Faith is to commit oneself to act based on sufficient experience to warrant belief, but without absolute proof.
The problem with this definition is that it describes every action you will ever take. “Absolute proof” does not exist with respect to anything in the real world. You only have absolute certainty in a definitional context, e.g.”There are no married bachelors”—this is true by definition, but tells you nothing about the actual world. Given that the last statement applies to every single instance, your statement reduces to:
Faith is to commit oneself to act based on sufficient experience to warrant belief.
This statement sounds just like “rational action.” That’s why many of us take issue with your definition of faith; it does not appear to be a productive concept. Insofar as absolute certainty is impossible, if you’re using faith to get you to absolute certainty, you’re doing something very, very wrong.
The other problem with this definition is that it is not really compatible with the dictionary definitions, the most pertinent one of which is “belief in the absence of proof.”
The problem with this definition is that it describes every action you will ever take. “Absolute proof” does not exist with respect to anything in the real world. You only have absolute certainty in a definitional context, e.g.”There are no married bachelors”—this is true by definition, but tells you nothing about the actual world. Given that the last statement applies to every single instance, your statement reduces to:
This statement sounds just like “rational action.” That’s why many of us take issue with your definition of faith; it does not appear to be a productive concept. Insofar as absolute certainty is impossible, if you’re using faith to get you to absolute certainty, you’re doing something very, very wrong.
The other problem with this definition is that it is not really compatible with the dictionary definitions, the most pertinent one of which is “belief in the absence of proof.”