To what extent is faith a legitimate basis for knowledge claims, in religion and different areas of knowledge

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Christopher Chileshe

May 9, 2007

Mr. Oberg

IB TOK

Some people say that religious beliefs can neither be justified nor refuted by reason. However, while sometimes this claim is used as a reason for rejecting religious beliefs, at other times it is used to conclude that these beliefs are established by faith. To what extent is faith a legitimate basis for knowledge claims, in religion and different areas of knowledge

In this essay, I will attempt to establish conditions under which beliefs and faith can be considered legitimate basis for knowledge claims in religion and different areas of knowledge. I will assess the extent to which faith and reason can be used to make knowledge claims in both science and religion. In order to present my argument clearly and effectively I must establish my definition of faith in relation to this essay. That is faith is a way of knowing one can acquire through personal experience, faith is opening up to uncertain thought and ideas and using them as knowledge claims. Knowledge is a justified true belief.

Faith is general belief or trust that comes from personal experience thus rendered subjective in nature. There are knowledge claims where belief is used a basis for the knowledge claim. This is common when using the Imperiacal method. The hypothesis would be based completely on faith and belief; however, it is not knowledge until it has been justified by the community of knowers. Like most ways of knowing, personal experience requires reasoning, thus faith being acquired from personal experience the reasoning process is also applicable. For example with the common expression or claim, ‘faith is blind’. What this statement is implying to me is that the presence of faith is somewhat inexplicable, to a certain extent; it is created with little reasoning and thus lacks the reasoning process one must go through. However, it is possible to argue that to some extent faith is a sub-conscience manifestation of personal experiences, whether past or present. For instance, I have faith that my mother will come to my high school graduation because she has always been there for all the important days of my life. This conclusion has been formed through a reasoning process and experience has led me to formulating my own subjective view. This belief can be justified to some extent and cannot be refuted by reason until the events do or do not occur. However, there is a difference in having a subjective justifiable faith in your mother and having faith in God for example. When you have faith in God, the difficulty comes in justifying that faith with substantial evidence. The question refers to religious beliefs not being justified nor refuted by reason; in this case, the ideas previously expressed can be applied. However for knowledge claims to have a legitimate basis they must go through an Imperiacal process with complete objectivity however this is not done in my example, the reasoning process used there is the disjunctive syllogism, however, the claim is justifiable. However, how would we justify faith in God? Many Christian believers approach the answer to this question in a very simplistic and naive manner, thinking that all we have to do is go look at the observable evidence and see whose hypothesis is verified. After all, this is how we resolve disagreements in our ordinary affairs, as well as in science. They would use prayer as an example, where it has worked of course, as evidence to back their claim. When we claim to know that something is true, we are thereby claiming to have adequate evidence, proof or good reason for it. On the contrary a non-believer might claim that there is no justification (or inadequate justification) for believing the Bible's claim and God - or, in stronger cases, they might say that there is justification for disbelieving the Bible's claims. However, there is just as much evidence for justifying the belief as there is for refuting it.

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With this, we immediately begin to see the problems of knowledge, involved in knowing through faith. There is a great amount of uncertainty thus bringing the question; can there be knowledge claims with the amount of uncertainty present in knowing through faith? When formulating a knowledge claim based on faith and belief, one must acquire evidence to support this claim, in both religion and science the level of certainty is certainly not 100%. Through the Imperiacle process, one might be certain to some extent however, they cannot be completely satisfied. In religion, similar conditions apply, however the level of certainty is nowhere near that of the Imperiacle method, this is because the gap of doubt is still great and thus a larger leap of faith is required to cross the bridge to absolute knowledge. Whereas in contrast to that, the Imperiacle method requires merely a small step of faith to acquire that knowledge. For example, a priest would argue that although there is a lack of widespread agreement over knowledge through faith, there is a sense of certainty in the individual. Depending on their experiences, that is a direct result of their faith. On the other hand, the sceptic would argue that the definition of knowledge is partly that there has to be some form of widespread agreement, and substantial evidence with justification.

In what way does knowledge go beyond faith and belief? Knowledge claims include having justification or good reason to support your belief. The definition for knowledge is that it is a justified true belief. For instance, a scientist would claim that there is evidence that there is no other form of life in this galaxy as found on earth. This is different from ‘I have faith that there is human life in other parts of the galaxy as found on earth’. Although both claims have the uncertainty of truth and validity, it can clearly be seen that one is somewhat more limited than the other is. The scientist presents an idea that may be proved falsified or acknowledged, however does claim to hold some evidence but cannot be completely certain without further knowledge while the believer presents the idea of the possibility of both happening and not necessarily wrong or right. Is this a legitimate basis for knowledge claim? The decision lies in whether you believe in faith or are a sceptic.

A legitimate basis can be considered a reliable source depending on the case, it can also be viewed as subjective, thus whether it is legitimate or not depends on the circumstances, or knowledge claims, for example a doctor gives an opinion on the condition of a patient and advises that patient. His experience and profession would be enough to be considered a legitimate basis, however if his opinion was based on faith that the remedy would work, then reluctance on the part of the patient would be justifiable.

Faith pollutes the areas of knowledge due to its subjectivity; however, this is not true in all the areas of knowing. For example in my IB English class, we are required to be subjective to some extent. An example of this is studying a literary text in my English class we are asked to provide subjective opinions on the text. That is not to say that the opinions we formulate are no longer valid, although opinions often vary from person to person. As a student examining a certain text for example a scene from ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream” by Shakespeare, for instance, I find that the text has a subliminal message, I might interpret it very differently from another student examining the same text under the same conditions. However, the opinion expressed about the text must at least be justified with specific references in the book to support that claim.

This subjective way of formulating knowledge claims may be valid, because we do not know the author personally, thus we cannot not make claims about his or her intent. Thus see cannot be completely sure that it absolute knowledge. However, in contrast, science requires pure objectivity, except when formulating a hypothesis. In my Biology class, we set out experiments in order to falsify or acknowledge a hypothesis. This may cause us to be subjective to obtain the results we want or expect. Thus to support our claims our experiment is repeated most likely several times to back it with valid and hopefully reliable evidence. For example testing the pH of soil near an industrialised are would be expected to be more acidic in comparison to the pH of soil in a tropical rainforest. This would be due to the amount of harmful chemicals released by factories. If another student disagreed with me, we would be able to resolve the problem only because the two people who disagree nevertheless agree with each other regarding more basic assumptions - such as their attempt to fairness through the reliability of their senses, the uniformity of natural events, the accuracy of data collection, and the honesty of researchers, etc.

However, if the person does not abide by those basic assumptions, a neutral person must be selected to carry out the experiment and test the hypothesis again using Imperiacal method.

If the way in which people reason and interpret evidence is determined by their predetermined worldviews, and if the worldviews of the believer and sceptic are in principle opposing each other, how can the disagreement between them over the justification of faith as a legitimate basis for knowledge claims be resolved? It might seem that all rational argumentation is irrelevant since appeals to evidence and logic, will be controlled by the individual.

However, this is not the case. If by chance I believe something, through faith, that happens to be true, this does not mean to say I have knowledge of this truth, because there is no justification for what I believe. Justification and evidence are the keystones to acquiring reliable knowledge. Evidence is the basis of belief or disbelief, evidence is knowledge on which to base belief.

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