![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Faith and Rationality
I’ve been doing a lot of reading in preparation for a long article on Universism and have come across a few things which I think deserve their own separate discussion from that which will arise in relation to that piece. Mainly, I’ve been looking a lot at the way in which people who are rationalists depict their arch-nemesis, faith.
Though I’m often annoyed by their stuff, the Skeptic’s Dictionary does do a good job of maintaining a very consistent viewpoint and showing clearly how their chosen model of thinking operates. Their article on faith is itself not especially great, except for the quote which they set about trying to refute:
A statement like “There is no God, and there can’t be a god; everything evolved from purely natural processes” cannot be supported by the scientific method and is a statement of faith, not science.
That comes to us via Dr. Richard Spencer, professor of electrical and computer science at UC Davis. Needless to say, that statement through the author of this Skepdic entry into a bit of a tailspin trying to “prove” how wrong it is. I think the logic they use in reaction to this statement is unusually poor for their site, but it is very instructive.
Without going into it too much, I think this quote (from the Skepdic author) is worth picking apart:
The statement ‘there cannot be a god’ is clearly not an empirical statement, but a conceptual one. Anyone who would make such a claim would make it by arguing that a particular concept of god contains contradictions, and so is meaningless. For example, to believe that ’some squares are circular’ seems to be a logical contradiction. Circles and squares are defined so as to imply that circles can’t be square and squares can’t be circles.
In my eyes, the “problem” with rational approaches to religion is that they simply don’t allow for paradox or contradiction. In a rational mode of thinking, there’s no such thing as a square that’s also a circle. But in non-rational (ie, religious or mythical) thinking, it’s perfectly acceptable to have a circle that’s a square and vice versa, or neither, or all of those at once. Non-rational thinking explodes the categories and definitions of logic and bleeds everything together into highly charged symbols and paradoxes. That’s pretty much the whole point, as far as I can tell.
Wikipedia has an entry on “faith & rationality” which starts with what I think is a great opening:
Faith and rationality are two modes of belief which are seen to exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Faith is generally defined either as belief not grounded in evidence and reason or as belief in what cannot be understood, while rationality is belief grounded in logic and/or evidence.
Broadly speaking, there are three categories of view regarding the relationship between faith and rationality. Rationalism holds that truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma or religious teaching. Fideism holds that faith is necessary, and that beliefs must be held without evidence or reason, or even in conflict with evidence and reason. Natural theology holds that faith and rationality are compatible, so that the evidence and reason ultimately lead to belief in the objects of faith.
I like how they (correctly, in my opinion) define faith and rationality BOTH in terms of belief, but with different bases. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems you could break down the whole thing like this:
- “Rationalism holds that truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis” - Words like “holds” and “should” indicate that there is some kind of prescriptive insistence on this mode as being the correct one.
- And yet we don’t here have access to the reason that “reason and factual analysis” ought to hold sway. In order to be truly logically consistent, we ought to be able to explain why this is the preferred method.
- Most outside explanations I’ve seen on this topic would suggest that reason and factual analysis are the preferred methods of inquiry because their results most closely match the world as we perceive it.
- Looking at the realms of dreams, altered states (mystical, psychedelic, hallucinatory, etc) and the paranormal offer thousands of things which are readily perceptible but which defy logic. Hence, the suggestion that rational inquiry most closely matches the exterior world does not hold up in all cases. And if there are times when it can’t explain certain things, then that means it’s not 100% reliable.
- And yet, rationalists still typically claim that it is reliable. Or that it’s at least “better” than other modes. But since we can muster huge amounts of evidence that prove that reason is limited, then the claim that reason is better becomes necessarily a matter of faith - as according to their own definition, it does not fit the body of evidence
From one perspective, it could be argued also that faith has evolved to the point where it recognizes this core paradox, and simply embraces it. Maybe faith comes to us from people who plumbed the depths of rationality, found a bedrock of uncertainty, and decided that rationality would never be enough to perceive the Truth, and that it must come from someplace else.
In any event, I don’t consider my own thinking here to be foolproof nor is it intended to be any kind of refutation or final word on the subject. I’m merely working out ideas for myself, which everyone else is encouraged to add to in whatever way makes sense to you and your life.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:34 pm
I would argue, aiming at your fourth point, that events that occur outside of our perception do not defy logic or reason, but instead they defy our existing models of reality. Logic is just the method of breaking down the universe into building blocks that allow us to build the many faceted models of reality that we use to structure the world.
If you fell down in the desert three thousand years ago, maybe saw a burning avatar hovering over you, you might reason it was God. That could even be the most logical assumption to make given the evidence you had accumulated.
Rationality is an expansion on this. Google tells us that rationality is “that which is characterised by conformity with reason, adhering to qualities of thought such as intelligibility, coherence, consistency, order, logical structure, completeness, testability, and simplicity.”
If we use that definition, the only part of rationality that could be judged as distinct from religion is testability. Rational models of reality demand that the ideas that make the models can be tested through experiment, the results of experiment repeated, and results made to order. Religious models of reality are based on the idea that you have faith, even if you cannot test whether your faith is correct.
Though, to be fair, that’s an almost rational argument, so take it with a grain of salt.
I’ll just be quiet now.
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:39 pm
I also just posted a sort of add-on/tangent to this in the forum.
http://www.timboucher.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=189
One other thing I should have brought up here, is that Wikipedia later on does mention something very similar to my argument:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality
December 3rd, 2005 at 4:25 pm
There’s a really good, level-headed, and straightforward discussion of both deductive and inductive reasoning and their justifications by Nelson Goodman in Part III (”The New Riddle of Induction”) of his book “Fact, Fiction, and Forecast,” if you’re interested. Nelson, an analytic philosopher, argues that both deduction and induction (as far as the “old riddle” first put forth by Hume goes) justify themselves in a circular way, but not as a vicious circle. Goodman calls it a “virtuous circle” in which each mode of reasoning is justified by its own successful application (I hope I’m doing justice to his idea). He then goes on to pose a “new riddle” of induction by introducing two weird, alien color categories (”bleen” and “grue”) and applying them in a way that seriously undermines all our scientific presuppositions. In the end, he concludes, the only thing that justifies our own particular method of inductive reasoning it is conventional (Goodman’s an antirealist and is making the case that our categories and concepts make up the structure of the world).
December 3rd, 2005 at 4:27 pm
That last part should read “is that it is conventional.”
December 3rd, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Actually, now that I look at what I wrote, I really didn’t do justice to Goodman’s arguments. I don’t want to try to fix it, except to say that Goodman doesn’t try to justify OR denounce induction; he just tries to describe the way it works and point out that it can’t be justified… kind of like faith.
December 3rd, 2005 at 4:53 pm
As far as faith and rationality are concerned, IMO, they’re just tools to explain the human experience. When used together they can be even more effective, than by themselves.
I know I’ve said this before recently, but it bears repeating. Metaphorically speaking, reality is like a big hologram, in which we all live in, believing it to be “real” (whatever real is). Then comes along a piece of paper, translucent and perplexing. Some say they see God as being the creator of this unrecognizable piece of paper. Others say it is a code from a group of intellectually-advanced beings. Even more claim it’s part of an alien language. A mage sees it as a sheet of spells. And the list goes on…
Ironically, the scientist picks it up, stares at it, and then throws it away, claiming it’s just a bunch of scribbles and lines drawn by a 2 year-old.
And in some crazy way, they’re all right, and they’re all wrong. The paper is bi-section of two lasers recorded onto film. If anyone had come up with the idea to shine a bright light through it, they would have realized it was a hologram. Then, they might have applied the concepts of this hologram to everything they see, and thus realize that they are living in a hologram themselves. Once they realized this, they would stop feeding the “light” in their perception that was creating this hologram, and truly “see” that they were staring through another piece of paper the entire time (kinda like your “colored glasses”). They would then realize what was truly real, and what was just “paper”, and then realize how they are all one, “God” experiencing itself; they would see that they are one-massive intelligent being, who can create things like translucent “picture paper”; they would realize that this paper is a form of “magick”, and they would finally realize that it was created by a SELF in the infantile stages who can barely even recognize that it’s two hands belong to it’s body.
That’s my long metaphorical take on all of this.
December 3rd, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Ktulu, I like your metaphor/parable. That’s exactly how I see it (expressed more eloquently than I can right now).
Tim’s hypothesis:
Yes, this describes my experience exactly.
December 3rd, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Me too. My experience personally has been if you use rationalism to dissect its own root, you end up in a sort of limbo where - if I may - “Nothing is true, and everything is permitted.” Maybe some people can effectively use that as the basis of their life, but I cannot, which has consequently lead me in some very different directions than I once was in.
December 3rd, 2005 at 8:44 pm
What’ll really get you to the ‘rationality as faith’ argument quite, quite quickly is Ayn Rand. Just try worshipping logic for a few months. Try dating with that frame of mind. If anyone can stand your ass.
Actually, don’t. You’ll likely feel pretty stupid in retrospect. I did. And it’s debatable that her philosophy is even that rational - I mean, she starts it with a number of ‘axiomatic truths,’ which is philosopher for ’shit that has to be true for the rest of my line of thought to follow.’
December 4th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
I remember reading a Zen Master on the role of rationality. He explained that it was like a train on a track. It could get you far, very fast and was useful for what it could do. But it only goes so far. There is a point at which the track runs out before reaching Ultimate Truth and you have to leave the train behind. Ultimate Truth is super-rational. It cannot be put in words, only experienced directly.
My personal thought about faith is that, since we cannot evaluate a faith system based on its “Truthy-ness” we should use some other basis. Mine is fairly utilitarian. What would be useful or good to believe? Another criteria, all other things being equal, might be: what is the most fun to believe? It is that criteria that ultimately led me to polytheism.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
they would finally realize that it was created by a SELF in the infantile stages who can barely even recognize that it’s two hands belong to it’s body.
What an incisive metaphor. We are that creature waking up. I think later we’ll miss these initial euphoric stages of discovering how the pieces fit together. We’re clumsy and confused most of the time right now, but DAMN is it fun.
December 5th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
If we accept that in metaphysics, we will deal with transcendent topics (Absoluteness, Infinitude and Nothingness, Unity, etc.) then it follows that such transcendent concepts will result immediately in paradox or contradiction.
The positivist hope of fully describing the world with an internally consistent logical framework is futile. This in no way makes rationality useless, but it’s only valid as far as it goes, nor are consistent logical frameworks the only practically useful ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logics
Mystical Languages of Unsaying
December 6th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
“If we accept that in metaphysics, we will deal with transcendent topics (Absoluteness, Infinitude and Nothingness, Unity, etc.) then it follows that such transcendent concepts will result immediately in paradox or contradiction.”
Those paradoxes and contradictions are the basis of Alfred Jarry’s ‘pataphysics, a parody of metaphysics (he described ‘pataphysics as extending as far away from metaphysics as metaphysics extends past physics). For Jarry, it was an all-encompassing system that considered only the Exceptions and not the Rule. It’s also a humorous and satirical way of saying that everything is fucked.