Faith

I think there has been too much nonsense written about faith, evidence, truth and knowledge. Perhaps the first thing about faith is that it is certainty which eludes reason. If there is a deductive process leading to B from A, then B is not a matter of faith (excepting the matter of belief in A, which might very well be a matter of faith). If there is evidence leading one to conclude that C is a likely scenario accounting for all the evidence, then this is a matter of reason as well. Only if there is a complete absence of conclusive evidence, all evidence being the sort that is supportive rather than directive (i.e. the evidence is consistent with the scenario, but does not necessitate it), can there be space for faith.

True faith is a stark, cold position. It is a redoubt set in a ring of high stone walls against a black and starless sky. Faith does not lend itself to questioning, and faith may entertain reason but is not susceptible to it. Faith has often been called an emotion, but it isn't even that - emotion has physiological effects and antecedents, but faith is too subtle for those. Faith is not a matter of the crude sensory perception of the body, or even the finer differential perception that the body derives from those senses.

Faith is thus not reliable in the evidential sense or the deductive sense; it is not reliable in terms of instinct, emotion or perception - if it were, it would be undermined by anything which could defeat these guardians of the mind. Why should faith be of any use to us then?

Faith is of use when no evidence or reasoning, no perception or emotion, can give us an answer. In a darkness where all human powers are cloaked and baffled, it is the one thing that might give us a chance of sight at all. For faith, as the Good Book says, is the assured certainty of things that are hoped for, and the substantive reality of things which are not perceived. It is justified true belief (as some have said about knowledge) which contains its own justification, certifies its own truth, and leads to raw and unembellished belief.

And it does not sit well with everyone, for there will always (of necessity as well as nature) be those who must see as through a glass darkly. It does not always sit well with me; it has a terrible bedside manner and an uncompromising personality. But I have learnt that it is the only thing, besides hope and love, that can be relied upon in dark times.