I think you lost me when you assumed “faith” ought to be a meaningful word with a coherent definition.
I think the best definition to give for faith is a practical one: faith is the word people use as a combination semantic stop-sign and applause light when asked why they believe in religion. If someone then goes all philosophical on them and asks them what exactly they mean, they then use whatever plausible explanation seems appropriate.
I’ve heard faith described as:
exactly the same as inductive reasoning; thus, you have “faith” that the sun will rise tomorrow.
similar to the concept of credibility; the Bible’s always been right before, so I imagine it will be right on this one issue here, even though I’m not exactly sure how.
similar to the concept of trust: God is a good being, I’m sure He knows what He’s doing.
a direct meddling of the Holy Spirit in the internal workings of your brain, so that you are able to mystically come to the right answer about whether or not to believe in religion despite insufficient evidence.
a decision to follow whatever idea seems intuitively true or most pleasant, and to give evidence less weight than these intuitions
a decision to believe something even though you have no reason for doing so; also the thing those people who ask the obvious followup question “but why did you choose to believe that for no reason, as opposed to something else for no reason” should feel bad for not having.
Not comprehensible to the limited human mind so don’t talk about it
I don’t think any of these definitions are “the correct definition”; I just think they’re different ways that people in different situations and with different degrees of philosophicalness cash out the idea of “I believe in religion and you can’t tell me not to and I feel pretty good about it”
As such, I don’t believe there’s a concept called “faith” which it is necessary to distinguish from theory in the first place.
I think the best definition to give for faith is a practical one: faith is the word people use as a combination semantic stop-sign and applause light when asked why they believe in religion. If someone then goes all philosophical on them and asks them what exactly they mean, they then use whatever plausible explanation seems appropriate.
Calling something a “semantic stop-sign and applause light” can be an important first step towards a definition. But it’s not a definition itself, not even a merely “practical one”. A practical definition needs to explain how the concept of faith works as a semantic stop-sign. Just which peculiarities of human cognition does faith exploit? And how, in practice, can we keep it from exploiting them?
Why a definition of a word must include explanation of biases which correlate with its use? If I haven’t heard the word “faith” before, after reading Yvain’s definition I would be able to use it and understand what other people mean by it, which is exactly what I expect to learn from definitions of words.
Yvain’s “definition” is as follows: It starts by saying that “faith” is a “semantic stop-sign and applause light”. That alone would be inadequate, of course, because it doesn’t distinguished faith from other semantic stop-signs and applause lights, of which there are many. So Yvain goes on to distinguish faith from the rest as follows: Faith is that which, when people who claim it are asked to explain what they mean, they proceed to give one of the items on Yvain’s list of different ways that different people
cash out the idea of “I believe in religion and you can’t tell me not to and I feel pretty good about it”.
Well, I suppose that that’s a definition in some sense. But, as Yvain would agree, it’s not a definition in the sense sought in the OP. The OP seeks a description of the contents of the concept that sits in the minds of faith-holders. Yvain, as I read him, is denying the existence of any such concept. For Yvain, “faith” is just a sort of verbal defensive behavior. In fact, if you knew only Yvain’s definition, you would think that the word “faith” was only used to defend one’s beliefs from attack by others.
This appears to me to be an inaccurate picture of what is going on in the minds of faith-holders. So, insofar as Yvain’s definition encourages this picture, the definition is inadequate.
In fact, if you knew only Yvain’s definition, you would think that the word “faith” was only used to defend one’s beliefs from attack by others.
It seemed quite accurate to me, but that can be because I am not much familiar with religious thinking. Can you provide an example of relatively recent use of “faith” outside an apologetic argument?
Here’s a page from a book that I got to by following a citation to the Wikipedia article on Faith. I’m looking at the first complete paragraph.
The text is written by a Christian for Christian readers. As near as I can make out, the page is not arguing that the reader is required to have faith, or that the writer’s faith can survive all criticism. So, I wouldn’t call it apologetics. The tone is more like, “So, we all have faith here. That’s not at issue. But, just what kind of animal is this faith thing that we have? Where does it come from? What role does it play in the fate of our souls?”
You are right. They don’t use the word to defend their beliefs, even if I can’t figure out for sure what “faith” is supposed to mean there. It seems still to play the role of a sort of stop-sign, with approximate meaning of “acceptance of Catholic dogma”.
Still, I am not sure whether there is a concept behind “faith” distinct from “belief immune from scrutiny”. I have found a Christian definition where they basically say that faith is a belief which is
not based on factual evidence, but rather hearsay
absolutely certain
motivated by God’s personal qualities
a supernatural act
That seems to vindicate the naïve atheist view of faith as a belief firmly held in spite of evidence.
I think you lost me when you assumed “faith” ought to be a meaningful word with a coherent definition.
I didn’t read the article as doing that, nor any of the four hypotheses at the end. But I do read Phil’s response to you as doing so. Huh.
I think the best definition to give for faith is a practical one: faith is the word people use as a combination semantic stop-sign and applause light when asked why they believe in religion. If someone then goes all philosophical on them and asks them what exactly they mean, they then use whatever plausible explanation seems appropriate.
That is pretty close to be Phil’s first hypothesis “Faith as reaction to theory”
But Phil is saying that this is not an individual reaction, but a historical reaction. Protestants go on about faith all the time on their own, without any philosophers present.
If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory, how do you talk to religious people?
I understand the point you’re making, though I think you’re going too far when you say there isn’t a concept called “faith”. I should have explained that I’m responding to the use of “faith” in only 2 contexts:
faith as a technical Christian term: What did Jesus and Paul mean by faith? There is a large body of literature on this, and each denomination of Christianity has a pretty good idea what they mean by it.
faith as it is used as an argument against rationality.
Only the fourth and sixth definitions you listed above occur in those contexts.
If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory
That doesn’t follow from what Yvain said at all. There being no singular thing designated with the words “having faith” doesn’t mean those words always designate the same thing as the words “having a theory”. In fact, if they did there would be a singular thing they designate, which would directly contradict Yvain’s point!
I think you lost me when you assumed “faith” ought to be a meaningful word with a coherent definition.
I think the best definition to give for faith is a practical one: faith is the word people use as a combination semantic stop-sign and applause light when asked why they believe in religion. If someone then goes all philosophical on them and asks them what exactly they mean, they then use whatever plausible explanation seems appropriate.
I’ve heard faith described as:
exactly the same as inductive reasoning; thus, you have “faith” that the sun will rise tomorrow.
similar to the concept of credibility; the Bible’s always been right before, so I imagine it will be right on this one issue here, even though I’m not exactly sure how.
similar to the concept of trust: God is a good being, I’m sure He knows what He’s doing.
a direct meddling of the Holy Spirit in the internal workings of your brain, so that you are able to mystically come to the right answer about whether or not to believe in religion despite insufficient evidence.
a decision to follow whatever idea seems intuitively true or most pleasant, and to give evidence less weight than these intuitions
a decision to believe something even though you have no reason for doing so; also the thing those people who ask the obvious followup question “but why did you choose to believe that for no reason, as opposed to something else for no reason” should feel bad for not having.
Not comprehensible to the limited human mind so don’t talk about it
I don’t think any of these definitions are “the correct definition”; I just think they’re different ways that people in different situations and with different degrees of philosophicalness cash out the idea of “I believe in religion and you can’t tell me not to and I feel pretty good about it”
As such, I don’t believe there’s a concept called “faith” which it is necessary to distinguish from theory in the first place.
Calling something a “semantic stop-sign and applause light” can be an important first step towards a definition. But it’s not a definition itself, not even a merely “practical one”. A practical definition needs to explain how the concept of faith works as a semantic stop-sign. Just which peculiarities of human cognition does faith exploit? And how, in practice, can we keep it from exploiting them?
Why a definition of a word must include explanation of biases which correlate with its use? If I haven’t heard the word “faith” before, after reading Yvain’s definition I would be able to use it and understand what other people mean by it, which is exactly what I expect to learn from definitions of words.
Yvain’s “definition” is as follows: It starts by saying that “faith” is a “semantic stop-sign and applause light”. That alone would be inadequate, of course, because it doesn’t distinguished faith from other semantic stop-signs and applause lights, of which there are many. So Yvain goes on to distinguish faith from the rest as follows: Faith is that which, when people who claim it are asked to explain what they mean, they proceed to give one of the items on Yvain’s list of different ways that different people
Well, I suppose that that’s a definition in some sense. But, as Yvain would agree, it’s not a definition in the sense sought in the OP. The OP seeks a description of the contents of the concept that sits in the minds of faith-holders. Yvain, as I read him, is denying the existence of any such concept. For Yvain, “faith” is just a sort of verbal defensive behavior. In fact, if you knew only Yvain’s definition, you would think that the word “faith” was only used to defend one’s beliefs from attack by others.
This appears to me to be an inaccurate picture of what is going on in the minds of faith-holders. So, insofar as Yvain’s definition encourages this picture, the definition is inadequate.
It seemed quite accurate to me, but that can be because I am not much familiar with religious thinking. Can you provide an example of relatively recent use of “faith” outside an apologetic argument?
Here’s a page from a book that I got to by following a citation to the Wikipedia article on Faith. I’m looking at the first complete paragraph.
The text is written by a Christian for Christian readers. As near as I can make out, the page is not arguing that the reader is required to have faith, or that the writer’s faith can survive all criticism. So, I wouldn’t call it apologetics. The tone is more like, “So, we all have faith here. That’s not at issue. But, just what kind of animal is this faith thing that we have? Where does it come from? What role does it play in the fate of our souls?”
You are right. They don’t use the word to defend their beliefs, even if I can’t figure out for sure what “faith” is supposed to mean there. It seems still to play the role of a sort of stop-sign, with approximate meaning of “acceptance of Catholic dogma”.
Still, I am not sure whether there is a concept behind “faith” distinct from “belief immune from scrutiny”. I have found a Christian definition where they basically say that faith is a belief which is
not based on factual evidence, but rather hearsay
absolutely certain
motivated by God’s personal qualities
a supernatural act
That seems to vindicate the naïve atheist view of faith as a belief firmly held in spite of evidence.
...why did it not occur to me that the word “faith” might be a semantic stopsign?
Upvoted.
I didn’t read the article as doing that, nor any of the four hypotheses at the end. But I do read Phil’s response to you as doing so. Huh.
That is pretty close to be Phil’s first hypothesis “Faith as reaction to theory”
But Phil is saying that this is not an individual reaction, but a historical reaction. Protestants go on about faith all the time on their own, without any philosophers present.
If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory, how do you talk to religious people?
I understand the point you’re making, though I think you’re going too far when you say there isn’t a concept called “faith”. I should have explained that I’m responding to the use of “faith” in only 2 contexts:
faith as a technical Christian term: What did Jesus and Paul mean by faith? There is a large body of literature on this, and each denomination of Christianity has a pretty good idea what they mean by it.
faith as it is used as an argument against rationality.
Only the fourth and sixth definitions you listed above occur in those contexts.
That doesn’t follow from what Yvain said at all. There being no singular thing designated with the words “having faith” doesn’t mean those words always designate the same thing as the words “having a theory”. In fact, if they did there would be a singular thing they designate, which would directly contradict Yvain’s point!