Pages

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

What's so bad about blind faith?

"Blind faith" is a pejorative label. When atheists talk about Christian faith, they define it as believing something without evidence, on insufficient evidence, or contrary to evidence. 

Atheists don't usually begin with a theological or philosophical definition of faith. Rather, they begin with their belief that Christianity is errant nonsense, so you have to be irrational to be a Christian. The atheist works back from his view of Christianity to come up with his own definition of faith. Given his view of Christianity, faith must be believing something without evidence, on insufficient evidence, or contrary to evidence.

Christian philosophers, apologists, and theologians rightly reject that definition of faith. Of course, some professing Christians are guilty of blind faith. They simply believe whatever they were taught–the historical accident of whichever denomination they happen to be raised in. But it's unfair to assess a position by its least competent representatives. 

Blind faith is groundless faith rather than grounded faith. Uninformed faith rather than informed faith. 

In Scripture, the distinction between faith and sight is generally the difference between firsthand experience and testimonial evidence. 

However, in this post I'd like to be contrarian. Suppose, instead of repudiating blind faith, we embrace it but develop it in a different direction. 

Consider literal blind faith. Suppose I'm born blind. I have a sighted brother 2 years my senior. We grew up together. Day in and day out for 20 years. 

I rely on my brother to help me navigated my way through life. He's my eyes. Because I'm blind I see the world through his eyes. 

I have no direct evidence to back up his observations. I can't compare his observations with my own, since I'm blind. 

However, I have direct evidence that the observer is trustworthy. I have direct evidence that my brother can be trusted, which is, in turn, indirect evidence for what he tells me. For twenty years, my brother has guided me and protected me. He always looks out for me. My faith in what he tells me he sees is (literally) blind, but my faith in him is deeply informed. 

Moreover, although I can't see what he sees, his guidance and sight enable me to discover the world by other means. He says "touch this!" "Don't touch that!" "Taste this!" "Don't taste that!"

Suppose he drives me to the beach. I can't see the road. I can't see the signs. I don't know the route or the landmarks. 

But once we get to the beach, I have other ways of sensing the beach. I can feel the sand under my bare feet, feel the water, hear the surf, taste and smell the salty air.

My (literally blind) faith in my brother's verbal descriptions is an entry point. By taking what he says on faith, that puts me in a position to explore the world and find things out for myself. Faith is a necessary entry point. But the end-point is knowledge. Thanks to my brother, I can experience the beach. I rely on his eyesight to take the first few steps, but once I'm there, faith gives way to personal experience. 

Dropping the metaphor, when I pray, that's an act of faith. Suppose on one or more occasions I receive an unmistakable answer to prayer. At that point faith passes into sight. But I wouldn't arrive at sight if I didn't begin with faith. Knowledge is the final destination, but faith is the departure gate. 

7 comments:

  1. Great point!

    Maybe this is another example where "blind faith" (by which I mean not having evidence for a belief) could be reasonable faith:

    Suppose someone accuses me of a crime. Suppose some evidence seems point to my guilt.

    Suppose I'm in my right mind. There's nothing wrong with my mind, mental faculties, and the like.

    Suppose I myself know I did not commit the crime. I know I'm innocent.

    So, even though I have no evidence to support me, and even though some of the evidence seems to be against me, it is still reasonable for me to hold the belief that I did not commit the crime in question. That's because I have direct personal knowledge of my innocence that doesn't depend on evidence. (Arguably my memory doesn't constitute evidence. Certainly not public evidence.)

    Hence, I have "blind faith" in my innocence in that I have no evidence for the belief that I'm innnocent, but this "blind faith" is still a reasonable belief for me to hold. Sure, I may need to go on to prove my innocence by showing (say) I was framed, the evidence that is against me is insufficient, there's positive evidence that I could not have committed the crime, etc. Nevertheless my own belief in my innocence doesn't change with evidence; it's always been the same. In fact, my belief without evidence leads to knowledge when I can prove my innocence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seems like to me, the way you define "blind faith," that the person would be epistemically warranted and even have knowledge, which I would agree with, so that "blind faith" as you defined it, would be warranted testimonial belief.

      Delete
  2. You can substitute your brother for reason or senses data. A first step of faith is always necessary to believe that these means convey to us the truth or the reality as it is.
    Yes, all knowledge begins with a step of faith.

    For example, without faith one can not do science because science is based on what is most plausible according to the available evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I see. The point is that what really matters is in the objective reality, or lack of objective reality, of what you place your faith in.

    Blind faith in something objectively real can, and often will, still have positive results.

    So, the atheist objection to 'blind faith' fails to carry significant weight if Christianity is true. In that case, it's only an objection to the epistemological method used to arrive at the destination. As such, depending on how it's deployed, the objection may be question-begging. Suppose I discover buried treasure by an irrational or not-fully-rationally justifiable method. I still discovered it, and at that point, I won't care too much.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As Manata put it years ago, the epistemology of faith is pretty much the epistemology of testimony. In this case, divine testimony.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe this will help somehow From Plantinga's book "Knowledge and Christian Belief" (2015), a condensed version of his "Warranted Christian Belief" (2000):

    "Faith...is far indeed from being a blind leap; it isn't even remotely like a leap in the dark...You might as well claim that a memory belief is a leap in the dark. What makes something a leap in the dark is that the leaper doesn't know and has no firm beliefs about what there is out there in the dark....

    But the case of faith, this sure and certain knowledge, is very different. For the person with faith (at least in the paradigmatic instances) the great things of the gospel seem clearly true, compelling. She finds herself convinced- just as she does in the case of clear memory beliefs or her belief in elementary truths of arithmetic. Phenomenologically, therefore, from the inside, there is no similarity at all to a leap in the dark. Nor, of course, is there... ant similarity from the outside. This is no leap in the dark, not merely because the person with faith is convinced, but also because as a matter of fact the belief in question meets the condition for rationality and warrant." (pgs. 66 and 67)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I redefined blind faith where it's indirect, but grounded.

      Delete