” was intriguing to me so I pursued it. One entry held that bad faith was an “Inauthentic and self-deceptive refusal to admit to ourselves and others our full freedom, thereby avoiding anxiety in making decisions and evading responsibility for actions and attitudes.” I will concede this as one possible definition of faith.

I actually appreciate this negative take on faith because it verifies my three points; 1) the object is unproven, hence I could be deceiving myself, 2) it is based on self, or the individual, and 3) the orientation to faith results in attitudes and actions. I was also referred to “Vital Lie.”
Faith may well exist within the concept of a vital lie, “1) an instance of self-deception when it fosters hope, confidence, self-esteem, mental health, or creativity; 2) any false belief or unjustified attitude that helps people cope with difficulties.” To demonstrate, though, that this is the case, that at bottom faith is no more than an operation of self-deception, would require some indication that the object of faith is false – not just unproven – but patently false. Here again we find ourselves contemplating the arguments for the proof of God.

As Norman Malcolm exclaims, “The desire to provide a rational foundation for a form of life is especially prominent in the philosophy of religion, where there is intense preoccupation with purported proofs of the existence of God. In American universities there must be hundreds of courses in which these proofs are the main topic. We can be sure that nearly always the critical verdict is that the proofs are invalid and consequently that, up to the present time at least, religious belief has received no rational justification. Well, of course not! The obsessive concern with the proofs reveals the assumption that in order for religious belief to be intellectually respectable it ought to have a rational justification. That is the misunderstanding.”

It seems to me that we have encountered somewhat of a paradox here. Rational (satisfying philosophical or scientific tenets) faith in a (G)od demands evidence of the object, while, simultaneously, we do not relate to an object in the natural world from a position of faith but of knowledge. I am reluctant, nor do I feel compelled, to admit that faith in God is irrational on the basis of inadequate proofs for the existence of God. As William James held, “The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left, whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed. Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and mystic state are practically convertible terms.” It is only in the realm of the unproven that a faith-state can exist, and here I will have to leave my first point and move on.

Faith is Personal

It is tempting to consider faith as an exercise of community. No doubt, religious faith is, by and large, demonstrated in community. Yet the temptation to treat faith as a social phenomenon leads to political philosophy, not to a consideration of one’s personal relation to an omnipotent, creative force. Dr. Martin, in his critique of William James’ “Will to Believe,” states, “As pointed out above, nonbelief puts responsibility for humanity’s problems on humans. There is a certain value in self-reliance that may go far in outweighing the value of any happiness and the like that belief in God may produce. Thus it is by no means clear that we are better off even now in believing that God exists. Indeed, nonbelief seems preferable when all the relevant values are taken into account.”

His use of the pronoun “we” in conjunction with his comment on “humanity’s problems” appears to suggest that religious faith is a barrier to solving these problems. He specifically states that nonbelief is preferable. While religious doctrinal belief certainly does complicate history, and religious doctrinal faith is a component of modern politics – I fail to see how the absence of religion would allow for any more effective remediation to struggles over resources, ethnic suspicion, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, or any other social problem that humans have created for that matter. I believe it has been a number of centuries since the last truly religious war was fought. Modern disputes involving religion, I believe, exploit religious doctrine and language to achieve ulterior motives – with the central issues of the dispute having nothing whatsoever to do with religious faith. Further, one cannot convince a society or community to collectively jettison its religious faith – as that faith resides solely in the individual.

Martin further objects to James’ treatment of the “live” and “dead” options. A live option, according to James, is one “which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. The deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker.” Martin states, “I suggest that James should have said that a live option is one that is not improbable in the light of the available evidence. On these assumptions there may be many more genuine options than James ever imagined. For example, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism would become genuine options for every person living in this country.” I believe that Martin means to suggest here that, unless one has thoroughly investigated all of the possible religious or spiritual options currently available on the planet prior to committing to a doctrine of faith, then one holding a faith derived from cultural exposure is suspect.

Martin’s argument here hinges on the object of faith and, as indicated earlier, is no particular argument to that faith being irrational. The object of faith may in fact shift, leaving the function of faith intact and unmodified. Conversion from one religious faith to another occurs everyday – and yet the new adherents most likely do not experience a paradigm-shattering shift in daily function. The fact that there are a multitude of doctrinal options available does not invalidate the one chosen, out of hand; neither does it weaken James’ original formulation of a “live” option.

As with language, the choice of religious doctrine at the age of majority is available to all of us. To the degree that we are exposed to different objects of faith, or systems that espouse no faith, we select from that set. Personal faith cannot be dismissed by historical reference to damages done, or by insinuating that the world would be a better place if we were all nonbelievers.

A Faith That Works

That faith should be operative is perhaps the facet where we can make specific determinations of rationality. This is also the area that receives the greatest degree of pragmatic scrutiny. For example, parents that would deny their child appropriate and obtainable medical attention due to their doctrinal faith, I hold, act irrationally. For any instance in which science, technology, or reason holds the answer to the crisis, and that answer is rejected secondary to religious faith – then the function of that faith is suspect to me.

I understand the arguments regarding strict adherence to religious doctrine as the only means available to insuring the salvation of the soul. The operation of faith within these doctrines is a difficult concept – many either border on, or are out rightly, irrational – and here I have no difficulty in joining the chorus when it comes to critiquing action.

Here, though, I part ways with W.K. Clifford when he states, “The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him.” Clifford uses the analogy of a ship owner sending his ship to sea in a state of disrepair, having convinced himself through unjustified reasoning that the ship would not sink – which it subsequently did – to demonstrate the immorality of actions based on unjustified belief. What are we to make of this analogy related to faith, though? Faith cannot be justified in the standard epistemological method – the object of faith must be left unproven, unjustified. I think we are then left to assess the actions that obtain from any particular individual faith.

In this sense, I want to assert that we have solid grounds for determining the rationality of any individual faith if we measure the actions that obtain using the field of Ethics. I concur with Clifford that the ship owner’s actions were immoral. He acted on himself, achieving a belief that arose from his own defective reasoning that resulted in avoidable deaths. By any standard, utilitarian, deontological, or virtue – the ship owner’s action is unethical. So too, are these standards available by which to measure the actions that arise from adherence to a faith.
I want to say that faith, as such, should contribute to Aristotle’s formulation of eudaimonia, well-being or happiness. This is a pragmatic view, I concede – but it is all that we are left with. If the object of faith must remain unproven for faith to exist, then we can place no value-judgment on the object, yes, there is no valid proof for the existence of God. If faith is personal, then there is no legitimate assessment of the welfare of humanity in various formulations of “with faith” and “without faith” available to us. So, all that we do have remaining from which to discern rationality is the actions that arise from the faith.

In this sense, faith is no more of a cloth to hide behind than any other individual motivation for action. I fully support the rational dissection of all human actions within the purview of secular ethics – at the individual, community and global level. While I may weaken my philosophical argument for holding this position – any legitimate faith ought to, by definition, contribute to the eudaimonia of the individual, the community and global humanity. Although I can imagine a doctrine of faith that might give rise to self-destructive, or community destructive, actions, I have no difficulty in deeming that system of faith irrational, even if the adherent some how makes the claim that he/she is acting on God’s will.

That Plato in the “Euthyphro,” and modern ethicists have disconnected ethics from systems of religion is a very good thing. Though we have no grounds on which to criticize an individual for the object of his faith, nor can we challenge his method of selection, we have ample grounds on which to hold him accountable for the ethics of his actions. This seems right to me – this seems to be the place that we can assert that, given any context, the rationality of faith is demonstrated within the actions it obtains. One objection to this line of thought would be to say that, eventually, one will act unethically and within that act his system of faith would be invalidated. To this objection I can only respond that, regardless of system, reason or faith, we will all fall short of the ideal espoused by the system – and isolated acts cannot be seized as evidence for the invalidity of the entire system – including faith. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Conclusion

It seems to me that most arguments against the rationality of faith hinge on the fact that there is no proof for the existence of the object of faith. But if there was conventional proof for the object of faith – then we wouldn’t be talking about faith anymore. Faith requires its object to be unproven. There is, as well, a temptation to assess the utility of faith in God across humanity and history, which I deem to be a political move – not a comment on the validity of personal faith. And lastly, I see nothing contradictory in assessing actions associated with faith systems from within secular ethical standards. While this may be an anthropomorphical move – faith should stimulate action within the social construct – and that action is certainly available to critique whether it arises from a system of faith or not.

I doubt that these points unequivocally prove that faith in God can be rational. But I do hope that by emphasizing the action over the object, that there is philosophical room for an individual to have a developed system of faith, and not have to defend it on the grounds of justification – but on results.

Works cited

Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 2nd Edition, (Ed. Audi, R.), (p 303), 1999, Cambridge University Press / Cambridge.

Clifford, W.K. The Ethics of Belief. Ed. Pojman, L. Philosophy of Religion, an Anthology, (2003), pg 364. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning / Belmont, CA.

James, W. “The Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature.” (1901-1902) Modern Library (2002) pg 462, Random House / New York.

Main Currents of Western Thought (ed. Franklin Le Van Baumer) (Fourth Edition, 1978), (pg 697). Yale University Press / New Haven, CT.

Malcolm, Norman. The Groundlessness of Belief, Ed. Pojman, L. Philosophy of Religion, an Anthology, (2003), pg 397. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning / Belmont, CA.

Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion, Ed. Steven M. Cahn (pg 348), Oxford University Press / New York.

http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=area, cited April 20, 2006.