Saturday, January 19, 2008

Evidence and experience ...

... Defensor fidei. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... aren’t scientific conclusions supposed to be held tentatively, in contrast to the firmness with which articles of religious faith are to be held – even in the face of countervailing evidence if need be? Yes, there’s some genuine difference there (though the tentativeness with which scientists hold their conclusions is somewhat exaggerated by people – scientists include – who talk about science). Think, by analogy, of your faith in a friend who’s been accused of murder. You’d be a funny sort of friend if you took too “scientific” an attitude toward your friend’s guilt – if, for example, you said “I regard the probability of your innocence as 87%,” or “The conjecture of your innocence has not yet been falsified.” Perhaps religious faith is more like loyalty to a friend than it is like a scientific conclusion.

I think it interesting how faith and belief changed meanings. Belief originally meant trust in God, and faith meant loyalty grounded in a promise or an obligation. Faith came to mean loyalty to a set of doctrines (now thought of as beliefs). Too bad, because it is in the codification of faith - reducing it to a set of doctrines - that trouble starts and we move away from a way of life and being to a kind of campaign platform and the accompanying sloganeering.

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