FAITH CONCEPTS
by F Richard Singer III edition date 04/08
website: www.conceptualstudy.org email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net
Ordinary Faith: I don’t recall where I heard that faith is believing something you know is impossible, but this characterization brings to mind the phrase ‘a leap of faith’. Since I can’t imagine a greater leap of faith, we could use the phrase ‘extravagant faith’ for this type of faith. Not having experienced extravagant faith and being unable to imagine how anyone could, I find this faith concept fruitless. I mention it only as a foil to indicate the concept of faith I want to consider. Faith is often mentioned in relation to matters considered to be of major significance, such as religious faith, and while the faith concept I use applies to such faith, I am more interested in what I call ordinary faith. Faith is ordinary to the extent that it is supported by our ordinary competence as a person. Most ordinary faith involves the power to act based on a reasonable trust in something. Moreover for many matter, faith can be reasonable without being systematically examined or studied. Altho there are various processes that we might use to validate our faith, to use any process the person must have faith in his or her competence to judge the implementation of the process and its results. This competence cannot be reduced to anything more basic. Faith ultimately rests on faith. Ordinary faith is the opposite of extravagant faith, needing no leap of faith or even a small hop. As the Descriptive Psychology maxim below reminds us, ordinary faith is a ubiquitous feature of our experience. Moreover it is not only reasonable for a person act this way, it is crucial to being a person.
Maxim A8: A person takes it that things are as they seem, unless he has reason enough to think otherwise. (See Ossorio 1998)
Bringing the concept of ordinary faith into focus suggested several parameters, and this paper develops and examines these parameters. These parameters are then used to illustrate the ubiquitous nature of ordinary faith its relation to so much of what we do. Since I find way that the word ‘faith’ is commonly used too vague for my purposes, some of aspects of my usage may seem unusual. For instance, ‘faith’ often has the connotation of going beyond what is reasonable. This is the case for some faith, but not for most faith. The word faith is also sometimes used as a synonym for belief, especially in the context of religion. I will use the word faith for a concept that focuses on empowering actions rather than on belief, altho faith may depend on beliefs. However, I will try to use the word faith with regard for common usage, and using it for a concept whose focus on action corresponds to one such use. In fact, ‘assurance’ and ‘trust’ are two of the associated words in my thesaurus. Of the words commonly associated with the word faith, it is ‘trust’ that is most relevant. Specifically trust that expresses itself in action that will form the core of the faith concept I will develop.
Note: This is a conceptual paper. It uses some concepts from Descriptive Psychology. Since these are refinement of those commonly used, an understanding of ordinary usage should be sufficient for a basic understanding of the presentation. However, I briefly indicate any some special features of the ones most relevant to this paper. See the references for more about Descriptive Psychology. See CPCP Person Concepts, for an account relating this person concept others indicated by the word person.
Deliberate action is behavior in which a
person considers alternatives
and differentiates among potential consequences.
A person is, paradigmatically, an
individual with a history of deliberate action.
An attitude involves an object or type of
object and a tendency to act
in a certain manner in relation to that object or type of object.
A power is a characteristic that enables a person to act or helps mobilize a person to act.
Faith: In a broad sense, I conceptualize faith as a personal power that enables a person to sustain or maintain relationships of trust that enables action. This may involve having various beliefs but this cognitive aspect of faith is less significant than the behavioral power components. In saying “You of little faith”, Jesus may have been commenting on a lack this power. However he might have been indicating a lack of trust in a particular object of faith, which is a more focused usage of the faith concept. Focused faith involves a person trusting that something or someone can be relied on. Paradigmatically, the trust is in something personal, altho it need not be. Such trust may involve belief, but it is more an attitude, i.e. a strong tendency to act as if the object of trust can be trusted in some way that has significance to the person. In either case, the essence of my faith concept is the power to maintain an attitude of trust rather than a matter of belief. That there is a usage of faith as a power, consider the statement that faith can move mountains. This is also indicated in the statement that faith without works is dead, if we interpret this as saying with no action there is no faith. Altho the concept of faith that I am using is closely related to trust, there is a difference. Trust is an attitude that involves a tendency to act, but faith is a power that enables that action. Altho faith enables action, this does not insure that the action will result in the desired achievement. Trust can be misplaced, but even if it is not other things can go wrong.
Crucial Faith: Crucial faith is faith that cannot be dispensed with if an individual is to act as a person. I could not act as a person without some faith in my ability to remember. Altho such faith is crucial, it is not unqualified. I could add that my memory is fallible, altho this seems too obvious to mention. A few other items of crucial faith are indicated below. With any of these I might add qualifications.
¨ I have faith that I can tell that I am awake rather than merely dreaming.
¨ I have faith that I can make conceptual distinctions.
¨ I have faith in my ability to communicate with other persons.
As indicated earlier, the most crucial object of our faith in our own competence. Such faith may be qualified, but try to imagine individual with no such faith. Perhaps he has no faith in his own competence, but has faith in the voices that tell him what to do. Can he act without an implicit faith in his competence to judge that he knows what they are telling him? Perhaps instead he refuses to have faith in his own competence until this faith was verified by some methodology. How can he have faith in his competence to judge if this methodology is both effective and adequately implemented?
Faith Objects: Focused faith involves what can be called an object of that faith, where the word ‘object’ is used in a broad sense. A functional object can be an object of faith, such as faith in a clock. A process can be an object of faith, such as faith in some process for quality control. An institution can be an object of faith, such as faith in the Supreme Court. A specific person characteristic can be an object of faith, such as faith in Kay’s ability to learn Descriptive Psychology. A person can be an object of faith in a general manner, such as a wife’s faith in her husband. Information can be an object of faith, such as faith the claim that the earth is closer to the moon than to the sun.
Faith Parameters:
When thinking about focused faith I use parameters called {power, scope,
stability, validation, qualification}. The power parameter relates to the
extent to which it influences a person’s actions in relevant situations, being
operational to the extent that it has such power. Scope relates to the variety
and number of behaviors that might be influence by the faith. Stability relates
to the extent to which the faith is resistant to or susceptible to change.
Faith can be firm or even unshakable. On the other hand, it can be shaky or
inconstant. One indicator of stability is the length of the period for which
the faith can be sustained. Validation relates to the degree to which the faith
is based on sound reasons, being called ordinary to the extent that it is and
extraordinary to the extent that it is not. Qualification can be general or
specific. For instance, I might say that my faith in the Court does not mean
that I think decisions by the court are not subject to political
considerations.
Example: Jo has been mentoring Kay in various types of conceptual study. She has faith in Kay’s ability to learn Descriptive Psychology. Since Jo has no hesitation in introducing Kay to its concepts, her faith is firm and operational and basically unqualified. This faith is of fairly limited scope, but it is a component of a faith of broader scope that relates to Kay’s more general capacity for learning. Her faith is validated by her intuitive interpretation of her experience in working with Kay. This is sufficient evidence that her faith in Kay’s conceptual ability is soundly based.
Example: Joe’s company has just started marketing new income tax preparation software. Before starting its development, Joe had firm faith that his company was competent to carry out this project. Currently he has firm faith that the software is well designed. Since he could provide what most software professionals would consider as sufficient evidence for his faith in these matters, it is well validated. His faith is operational, for otherwise he would not have started the project and would not have authorized marketing the software. Altho the software has been adequately tested by comparing its results with those given by experts, his faith in its design is qualified by acknowledging that the tax code is so complex that the software may not minimize your tax liability in every possible case.
Example: I can give a rigorous mathematical proof that Ö2 is irrational, and so my faith in this conceptual fact is ordinary. It is also fully supported by what any mathematician would consider as compelling evidence. Since I have faith in my competence as a mathematician, this faith claim is unshakable, altho my ability to merely follow someone else’s proof also make it unshakable. Since I automatically act as if Ö2 is irrational in relevant situations, this faith is fully operational, but clearly of limited scope. My faith in my competence as a mathematician is ordinary and supported by even more extensive evidence. Since mathematics plays a major role in my life this faith is of fairly broad scope.
Faith as a Power: Before developing these parameters, I want to make a few more remarks the extent to which a vast amount of ordinary operational faith is involved in the ability to routinely engage in deliberate action. Losing faith in institutions could certainly impair our ability to engage in certain types of deliberate action. A person might not vote without some faith in democratic institutions. Lack of faith in persons, especially friends and family, would make deliberate action in vastly more matters even more problematic. However most devastating would be losing faith in some of your person characteristics. How would you function if you had no faith in your ability to master any skills, to make conceptual distinctions, to recognize the difference between various objects, to remember, to tell that you are not hallucinating, etc? You need an ongoing relationship to such objects of faith. Recall the broad manner in which I said that I use the word faith.
Faith is a personal power that enables P to sustain or maintain trust
relations.
It is faith as a personal power that is essential in sustaining operational faith in a multitude of objects that can enhance a person’s behavior potential if it is not misplaced. This power is integrated so completely into what we do that we may seldom notice its significance. It may seem like such a simple power, so easily acquired in early childhood and so easy to maintain. However it an amazing power of vast scope. It involves the ability to act on a complex of qualified trusts in a variety of object types. It carries us thru even when some or part of our faith is shaky. It may fail in many instances, but still retain its strength. To appreciate it, consider cases in which it is significantly weak. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be totally without this power, but it easy to observe that it can be weak in a specific area. For example, suppose P is clinically paranoid. This is not merely a lack of trust in people. It is even more a lack of the ability to trust people. Even when a strong case for trust can be made, P does not have the personal power to establish even qualified trust. The evidence P would demand is too extravagant to present, and P will merely regard the situation as more complex than we can imagine. Evidence is not what is needed. What is needed is a new power that P may or may not be able to acquire. Without this power, P’ ability to engage in certain type of deliberate action can be so restricted as to be pathological.
The Power Parameter: As it name suggests, and since faith is conceptualized as a power, this is the most significant parameter for faith in an object O. It indicates the extent to which faith in O has the power to help a person act in relevant situations. With no such power, there is no faith in O. However faith in O can be weak or vacillating. Faith can even be highly operational at most of the time, but still fail. The basketball star who normally revels in taking the last shot in a game can freeze. The vast majority of our faith is operational most of the time. I am offered a choice between grape and orange juice. Recalling their tastes, my recent blood sugar readings and some other matters, I ponder briefly and choose grape. Ah the faith involved! I have faith in my ability to recall my taste and to remember the main features of my blood sugar reading. I have faith in claims about the dangers of high blood sugar. Etc. Most of the faith involved is so operational that I am not even aware of it. While this choice may be of small concern, it is but one of many minor instances of deliberate action, and without a vast amount of operational faith I cannot imagine how I could so easily select among the available options. With options of greater significance operational faith is even more crucial.
The Scope Parameter: This parameter can be used to focus on very specific behaviors that might be influence by the faith. However in most cases, we might merely indicate something fairly imprecise about how broad or narrow the scope is, perhaps in relation to some other faith. Note that this parameter also tells us about the power of faith, not in terms of it extent, but in terms of its range and thus the ways it can enhance a person’s behavior potential.
The Stability Parameter: Since unshakable faith is likely to maintain its power, this parameter also indicates something about the power of faith, altho not directly. Mainly, this parameter also relates to belief, since being shakable or unshakable faith is as much about belief as about action. In fact, shaky faith can be operational, as is the case when someone continues to place trust in his wife’s word even when he suspects she may be lying. Moreover unshakable faith is not always operational, as with someone who sincerely claim that God gave the Ten Commandments but who routinely takes God’s name in vain. Note that the term ‘unshakable faith’ should only be taken to mean that the faith is firm enough that nothing is likely to occur that could reasonably challenge it. This does not mean that we cannot fabricate something that would undermine it, such as entering a severe pathological state.
The Validation Parameter: The most basic way we can validate our faith is to prudently rely on our competence as a person recognize when we have sound reasons to trust in that object of faith. Not only do our reasons need not be systematically examined, in most cases it would be either impossible or impractical to do so. As indicate earlier, we must have crucial faith in our personal competence, and the fact that we can engage in deliberate action is sufficient evidence to validate this faith. In fact, nonsystematic pragmatic evidence is sufficient for most of our crucial faith. It is also sufficient for a vast amount of the rest of our faith, a point that I may belabor since I feel that it is often unappreciated. Moreover even when it would be practical to do systematically validate our faith, doing so would often be irrelevant. I could systematically gather evidence to validate my faith in my mathematical competence, but this is unlikely to further validate or even add qualifications to this faith. Of course, there are times when systematic examination of faith is relevant and important.
The validation parameter hinges on the idea of sufficient evidence. I want to stress that this does not mean beyond all alternatives that can be fabricated. It is more like the legal use of beyond reasonable doubt. We can have sufficient evidence for information altho the information is wrong. What is sufficient evidence for one person may not be sufficient for another, especially when based on personal experience. You may have very ordinary faith that a friend is innocent even when the jury finds him guilty. Both you and the jury may have sufficient evidence, but one of you is wrong. Your faith need not be validated by any systematic methodology in order for your evidence to be sufficient. If your faith in your friend’s innocence is based on extensive personal interactions, this may be a better validation than the evidence systematically organized by the prosecutor.
The Qualification Parameter: Consider the claim C that my answering machine M will play back any message that was recorded. C proposes information about M, altho C is not formulated as precisely as it could have been. Since M looses messages when the electricity fails, I might add some further clause, such as ‘if everything is normal’. My faith in C is essentially faith that the information intended by C is correct. To the extent that I am clear about information I regard it as either correct or incorrect in an unqualified manner. My faith may be shaky if I have doubts, but is not qualified in the sense that I say the information is correct in a qualified manner. Qualifications are given to clarify the intended information. Unlike informational faith, faith relating to other types of objects is often qualified, and it is often reasonable to have ordinary firm qualified faith. My faith in M is qualified in many ways that I will not bother to articulate. This faith could be related to a number of statements about M, C being the most relevant one. However my faith in M came before I formulated statements about M, and this faith is not actually reducible to informational faith. In general, I seldom reflect on statements concerning faith in a functional object unless I was inclined to examine my faith in it.
Having firm ordinary operational faith in information is crucial to acting effectively. The same could be said about other objects of faith, but with the additional observation that such faith can be qualified even when it is firm. In fact it is the qualifications that often help keep faith firm, since I could not maintain unqualified faith in many cases. One of the major advantages of qualified faith is that it allows us to act prudentially without having to bring a lot of information into focus. Of course this can also cause problems. Altho my faith in my answering machine is qualified, and I realize that it could malfunction without my spotting this, I might act as if it was reliable and miss an important message.
Linkage: Altho the parameters are conceptually independent, there is linkage. Ordinary faith tends to be unshakable or at least extremely firm. Such faith also tends to be operational. On the other hand, extraordinary faith tends to be easier to shake, and to the extent that faith is weak it tends to be less operational. I find the mere identification of an object of faith in which I have extraordinary faith makes this faith shakable. There are exceptions to the linkages just mentioned. If P has a preeminent cosmic version then P’s faith in certain religious claims is often both extraordinary and unshakable. What may be extraordinary faith from a public perspective may be ordinary faith for a person. Extraordinary religious faith can also be almost inoperative, even when the faith is firm. For instance, consider the person who goes to church only at Easter and Christmas, ignores religion on a daily basis but when challenged stoutly defends certain dogmas. Similar remarks apply to faith with respect to many claims people accept about social or political matters.
It is also easy to see that ordinary faith can sometimes
be easily shaken, especially if its scope is narrow and its object is
unimportant. All it takes is the emergence of new evidence. My faith in my
memory about where I left my glasses was easily shaken when my wife located
them elsewhere. However if most of our ordinary faith failed to be firm then it
would be almost impossible for persons to be functional, and if all
extraordinary faith was unshakable the expansion of human understanding might
not be possible.
Public Evidence: The parameters other than validation tend to be purely personal, since they usually indicate a relation between a person and an object of faith. However what P may take as sound evidence may not be the considered sound evidence by someone else. Thus it can be useful to relate the validation parameter to public evidence. Let C denote the collections of persons competent to make an informed judgement about the relevant evidence. P’s faith is ordinary in a public sense to the extent such faith would be ordinary for most members of C. It is extraordinary from a public perspective to the extent that it would be extraordinary for most members of C. In order to bring this into better focus, I would need to elaborate on the concept of being competent to make an informed judgement about evidence. However the concept seems clear enough for my present purposes. For example since all mathematicians would recognize the proofs I would use, my faith that Ö2 is irrational is not only ordinary for me it, is also ordinary in this public sense. To indicate the personal usage I include the phrase ‘for P’, which is omitted when focusing on the public parameter.
Example: Joan
of Arc claimed that she has been given a special mission to save
Faith and Belief:
The word ‘faith’ is often used with in relation to belief, especially when
information is involved. As long as the emphasis is on power to maintain an
attitude of trust, rather than on the cognitive aspect of belief, this is
appropriate. Note that the first three parameters focus more on action than on
belief, and even the validation parameter relates to action. However we use
statements to indicate and bring information into focus, and informational
faith involves believing these statements. Moreover other types of faith often
relate to a belief that various claims are true, and losing beliefs can
undermine such faith, even though such faith cannot be reduced to informational
faith. Recall the comments about faith my answering machine or consider faith
in most persons or institutions.
Faith in Institutions: Faith in institutions tends to go even further beyond informational faith than faith in functional objects. It also tends to be more complexly qualified. Altho my faith in Supreme Court is related to a multitude of statement about the Court System, it is not reducible to faith in any such list of statements. In fact it would take effort to even carefully articulate a significant list of such statements, and doubting many of them would not make me loose faith in the Court. My faith in the Supreme Court involves trusting that this institution works fairly well for the purposes it is intended to serve, and it works at least as well as most other institutions one could realistically implement for these purposes. However my faith in the Court is of broader scope than any faith I have in any statements I might make about such matters. Given a Supreme Court decision, regardless of whether or not I would concur, I usually respond by thinking that it is was probably reached in a reasonable manner, and I tend to look for a sensible rationale. This is one sense in which my faith both firm and operational. I think this faith is ordinary, being rooted in what I know about the history of the court and what I know about many of its decisions. It may have some extraordinary residue, because my initial faith in the court was initially acquired by educational conditioning that did not probe into such matters.
Faith in Persons and Processes: Faith in the Supreme Court is primarily faith in an institution. This involves faith in various associates processed. It also involves faith in persons to act within the institutional framework and its processes. Faith in a particular court is also faith in some specific persons. As with all faith in persons, this faith may be more or less specialized. Altho I may have faith in a justice’s understanding of legal matters, I may lack faith in his ability to transcend his personal preferences. Overall faith in processes is often qualified and complex. This is even more the case for faith in persons. Such faith usually goes beyond informational faith and is focuses much more on action oriented trust than on beliefs. It is a power for action that is greater than the power of mere informational knowledge.
Ordinary Informational Faith: Altho most faith cannot be reduced to informational faith, we could not act decisively without a vast amount of implicit and explicit informational faith that is both highly operational and extremely firm. Since it is impossible to have sufficient sound evidence for all of the information we might utilize, some of this faith is likely to be extraordinary. However the preponderance of it is fairly ordinary. It is faith in information that we do not use for routine matters that is most likely to be extraordinary. I am using my computer as I formulate concepts. I used this same computer yesterday. What I read this morning is what I wrote earlier. I put gravel on one of my paths yesterday. Of course I have firm faith in such information, or how could I act effectively, and I do have faith in the broader claim that I can make reliable ordinary judgements about a vast amount of information and use this information to act effectively in a wide range of situations. What is the evidence for such faith? It is simply pragmatic, based on the fact that I do function and that such faith
enables me to function. For this reason I would classify such faith and much of the informational faith I use as ordinary. Even a slight weakening of such faith can result in a reluctance to act. I have never known anyone with no such faith, but I observed instances in which such faith was shaky and the effects of this can be devastating. Even a minor breakdown of firm operational faith in the information relevant to a situation can result in an inability to act effectively. However even ordinary informational faith can be examined, as in the example below, altho it would be impractical and irrelevant to do this with most of it.
Example I noticed a dented beer can B near my mailbox. Later I saw what I took to be this same can. Since I was thinking about the validation parameter, I decide to consider my faith in it being the same can. I had no doubts, and I can imagine a considerable amount of supporting evidence, altho this is not something I would normally bother to examine. To challenge the evidence, I would need a plausible alternative. Since my first observation was casual, there might be some other can that I might mistake for B. Altho I can imagine that B ceased to exist and a similar can appeared in its place, altho this was not a live option for me. I know that the macroscopic world does not ordinarily work that way. I also imagined a way that a can could have replaced B that at least seems possible. Perhaps someone was trying to trick me. I will not bother to indicate the evidence I considered against this. Altho I can also imagine other possibilities, none of them is a live option. Thus for all practical purposes I would classify this faith as highly validated and too firm to imagine that it might change. This is a specific paradigm case of a person having unshakable ordinary faith. The next day I picked up what appeared to be B, but to allow for an alternative call it C. I placed C in a bag and hid the bag in my shed, being careful that no one could see me do so. I later looked in the bag and found a can I will call D. Altho I classify my faith that C = B as unshakable, my faith that C = D was even more unshakable. Of course for most purposes these differences are trivial. I also have unshakable faith that C existed, altho I could intellectually imagine all these memories were the result of a hallucination. Moreover all of this faith was extremely ordinary. What was extraordinary was to even think about such matters and to act as if my faith could be misplaced. Validation of such matters is not relevant.
Firm Ordinary Operational Faith in My Personal Competence: I have firm operational faith in my general competence as a person. Obviously such faith is qualified. This faith has many components. For instance, it includes faith in my ability to remember. I have clearly remembered leaving my keys in the usual place, only to discover that they are not there. I also have two early childhood memories that contradict each other. These qualifications are minor in comparison to the times my memory it has proved itself reliable. Like many objects of ordinary faith the fact that I would have faith in my ability to remember may seem too mundane to even consider. I mention it now only to focus on several points. First there is a multitude of personal powers in which I have firm operational qualified faith, and these are crucial to being a person. Moreover such faith is ordinary, with sufficient evidence for it obtained automatically thru acting as a person.
Altho I have unshakable faith in the statement that I can act effectively in a wide range of situations, this is not the main component of my faith in my personal competence. For one thing this statement is intentionally vague, and it was formulated long after I had faith in my personal competence. Altho this faith can be related to the faith I have in a wide variety of my more specific competencies, it is broader that any collection of them and certainly could not be exhausted by any finite collection of statements about myself and what I am confident I can do. In fact, having faith in this my general competence is more ordinary and more unshakable that my faith in most of the more specific ones or in specific information. The evidence for it is based on vastly more experience than my faith in particular information can be, and without faith in my general competence, how could I know that I was competent in making any particular judgement? Perhaps I cannot trust all of my observations and memories, but I must trust my ability to observe and to remember. What is the evidence for such faith? Belaboring my earlier point, it is simply pragmatic. It is based on the fact that I do function and that it enables me to function. Even a slight weakening of such faith can result in a reluctance to act.
I have never known anyone with zero faith in his/her general competence. However the power of such faith and the extent that it is operational can be vary from person to person. It can also wax and wane for anyone. I would conjecture that it is the extent to which a person’s faith in her or his general competence is firm and operational that is the main factor in a person’s ability to effectively engage in deliberate action. This is a conjecture that I find almost totally plausible, and in regards to myself, it is a conjecture in which I have operational faith. In regard to others, I would observe the phenomena of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is an attitude towards oneself; an attitude that involves acting as if one’s own interests do not have the level of priority one would normally expect them to have. This obviously makes effective action more difficult. It seems to me that this attitude is related to a weak faith in one’s general competence. See CPCP Self-esteem and Worth Concepts.
Transcendent Action: The concept of deliberate action involves considering alternatives and differentiating among potential consequences. It does not involve any conditions on achievement. Transcendent action is conceptualized as deliberate action in which the achievement is to bring about a state of affairs that differs from the state that would have emerged as only a result of chance or impersonal causality. This need not be very significant. Nor does it need not to be the state of affairs desired by the actor. For instance, a bridge player’s finesse may result in the loss of her queen. I find it at least somewhat plausible that all deliberate action is transcendent, but the conceptualization even allows for the possibility that none of them are. I take it that this would be the position of a determinist, and I examine this in CPCP Transcendent Action and the Appeal of Determinism. .
One reason that motivated me to examine faith concepts was to focus on my faith in my ability to engage in transcendent action. I consider such faith to be ordinary. The core of this reason is that the evidence is immediately and pervasively experiential, and I trust my own ability to interpret my personal experience. Thus my faith in this capacity follows most directly from my faith in my own personal competence. To act as if I am competent, I must implicitly act as if I have live options, that some choices involved originate in me, and that I can bring about a state that differs from the state that would have otherwise emerged. To not have such faith would be to have no faith in both my competence to act and my competence to understand the essence of what I am doing. How can I possibly be wrong about the claim that I sometimes engage in transcendent action? The only alternative that I can fabricate to this claim is that I am incapable of understanding the role deliberate action plays in my life. If so my understanding of me and of the world is flawed at its very core. Essentially it is impossible for me to think as either a pure determinist or as a chance-determinist, and since I have faith in my ability to think, I could just leave it at that. However I find it interesting to consider not only my faith in this capacity but also my faith in this as a capacity of other persons.
Spiritual Faith: By spiritual faith I mean faith in whatever we take to be ultimate and as transcending the mundane aspects of our existence. We can use these parameters in relation to a powerful spiritual faith. All spiritual faith is potentially of broad scope, since if it is operational it could affect anything we do. Powerful spiritual faith would be of ubiquitous scope and extremely operational. It would also be firm or even unshakable. The validation parameter could be use to distinguish two types of powerful spiritual faith. Dogmatic faith would be accompanied by informational faith for which the person refused to even consider any contrary evidence. Inspired faith would be validated, altho the evidence might be primarily apparent to the person with the faith. For instance, the evidence might mostly involve the power such faith provides in that person’s life. On the other hand, it might be some mountain top experience, such as enlightenment, a sense of divine revelation, etc. To the extent that spiritual faith relates to some power (theistic or not) that is taken as higher in some sense, it could be called religious faith. See CPCP Spiritual Needs and Spiritual Competence for more on spiritual faith and religious faith.
Faith in Science: The parameters can be used to indicate different ways in which people take science as an object of faith. I will merely illustrate this with some remarks about my own faith in science. Given certain qualifications, my overall faith in science is operational and firm, but of limited scope. Focusing on the validation parameter, I think that my faith is ordinary, being thoughtfully qualified and more than casually examined. In the past, it was extraordinary and largely unqualified; being based primarily on the prestige science has in our culture and especially in the academic world. Currently I trust science to help us obtain a specialized understanding of features of the world that is not easily obtained without a systematic investigation, altho this faith is qualified in different ways that vary in terms of the realm of application and the kind of models used for the realm. The parameters can also be used to indicate how my faith in science differs with respect to different realms. At one extreme, I have firm operational validated faith in using Newtonian Mechanics to provide a good approximation to planetary motion, altho this faith is clearly of limited scope as there are few situations in which I might think about planetary motion. At another extreme I have no faith in science to demonstrate that humanity is competent in doing science or that our faith in science is justified, altho I have ordinary faith in such matters. In between I have some faith in science to yield specific information even in relation to matters for which we do not have adequate models, altho my faith in the use of statistical methods with an adequate model is highly tentative. This is only a small sample of what I could say about my faith in science and does not touch on other types of faith in science.
The Relevance of Science to Faith: That modern science has had a vast impact on our ordinary faith is apparent. A vast array of faith objects would not even exist without science. Consider electric lights, microscopes, sonograms, etc. We also have faith in much of what science tells us about the world, and especially what it tell us in physical aspects of the world the are not easily obtained by ordinary means of observation. We have faith in the existence of atoms and molecules, in the role played by DNA, in medical models involving viruses, and much more. The major impact that science has had on our ordinary faith has a spillover into a more generalized faith in science, and altho some of this general faith is also ordinary, it may have some extraordinary aspects that are due to the prestige of science.
Most of this faith for which science has been relevant came about by expanding what people could have faith in rather than by replacing the faith people previously had. There are notable exceptions. Before modern science, most people had faith in an earth-centered cosmology that was validated primarily by casual observation and was of very limited scope. For others, it was also faith in a paradigm that placed man at the physical center of creation. Without systematic observation, faith in this remote paradigm would have been hard to validate. In time, science validated a contrary faith in the heliocentric model of the solar system. Had the faith in the older paradigm been merely about the physical place of the earth, it might have been of such limited scope that the replacement would seem of little significance. Since that older faith had been linked to faith the spiritual place of humanity, this link made its scope much broader. Altho almost nobody now makes this link, this initial replacement of this older faith by science opened a door.
In general, when spiritual faith is linked to beliefs
about how the world works or about what has happened, and when scientific study
can provide information about such beliefs relevant to such matters, science
can be relevant spiritual faith. This is why some people want to claim that
there is a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. It challenges
information that some people feel is essential to their kind of faith in the
bible. Science and ordinary faith in science would seem to be much less
relevant to spiritual faith is not linked to any such beliefs. On the other
hand, extravagant faith in science and its ability to tell us everything about
the world can have a major impact on spiritual faith. Those having such faith
are likely to believe that traditional spiritual faith has been invalidated.
References: Descriptive Psychology is a network of theory neutral concepts and conceptual devices initially created by Peter Ossorio. Formulations of many of the concepts from Descriptive Psychology can be found in the file entitled Concept Dictionary-Encyclopedia on the Descriptive Psychology section of my website. The papers referenced with ‘CPCP’ are on the conceptual papers section. For a comprehensive introduction to these concepts, see Persons, Behavior, and the World, by Mary Shideler. For a deeper perspective, see various books from the collected works of Peter Ossorio. Also see the Society for Descriptive Psychology website sdp.org.
Ossorio, Peter (1998) Place.
Ossorio, Peter (2005)
What Actually Happens.