Justified Faith

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

In the essay “The Ethics of Belief,” W. K. Clifford states that it is immoral to believe without sufficient evidence. Belief motivates action, and wrong beliefs can lead to harmful actions. For Clifford, this is an argument for a skeptical view of religious claims. Religious beliefs frustrate the skeptic by regularly asserting that surprising, out-of-the-ordinary things exist with little material evidence. By Clifford’s principle, one might think that without an indubitable proof to cinch the existence of God, one must presume atheism. However, in his essay “Rational Theistic Belief without Proof,” John Hick argues that even without proof, some people can have sufficient evidence for religious belief just as we have sufficient evidence to believe in the physical world simply by experiencing it, a much more permissive view of faith. Hick is right that many spiritual beliefs can be justified by religious experience, but it’s unwise to discard Clifford’s concern entirely. Some religious beliefs cannot be justified by experience alone, and wrong religious beliefs can have harmful consequences.

For Hick, experience of religious truth is analogous to the experience of an external world. Hick states that the belief in an external, physical world is “a belief on the basis of which we live and the rejection of which…would so disorient our relationship to other persons within a common material environment that we should be accounted insane.” For someone who experiences the external world, no proof of its existence is needed. Hick argues that the same holds true for religious experiences. To demand that believers discard their convictions about the things they experience until they can provide proof is to demand that they deny a core way in which they experience the world.

The nature of our knowledge of the external world can be understood as follows: I undeniably have a perception of an external world. That external world is important to me, so I believe in it. Those who object to Hick’s analogy might point out the many differences between material and spiritual experiences, but these differences don’t actually challenge the way this kind of belief works. Even if the external world were overtly mechanically inconsistent, even if people regularly disagreed about seemingly straightforward facts about it, even if many others lacked the senses needed to observe it, we would still believe in the existence of an external world if we perceived it and lived in it. Our working belief in the external world, then, can be understood as a spiritual relationship with that world. When we act within the physical world, we declare that it is important to us, and thus that we functionally and justifiably believe in it—by rational faith. This is perfectly analogous to Hick’s religious knowledge: I undeniably have an experience of religious truth. Religious truth is important to me, so I believe in it. For Hick, she who believes in God by personal experience already has sufficient evidence.

Then, is the skeptic’s criticism totally unfounded? In his essay, Clifford does not specify what constitutes sufficient evidence for a belief, but it is easy to imagine a skeptic following Clifford’s principle who denies that experience as defined by Hick is sufficient evidence for religious belief. But such a skeptic must then have a standard for belief that is incompatible with our everyday lives. The beliefs which ground us and enable us to live aren’t always achieved by proof or even material evidence. For example, the belief in the concept of the self as an entity is certainly not without any doubt and is not rooted in material evidence, but many people hold that foundational belief because they experience the world through the idea of the self and because they cannot live without it. It’s ridiculous to withhold the license to this belief from anyone who has not yet rationally grappled with every reasonable doubt.

If “it is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence,” and anything short of a fully-considered proof or hard material evidence cannot qualify as sufficient, then most of our operating beliefs are held immorally. Clifford acknowledges that his standard may be seen as harsh, but under this interpretation, his standard is impossible. Clifford understands that beliefs are “that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being,” but if we each become the man with no time to believe by our inability to rationally evaluate the underlying reality of all of our experiences, then can our will not make decisions? Do the compacted energies of our being become entirely unknit?

So we have good reason to reject this extremely uncharitable interpretation of Clifford and to accept the notion that religious experience can justify certain beliefs even in the absence of proof or material evidence. But it would be unwise to disregard Clifford’s motivating concern, that insufficiently justified belief can mislead our actions and cause real harm. Religious experience is a valid source of knowledge, but we do not have reason to think that religious experience is a valid source of any knowledge. Throughout history, incompatible views rooted in deep religious conviction have led to bloody conflict. If we claim that any religious belief supported by religious experience is justified, then it becomes difficult to resolve or challenge this kind of conflict as well as other sources of harm.

Clifford opens his essay with a clear expression of this concern about an overly permissive standard of belief with the example of a shipowner. Though the shipowner has reason to doubt the seaworthiness of his ship, he is fully convinced that Providence will carry her safely on its voyage, so he casts out doubt from his mind. The ship, of course, is not in working order, and ends up at the bottom of the sea with its passengers. The notion that the shipowner’s personal experience of the nature of Providence justified his belief that Providence would protect the passengers is, at the very least, quite unpalatable. So, if we admit religious experience as a valid kind of evidence, we should take care with how we answer this question: Which kinds of rational believings can be justified by religious experience?

In his essay, Hick primarily considers the theist’s rational believing in the existence of God, but he doesn’t outline any clear limitations to rational religious believings. This lack of imitations might mislead us into accepting any religious convictions as rational. Hick’s view most clearly defends beliefs about how one relates to God by means of religious experience. When someone says, I spiritually dialogue with God about my personal growth, for example, we should not dismiss her as irrational. Her believing follows the pattern by which we believe in the material world: She has a meaningful experience of a dialog with God and so she reasonably believes that this dialog is real. She can be certain because her belief is in the actuality of her experience as she experiences it. Just as our perceptions of the material world inform us about what can be perceived within the material world, her experience of a spiritual world informs her about what can be experienced in that world.

But now consider the shipowner’s belief that Providence will guide the ship to safety. For the sake of argument, suppose the shipowner’s believing is not motivated by simple wishful thinking but by a profound experience of a providential God, one who would certainly not allow an occupied ship to sink. This shipowner, then, does not only assert that his experience is real but also proclaims a certain relationship between the spiritual and material worlds he perceives. He proclaims that the spiritual experience of the reality of Providence guarantees that God will intervene in the material world. This does not actually fit our model for experiential belief. Simply by perceiving an external world and then living within it, we are able to justify certain beliefs about that external world. But our experiences of the material world cannot by themselves justify beliefs about things which are not perceived materially. In other words, it’s just as irrational to expect Providence to preserve one’s ship as it is to expect God to fall down from heaven due to our perception of gravity in the material world. Hick cannot defend this shipowner.

So, people can come to know religious truth by way of religious experience, but the kinds of spiritual beliefs which can be rationally justified from spiritual experience are strictly limited. This limitation does not only exclude the reckless shipowner. Many very common religious views do not meet the standard. For example, the belief that God created the real, material Earth in six days asserts a relationship between spiritual and material perception which cannot be confirmed from religious experience alone. Other kinds of evidence are needed to support this claim. Clifford’s standard for justified belief is untenable if his demand for sufficient evidence is interpreted as a universal demand for proof or material evidence, but an appropriate skeptical view of religious claims enables us to avoid the harm that wrong religious beliefs can cause.

Confucianism and Traditionalism

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

In Confucius’ view, thinking outside the context of study might be compared to randomly banging on a piano in ignorance of the conventions of music: a million monkeys given a million years might produce something, but it is better to start with the classics.

—Edward Slingerland, History of Chinese Philosophy

For Confucius, an understanding of and adherence to ritual is essential to living well. The above passage refers specifically to his attitude about learning—that individuals must think in the context of study, internalizing and living out the wisdom of the ancients. This view of the past is closely connected to all of Confucius’s traditionalist views as described by Slingerland. For Confucius, ritual is analogous to language: fluency is necessary to living one’s life meaningfully and occupying one’s proper place in the world. Ritual enables us to achieve and effectively express virtuous internal and external spiritual states throughout our lives. To author one’s life without attention to tradition, like thinking without the context of study properly understood, is to bang on the keys of a piano.

But the language that Confucius advocates isn’t strictly expressive. It’s restrictive by design. For Confucius, an important part of understanding tradition is to understand one’s proper role in society and to live according to and within that role. Though in some cases ritual may be amended by the gentleman who understands and is in harmony with the ritual—as Confucius does when he wears a ceremonial cap of silk rather than a ceremonial cap of linen—the rituals must not be amended in such a way that changes their meaning or disrupts the proper hierarchy and order of things.

Confucius makes this limitation clear when he discusses rectifying names as they label appropriate social roles. He says, “Let the lord be a true lord, the ministers true ministers, the fathers true fathers, and the sons true sons” (12.11). Each of these roles mandates certain kinds of attitudes and behaviors. For the individual, mastering ritual enables one to live sensibly and to appropriately express from within his role, but it does not enable one to deeply change his role or to move beyond it. Tradition isn’t merely restrictive in order to enable real meaning in life. Its restrictions place a strong limitation on personal expressiveness and liberty.

It’s here that I worry that Confucius’s conservatism goes too far. I value the kind of cultural language that uses social restriction to enable people to live more meaningfully and to influence people into living well. But these restrictions can become elitist when they are so rigid as to limit real expressiveness, as Confucius’s does. When someone is aimlessly banging a piano, it’s wise to teach her music theory. It’s not so wise to demand that she only play classical.

Another Nightmare

Content advisory: The following post contains a description of an attempted child murder.

I had such a terrible dream last night. I can't get it out of my mind. What a particularly terrible way to kill a child: to evaluate that she is smaller than you and that if you both were to get “lost” in the woods, she would starve or freeze long before you would. You wouldn't even have to touch her. Only once she'd succumbed would you, a child yourself, “find” your way back and cry real tears—for yourself.

It's an impotent way to kill someone. That's why when he was found out, he didn't argue. He bit me. He didn't bite me hard. He toothed me like a small dog. I don't think he ever seriously considered getting away with it. I think he was just willing to suffer that much to watch her die that way. Stranglers assert the superiority of their bodies over those of their victims. That boy did the same, just more slowly, with more restraint. 

Maybe before he got hungry and meaner, he thought he'd never drop the act. Maybe for weeks he fantasized about holding her and crying with her as her body failed. But she lived, and we know that he became overtly cruel, even if their mother doesn't want to accept it. I cannot imagine that he will accept her survival. I'm convinced that, given the opportunity, once they have both recovered, he will kill her. No one is listening to her, and I can't stay here forever.

Nonoverlapping Magisteria

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

 The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way(theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.

—Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”

In his essay “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Stephen Jay Gould tries to make a truce in the conflict between science and religion. He argues, that, properly understood, these devices have distinct and separate domains, and so cannot truly be opposed to one another. He calls this view “nonoverlapping magisteria” or “NOMA.” This view is much better than, say, Richard Dawkins’s,¹ who, in drawing science and religion as fundamentally opposing forces, fails to acknowledge the role that faith plays in his view of science which clearly extends beyond mere methodological naturalism, but NOMA still fails to totally explain or resolve the tension we observe between these two modes of inquiry.

First, regardless of what jurisdictions Gould believes science and religion ought to stick to, it’s clear that religion and science often do ask questions about the same issues. Religion and science both generate stories about the origin of the world and its people. They both try to explain the phenomena we observe in the world. They both tell us stories about what we are. People take the narratives created by both science and religion in these areas very seriously. To suggest that religion informs us of meaning and value separate from the mechanics of the natural world is to deny the well-established role religion often has in deriving meaning and value through interpretations of the natural world. Likewise, to suggest that the role of science is strictly empirical is to deny the social role it plays and the ethical implications of the philosophical naturalism that it advocates.

Second, the NOMA view is only plausible in a narrow slice of human history. Religion is much older than science, and its domain was not always bordered at all. Religion wasn’t a mode of inquiry. For many societies, religion was the mode of inquiry; it was how truth-finding was done. And before scientific inquiry cast serious doubt on religious doctrine, the goals of science and religion were not clearly separate. We study moral truth to understand God and His creation. We study the natural world to understand God and His creation. Only a world in which the narratives created by science and religion are not totally compatible does NOMA even seem meaningful.

I don’t mean to say that NOMA is meaningless or useless, but I think it’s important to understand why NOMA is meaningful and useful right now. The standoffish relationship between science and religion as we perceive today has not always existed and will not always exist. The social importance of scientific inquiry has changed the domain of religion, and our society is still adjusting to that change. Science and faith may not necessarily be at odds, nor are they necessarily totally separate, but today, for many people, they are in conflict, and that conflict is real and important. I think it’s wise for religious scholars and scientists to consider the appropriate domains for their work according to the NOMA hypothesis, but this will not itself resolve the tension in our social fabric. NOMA is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.