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Knowledge and Faith Can Be the Same Thing
It is commonly assumed that an item of knowledge and an article article of faith can never be the same thing. This assumption is mistaken. In this post, I will explain only one point: trust in authority can be a source of knowledge. That’s what faith is: trust. It’s still the first definition of “faith” in the dictionary. Also see the Latin fides and the Greek pistis.
So don’t believe the hype that categorically separates faith from knowledge. This separation ranges from the view William James attributes to a schoolboy (“Faith is when you believe something that you know ain’t true”) to Kant’s more sophisticated idea that “I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith” (in beliefs that might well be true).
We should also reject the hype that says that an argument from authority is necessarily fallacious. The best logic textbook in print will tell you otherwise. It will even tell you that there is such a thing as a valid argument appealing to an infallible authority! (“Valid” is a technical term in logic; be sure to look it up first if you’re inclined to complain that there are no infallible authorities.)
Arguments from authority are good or bad depending on what their content is: and primarily on what sort of knowledge the authority is supposed to have, and whether it is reasonable to suppose that the authority really has it.
So an argument from a reliable authority is a good argument, and an argument from an unreliable or untrustworthy authority is a bad argument.
Protons and electrons: an article of faith
We must also dispense with the idea that science is the epistemological opposite of faith: one relying entirely on reason, one not at all. In actuality, religious faith usually relies on reason to varying degrees, up to and including this summary of Christian theology by Thomas Aquinas–quite possibly the most impressive bit of systematic reasoning in human history. And, if Thomas Kuhn is even one-quarter correct, science is not a matter of objective reason alone.
But the bigger point to be made here is that science depends on faith as much as your average religion. That is to say, it depends on trust.
Yes, of course scientific experiments can be replicated. But chances are pretty good that you didn’t replicate them, and that someone else did it for you. And if you yourself did replicate some experiments, did you repeat the replication in order altogether to avoid having to take someone else’s word for it?
To skip over various levels of this exercise, here’s the end-point it leads to, using chemistry as an example. If you want to know something in chemistry without relying on trust, you will have to begin from the very beginning and repeat all of the experiments that led to the current state of chemical knowledge: all of them, multiple times each. You would die of old age before you caught up with the present state of chemical knowledge. And all of your hard work would be useless unless others had the good sense you lacked and were willing to take your word for it at least some of the time when you said that your experiments had turned out the way they had.
Even for scientists, scientific knowledge relies heavily on trust in testimony: the testimony of other scientists. As for the scientific knowledge of those of us who aren’t scientists, we are left where Scott Adams puts us in the Introduction to this book: depending on the word of people (most of whom we’ve never met) who simply tell us how things are.
Augustine (the real Augustine, the Church Father and founder of medieval philosophy) both here (chapter 5) and here (cartoon version here) is even more helpful than Adams. These are the sort of examples he uses:
- Do you know that Caesar became emperor of Rome about 50 BC? Yes; you know it by faith–by pistis, by fides, by trust–in the testimony of historians.
- Do you know that Harare, Zimbabwe, exists? Yes. But if you haven’t been there, then you know it by faith–by pistis, by fides, by trust–in the testimony of geographers or of people who have been there.
- Do you know who your parents are? You know that also by faith–by pistis, by fides, by trust in what they told you.
(On this last point my students instinctively think of DNA tests, at which point I explain to them that they would need not only to perform the test themselves, but to start from the very beginning of genetic science and reinvent it singlehandedly if the goal is to know who their parents are without taking someone’s word for something.)
The Resurrection of the Messiah: an article of faith
No doubt some readers will suspect that I am attacking the legitimacy of science. Not at all. To the contrary, I presume the legitimacy of science.
I am only pointing out that faith, being trust, is something on which science depends; and, since I am in fact assuming that science is a source of knowledge, other beliefs that rely on reliable testimony can also be knowledge.
What you need to get knowledge by trust is a reliable testimony. And we have plenty of reliable testimony: science, history, geography, and (for most of us) our parents. We live our lives by this testimony.
Thus, the crucial question for religious knowledge is this: Do we have any reliable testimony supporting any religious beliefs?
For example:
- Are there any prophets of Jehovah?
- Are there any holy books? Any books that are God-breathed and inspired?
- Is there a real Messiah who can tell us about God and about how we can know God?
- Are there several predictions about the Messiah made centuries before his birth which all converge on the same person?
- Are there accounts of the Resurrection of the Messiah coming from eyewitnesses of sound mind?
- Is there a Roman Catholic Church with infallible authority, or at least a universal church with reliable authority?
Well, yes. We do have some of these things.
And why should you believe me when I say that? That’s a good question. And, more generally, how do you recognize a reliable testimony in religion?
To ask this question at this point is to observe that I have only showed that knowledge and (religious) faith can be the same thing–not that they ever are. It is a possibility, but that doesn’t mean it is a realized possibility.
But that’s enough ground covered for one opening post. Maybe we can talk about whether this possibility is ever realized, and about how we can know whether it is, in comments, or in a new thread.
Note from the author: We did indeed talk about it comments. See comments #s 156-161 for a handy overview of my thoughts on that subject (and an addendum showed up in comments #s 182-183, and another one in comments #s 262-263).
Published in General
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Not knowledge rather than faith–both knowledge and faith.
And it’s not a reclassification. It was made by Peter and Paul and Ambrose and Augustine (the real one) and Anselm and Aquinas and Calvin and Lewis and Stott and Wright and Swinburne and Plantinga before I was ever born. (And there are plenty more in the Christian tradition, and plenty more out of it.)
Well, I’ve dealt with the objection to miracles already. I’m happy to hear a response to my rebuttal if you care to make one.
I am, once again, mystified by this assertion.
Well, maybe another time. I find I have to ration the time I spend running down Ricochet rabbit holes, and this thread, as far as I can tell, became one, despite a promising start.
Well, if you could just tell me what comment of yours had an objection you think I ignored or waved away rather than rebutting it, I would appreciate it.
But I recognize your right to do no such thing! I really, really respect that justification for withdrawal. Very respectable in my view. It should be an unofficial point of the CoC that rationing time is a good reason for withdrawal!
It’s “Faith”, Augustine. They don’t have “faith” in your explanation. Or the fact that you’ve covered your tracks in a matter that is traceable. That can only conclude that your captive audience is either, (A) tired of being unproven, or (B) they’re just tired. Either way, you can conclude that their own desire to discount you has proven that they aren’t necessarily secure in their own, “faith” that you’re wrong.
Augustine,
I haven’t found your argument persuasive, as my comments have made clear. Yes, you have typed some things in response to my objections (and Cato’s), but that doesn’t mean you have rebutted them.
Frequently, this kind of disagreement arises out of failure to define our terms. And I think that is the case here. In the realm of historical reconstruction, I deem the terms “faith” and “knowledge” to be mutually exclusive by definition. If the historical evidence is sufficiently strong to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt, then you can state that you have “knowledge” of that particular account of history. If the evidence is less strong, and yet you are still convinced of that account, then your belief is based on faith. There is a dividing line on that continuum of evidentiary strength, somewhere, and we do not have to agree on where the dividing line lies. But wherever you draw the line, it divides knowledge from faith.
You obviously have a different definition – one in which faith and knowledge overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it would clarify things if you were to explain your definitions of those terms. I could understand it if you said that all historical “knowledge” has an element of faith, because the evidence is never absolute and there is always some room for doubt, however small. But that is not what your Venn Diagram depicts. So I guess I just don’t understand your terms.
Righto. But if my replies failed to rebut the objections, then either you haven’t pointed it out, or I never noticed or never understood when you did.
Yes, that’s the sort of knowledge I have of the Resurrection. As explained above in #s 156-160 (or somewhere thereabouts).
That line only divides faith that is knowledge from faith that is not.
I thought I did that already. Faith is trust. Knowledge (# 196) is any belief which is true and has good justification or warrant and (if you want to get technical) lacks the bad fortune of being a Gettier case.
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Well, your definitions are in conflict with those used by most or all big orthodox Christian theologians and philosophers. (I’m less informed in other traditions, but there are definitely some in other traditions who agree; a Sufi here or there, etc.)
And either your definition of faith is in conflict with one given in the dictionary, or your definition of knowledge is conflict with the one I gave (a decent philosophical definition), and perhaps the one in the dictionary as well.
But who cares? No need to quibble over definitions! We can invent new terms or maybe even work without them.
The thesis in the opening post is that religious belief based on trust can be the same thing as justified or warranted true belief (that isn’t a Gettier case).
My view explained in the comments is that it is the same thing in the case of my belief in the Resurrection.
Okay, those last two comments are examples of typing a response to my objection, without really addressing it. You use the word “trust.” I used the words “conviction” and “belief.” Either way, we are talking about something that you accept as true, based on whatever evidence or lack thereof you are relying on.
You still have not explained the difference between knowledge and faith, as you use those terms. In fact, in your last two comments you seem to use the terms interchangeably. And just saying that you are using the terms the way “all theologians and philosophers” do is rather presumptuous. And not true.
In any event, you still have not explained how you decide where to draw the circles in your Venn Diagram.
Augustine,
I don’t want to go back and look for them, but I think I can do this from memory — and I concede this is probably a version of the “space aliens” or “Yeti” problem.
At a couple of points you have made an assertion to the effect that if we are going to be “objective” or “unbiased” we need to treat the claim of resurrection from the dead as equally probably to its opposite.
In my mind that claim is so far from self evident as to be absurd. We have vast direct evidence of death and know full well that, in the main, people do not resurrect from it.
I have asked you whether you were using “objective” and “unbiased” in some technical, non-colloquial sense that I didn’t understand, and I don’t believe I got an answer.
And if you are not, I have asked why you regard it as “objective” or “unbiased” to regard an incredibly improbable event (resurrection) as equally probable to a nearly certain one (staying dead).
Put another way, I would like to know what role, if any, our knowledge of the ordinary context and circumstances of human life on earth plays in your tallying up the evidence for miracles.
P.S. FWIW, I understand and accept your point about the overlap between faith and knowledge. I’m not quibbling with it as a general proposition. I still think that to call something “knowledge” it’s necessary to take account of all the evidence.
Well, not really. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to think, certainly.
The problem as always happens in these cases Augustine comes down to this:
You are not comparing like with like.
It is obviously debatable whether or not Socrates ever actually lived let alone whether or not he drank hemlock. However, debating Socrates’ existence or non-existence is sort of silly, because, why would Plato go to all of the trouble to make up these fibs about somebody who in the end was a very mortal (albeit extraordinary) human being and did things which many other human beings could do?
In this situation, you are attempting to place the Resurrection on the same plane as whether or not Socrates either existed or drank hemlock – well, I’m sorry, but I think you have to allow us to be unimpressed by this on the basis not only of its rather ordinary sourcing, but also on the basis of the fact that nobody is making any extraordinary claims on our lives and immortal souls in Socrates’ name as you are in Jesus’.
The bar is infinitely higher. We have crossed over from the realm of explicable, mortal human action into the ethereal plane, where men walk on water and come back to life. If Plato had said Socrates had returned to life, then they’d be equal.
Something which as been nagging at me as well, (I’m not plowing back through the comments to definitively say whether this has been addressed or not) is that in your OP you rather cavalierly state that things like electrons and protons are “articles of faith.” They most definitely are not.
I understand that you aren’t a scientist, and can be forgiven for not knowing such things, but despite the difficulties involved in having the human eye observe such things directly there is myriad indirect evidence of these things existence even if you merely look around. The masses of these fundamental particles are known to extraordinary precision, they have obvious, undeniable effects upon us. As a human being who has lived in the western world for a number of years I’m sure that on more than one occasion you happened to view a Cathode Ray Tube television (which is an electron gun) and experienced the flavor of weak acids like vinegar (rich in protons.)
Such things aren’t articles of faith in that you do not require knowledge of them in order to make them do useful things for you in the same way that “faith in Jesus” is required in order for it to do useful things for you (an allegation which nobody can test.)
The effects of such things are objective. Alternate suggestions of their nature might work, but would have to do a better job of explaining the phenomena that they produce than existing explanations.
I don’t think this has been addressed, but they certainly are articles of faith insofar as a belief relying on trust is properly called “faith.” Knowledge of them depends on trust for non-physicists and even, to a large degree, and for reasons described in the OP, for physicists.
But since I’ve mentioned (in # 161 or so) that there are three sources of warrant, I grant that their explanatory power and other considerations confer on them a degree of warrant which is not (or not directly) reliant on trust.
I guess we have a different definition of knowledge.
Woo hoo! I think we have a new objection: that the enormous consequences of the Resurrection require a higher bar for saying we “know” it.
Frankly, I can’t rebut this objection. But I also don’t know why I should accept it.
I like the general idea if I understand it rightly–that the standard for knowledge is context-sensitive, and rises or falls in response to the consequences. It reminds me of my friends the Pragmatists–William James and John Dewey.
But liking isn’t agreeing, and I’m not sure I agree, and don’t know why I should.
In any case, if I did agree I would probably go along with the application James would probably make of, and that would be a lowering of the bar for knowledge–since we have much we might gain by believing but so very little to lose.
(In that essay James is talking about the bar for responsible belief, which is not necessarily the same thing as knowledge. But the essay points us in a good direction if we accept the consequence-sensitivity of the standards for knowledge.)
Thanks!
Well, that’s not accurate; if I ever said that, I should have cleared it up–probably in # 157 or 158.
I believe I answered this in #s 157 and 158 on Hume–or somewhere thereabouts. I take knowledge of ordinary things as evidence for the laws of physics. Whether those laws are overruled by God is a separate question; and the evidence for the laws of physics doesn’t count against their sometimes being overruled, that’s all.
But of course we should have a pretty high standard for evidence of miracles. That’s why I looked at six salient characteristics of the testimony for the Resurrection. What other historical event has all six?
I wondered something similar about someone; I can’t remember who.
Sorry if I missed this objection!
The answer is “No, not that I know of.”
What, precisely, is your objection?
If you want me to “explain the difference” in such as way as to justify there being no overlap, I won’t. I can’t. I’d be wrong. I’d be lying.
If you want me to define the terms, I can do that. I did do that.
According to those definitions, some knowledge is faith, and some is not, and some faith is knowledge, and some is not.
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I said most or all in orthodox Christianity. I’ve listed Peter and Paul and Ambrose and Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas and Calvin and Lewis and Stott and Wright and Plantinga and Swinburne. I can name more if it helps: John, Minucius Felix, Lactantius, Boethius, Bonaventure, Jonathan Edwards, Nicholas Wolterstorf, the Pope, the Pope before him, the Pope before him.
(Most of these I can name in this regard from having read them identifying some overlap of religion and faith; I don’t think I read the relevant Swinburne; I can mention the Popes without having read them because all decent Popes follow Aquinas on just about everything.)
So what I said is true. But I guess it can seem presumptuous when a truth is uttered to which we are not accustomed.
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I thought I did explain that when I defined the terms. Are you wanting me to explain how I decide in which region of the Venn diagram to place a particular belief?
I can make a guess as to what’s going on around here: that you are simply relying on a different definition of faith (as belief not based on evidence)–and perhaps on a different definition of knowledge (as requiring certainty).
Well, I grant that that is one common enough use of the word “faith;” and I’m sure it’s in the dictionary, and of course there is such a thing as that kind of religious faith.
But it’s not the only definition of “faith;” and I know of no reason all religious faith should fit precisely this definition, and I have in fact given reasons to the contrary. And it’s not what the aforementioned theologians et al thought about their faith.
And . . . I’ll probably see you in the morning. Good night.
Oh, c’mon. That’s like saying some animals are cats, and some are not, and some cats are animals, and some are not (presumably, dead cats are not “animals”). Not only is this statement circular, but it does nothing to tell me the definition of “cats” nor of “animals.” If you did define your terms somewhere, then I surely missed it. Perhaps you could set them out clearly, in a single comment, without referencing back to earlier comments or third party sources.
I stand by my maxim that: If you know what you are trying to say, then you can say it clearly and succinctly. If you can’t say it clearly and succinctly, then you don’t know what you are trying to say.
By the way, your definition has to work generally. If it only works for one specific example, then it isn’t a definition; it is just an ipse dixit assertion.
That is not correct. One does not require “faith” that vinegar and baking soda will react when mixed together. It works whether or not you believe it will. That is objective knowledge. The mechanism you posit by which these things operate is further not an article of faith precisely because of our demonstrable knowledge of the existence of the various subatomic particles. A person’s lack of knowledge of such does not alter their reality.
Unless you’re arguing that one can only not have “faith” in such things unless they are well-trained in their inner workings, which is absurd, because these physical systems don’t care about your opinion or knowledge of them. They simply work; we are free to observe or ignore them. They do not come into existence for you upon learning of them.
Can anyone one tell me why you have the personality that you do? Can they explain why one person likes broccoli and another doesn’t, even if they’re identical twins? Can you explain to me why you like the music you do and someone else with the same height, weight, race, age and political, social and religious views that are identical, doesn’t like the music you like. Can you explain to me why certain things make you sad, happy, angry, simply by remembering something from your past?
You can’t. I know this because my wife graduated in Neuropsychology, which is the study of the brain in all it’s forms relating to a persons mental state and how it relates to brain trauma or disease. There is no evidence to conclude why someone has the unique personality that they do. There have been leanings towards research of the pituitary gland, but that was found inconclusive, and bizarre at best. So it is common knowledge that everyone has their own unique personality, but it can’t be scientifically diagnosed.
So do you have a personality or don’t you? That is a prime example of faith and knowledge being the same thing, and it’s in every single one of us.
I still don’t understand what your objection is. And I don’t understand what’s wrong with the definitions I’ve been using of faith and knowledge. Here they are again, by themselves:
Faith: Belief based on trust.
Knowledge: Belief that is true and also has enough warrant or justification (and, to be a bit more precise, does not have the bad fortune of being a Gettier case).
It looks like you didn’t understand the opening post. Insofar as scientific knowledge depends on repeated experiments and insofar as a person has not, personally, both performed and repeated the experiments leading to any item of scientific knowledge, his scientific knowledge depends on trust.
Of course science is objective knowledge. So are geography and history and the identity of my parents. It’s objective knowledge that depends to some (typically some rather large) degree of trust in reliable testimony.
Belief by trust, including trust in reliable testimony, is denoted “faith” according to one definition in the dictionary, which accords nicely with Latin and Greek equivalents.
And since trust in reliable authority confers a degree of warrant, knowledge and faith can be the same thing. And nothing a priori rules out the possibility of some religious beliefs being in the overlapping region.
So it’s Augustine’s job to provide you with a truth that you can either accept or deny, but if you deny it, even though he’s proven it, he’s still wrong? And if his third party information checks out, even though you refuse to access it, he’s still wrong? That doesn’t sound like a rational position to me. Does it?
How did you come to be Larry? Was it by accident that you were born into the family you were, with the parents you have in the environment that your in and the experiences that you’ve gone through and that’s all just a random act? Well explain it to me in scientific terms. When you’re done with that, tell me why any given species is the way it is, resides where it does and how it was created, and at what point in history and what is the scientific proof behind it? Or ignore this comment, because you can’t prove it. You see my point?
Augustine, I guess I give up, but it’s only fair to tell you why.
Your definition of “faith” seems (to me) to be broad enough to cover everything. Any belief must be based on some kind of information, and the person who holds the belief necessarily trusts the information he is relying on to form the belief. Even if it is the evidence of your own eyes, you “trust” that it is not a hallucination.
Your definition of “knowledge” presupposes that there is an external source of “truth,” independent of the evidence supporting your beliefs. There is no such source of “truth,” and if there was such a source then this entire conversation would be irrelevant.
In the real world, people form beliefs based on evidence. If the evidence is weak and inconsistent, then I would call the beliefs “faith,” “superstitions,” or “wishful thinking.” If the evidence is strong and consistent, I’d call it “knowledge.” Knowledge is not necessarily “true” (whatever “true” means), and is subject to reevaluation in light of new evidence. End of story.
Let me clarify one more thing. You say you don’t understand my objection. Here it is: The point of your OP is to assert that there is overlap between two terms – knowledge and faith. Do you not understand that the truth of that proposition depends entirely on how you define those two terms? (I can use the word “truth” here because we are talking about a tautology.)
Consider the words “boat” and “ship.” If I define them both as vehicles that float on water, then there is surely overlap between the terms. If I define a “ship” as a vehicle that floats on water with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons, and a “boat” as a vehicle that floats on water with a displacement of 5,000 tons or less, then by definition (my definition) the two are mutually exclusive. Whether there is overlap of the terms boat and ship depends entirely on the definitions that you adopt.
A concept as broad and as vague as “knowledge” or “faith” is subject to endless definitions. Some definitions will overlap, some will not. So all you are doing is defining words in a way that overlaps, and then saying there is overlap between the words. Big deal. You’re not really saying anything of substance. You’re just playing word games. And to make matters worse, you are (it seems to me) being deliberately vague about the definitions you are playing with. That’s my objection.