Faith is the act of an educated person and full of moral significance. Without it you have absurdity.

Francis Bacon, a noted philosopher of and famous advocate for the scientific method, wisely said:

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

Despite his advocacy for science Bacon realized, as did Nietzsche of my last post, that only with a return to faith can one to make sense of the world. (Nietzsche of course never made that return and so died worrying that "being deceived [is] one of the conditions of life.")

In this post I hope to do a few things. First, suggest that the rise and fall of scientism or logical positivism in the twentieth century is a microcosm demonstrating Bacon's quote is just as true as ever. Second, use the sentiments of David Foster Wallace to emphasize that faith above anything else is the hallmark of a free and truly educated person. Lastly, I want to end with Terryl Givens's feelings surrounding the idea that only by faith can our decisions have moral significance.

Faith-less worldviews are self-defeating:

The collapse of positivism and its attendant verification principle of meaning was undoubtedly the most important philosophical event of the twentieth century. Their demise heralded a resurgence of metaphysics, along with other traditional problems of philosophy that verificationism had suppressed.  - The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology

Critics of Bacon's above quote will often quip that, given he lived so long ago, surly his beliefs are no longer applicable. However, the rise and fall of scientism or logical positivism in the twentieth century is a microcosm showing his quote is just as true today as it ever was.

Scientism or more generally positivism is the idea that all things that are true can be known by some type of objective verification.  In other words, it is a philosophical worldview where faith is not required because we can verify all things that are true. In fact, one of its foremost advocates, Bertrand Russell, along with his colleague Whitehead set out to prove this was at least true in mathematics. However, as we discussed in our last post, Gödel's theorems unleashed a bombshell making their endeavor forever hopeless.

Interestingly, scientism and positivism fail for an even deeper reason lampooned in the comic above: All worldviews that require the verification of all things are self-defeating. Such wolrdviews state that only claims that can be tested and verified in some objective sense should be believed. However, this claim itself cannot be verified objectively (and it is not empirically testable) so by such advocates' own criteria the worldview should not be believed!

Or as stated on the Wikipedia a little more formally:

Critics of logical positivism [showed] that its fundamental tenets could not themselves be formulated consistently. The verifiability criterion of meaning did not seem verifiable; but neither was it simply a logical tautology, since it had implications for the practice of science and the empirical truth of other statements. This presented severe problems for the logical consistency of the theory... 

Wittgenstein's principle of verifiability posed fairly obvious problems in any scientific context. No universal generalization can ever be verified... . It is also unclear what the status of the principle itself is, that is, whether it is meaningful by its own criterion of meaningfulness... Thus began the program of the "liberalization of empiricism."

In other words, it was quickly shown that worldviews that demanded objective verification of all truth suffered from three giant problems:

1. As discussed in our linked post above, Gödel's theorems showed such a worldview is mathematically impossible.
2. Even if you ignored #1, philosophers quickly realized such worldviews are self-defeating. One should reject them by their own criteria!
3. Science, and specifically empiricism, would become abandoned if such a worldview is taken seriously as it is impossible to objectively verify science. Hence, the move to the "liberalization of empiricism" discussed in the quote.

Unfortunately, #2-3 above did lead a lot of people to quickly take the exact opposite worldview that states we can't know anything is objectively true. This outlook gave rise to post-modernism where all "truth" is merely opinion and can be quickly deconstructed.  Of course, if the post-modernist takes his claims seriously he will have to admit his own belief in post-modernism must also not be objectively correct rendering his own worldview just as self-defeating as scientism or positivism.

However, there is a way out that is as old and still true as Francis Bacon's above quote: Faith! Having a self-defeating worldview is only necessary for those who take a black and white approach to life that either all or no truth can be objectively verified. Consistency and sanity is only restored when one admits the only rational approach through life is one where faith is embraced along side methods of objective verification.  IE: to live by study and also by faith.




Exercising faith is the act of a free and well educated person:

Some more modern thinkers have had some great insight into the importance of faith. David Foster Wallace in his famous This is Water commencement speech made a couple of key observations. First, all the facts you know are perfectly consistent with several interpretations even if you can't see it. Hence it takes faith to interpret any situation. He tells this story:

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God... And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" 

And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.

Though Wallace gave a simple example, in reality nearly every string of facts has multiple interpretations. It is an act of faith by both sides in determining what interpretation best fits.

Second, the hallmark of an educated person is that they both realize the above and understand they are free to choose what has meaning and what doesn't:

There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship... You get to decide what has meaning and what doesn't. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.

There are no atheists in the "I don't need faith" sense.  Everybody takes strings of facts and decides for themselves what interpretations have the most meaning. However, the difference between one who is free versus who is not is the ability to see this. And it is the mark of a well-educated person how to wisely place faith and meaning when such a concept is understood.

The only real sheep/ignoramuses are those who, upon coming across a string of facts, insist there can only be one meaningful interpretation who in the words of Wallace:

[have] a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.

Only a fool as mentally enslaved as this prisoner would conclude facts could remove faith from life. Facts do no such thing. Faith is what is required to make sense of life no matter what set of facts one uncovers. Fortunately, some are free enough to see this and wise enough to know that they "get to decide what has meaning and what doesn't... That is being educated, and understanding how to think."

More than anything, what you have faith in is full of moral significance. 

One last observation from Terryl Givens. Here Given's suggests that faith is required for our decisions to have moral significance:

The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true, and to have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing them to be true. I am convinced that there must be grounds for doubt as well as belief in order to render the choice more truly a choice—and, therefore, the more deliberate and laden with personal vulnerability and investment... 

We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

In other words, if God made everything that is true so obvious it is impossible to believe different, there would be no moral significance for believing or acting. You can't see what is really in a person's heart when they are compelled to believe or act a certain way.

However, as we have discussed before, we find ourselves in a position where all things related to moral significance require faith.  Thus those rational values and beliefs you are willing to put faith in in the midst of uncertainty is an ultimate measure of what is truly in your heart and thus is full of moral significance.

Conclusion: Bacon's wise observation that "A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion" is as true today as it was when it was penned hundreds of years ago. In fact the 20th century once again showed, with the rise and fall of scientism and positivism, that any attempt to remove faith from one's wordview consistently leads to logical absurdities like self-defeation. Faith therefore is in fact necessary to have a coherent worldview of reality.

Also, as David Foster Wallace discusses, everyone must exercise faith to make sense of the world and "the only choice we get is what to [have faith in]... You get to decide what has meaning and what doesn't. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think." Those who both understand the necessity of faith and are wise enough to choose for themselves how to apply it are those who are truly free and know how to think. Furthermore, Terryl Givens astutely observed that it is only through faith that our actions and beliefs have any moral significance. It is how you employ faith that is the true measure of who you really are and what is in your heart.