Robert Holmes quoted the *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy*<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/faith/#FaiDoxVen>as listing these senses of "faith."
*the ‘purely affective’ model*: faith as a feeling of existential confidence *the ‘special knowledge’ model*: faith as knowledge of specific truths, revealed by God *the ‘belief’ model*: faith as belief *that* God exists *the ‘trust’ model*: faith as belief *in* (trust in) God *the ‘doxastic venture’ model*: faith as practical commitment beyond the evidence to one's belief that God exists *the ‘sub-doxastic venture’ model*: faith as practical commitment without belief *the ‘hope’ model*: faith as hoping—or acting in the hope that—the God who saves exists. Has the discussion done better than this? It seems to me that we are getting into trouble because (as this list illustrates) we (in English) use the word "faith" to mean a number of different things, which are only sometimes related to each other. My original concern was with "faith" in the sense of the fifth bullet. (The third bullet is explicitly based on belief in God.) According to the article, On the doxastic venture model, faith involves *full* commitment, in the face of the recognition that this is not ‘objectively’ justified on the evidence. That's pretty close to how I would use the term. To a great extent the article has a theological focus, which clouds the issue as far as I'm concerned. But here is more of what it says about faith as a doxastic venture. A possible view of theistic faith-commitment is that it is wholly independent of the epistemic concern that cares about evidential support: faith then reveals its authenticity most clearly when it takes faith-propositions to be true *contrary to* the weight of the evidence. This view is widely described as ‘fideist’, but ought more fairly to be called *arational* fideism, or, where commitment contrary to the evidence is positively favoured, *irrational* or *counter-rational* fideism. and Serious philosophical defence of a doxastic venture model of faith amounts to a *supra-rational* fideism, for which epistemic concern is not overridden and for which, therefore, it is a constraint on faith-commitment that it *not* accept what is known, or justifiably believed on the evidence, to be false. Rather, faith commits itself only*beyond*, and not against, the evidence—and it does so *out of* epistemic concern to grasp truth on matters of vital existential importance. The thought that one may be entitled to commit to an existentially momentous truth-claim in principle undecidable on the evidence when forced to decide either to do so or not is what motivates William James's ‘justification of faith’ in ‘The Will to Believe’ (James 1896/1956). If such faith can be justified, its cognitive content will (on realist assumptions) have to cohere with our best evidence-based theories about the real world. Faith may extend our scientific grasp of the real, but may not counter it. Whether the desire to grasp more truth about the real than science can supply is a noble aspiration or a dangerous delusion is at the heart of the debate about entitlement to faith on this supra-rational fideist doxastic venture model. *-- Russ * On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 5:00 PM, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert J. Cordingley wrote at 09/24/2012 04:38 PM: > > But my point (regarding God) was an expectation of action by whatever I > > have faith in and has nothing to do with action on my part. The > > expected action can be provision of n virgins, not going to hell, relief > > from pain, reincarnation as a higher being and all sorts of other forms > > of divine intervention. > > That's just a slight variation on what I laid out. The point being that > whatever the article of faith is (a being, an attribute of the world, > etc.), if it _matters_ to the conclusion whether or not that article is > true/false or exists or whatever, _then_ belief in it is more likely to > be called "faith". That's because the word "faith" is used to call out > or point out when someone is basing their position (or their actions), > in part, on an unjustified assumption. > > I.e. "faith" is a label used to identify especially important > components. Less important components can be negligible, ignored, or > easily adopted by everyone involved. > > > PS I may have missed it but please can you explain what a compressible > > process is? (I know how it relates to things like gasses and some > > liquids). R > > A compressible system can be (adequately) represented, mimicked, or > replaced by a smaller system. Any (adequate) representation of an > incompressible system will be just as large as the system itself. > > -- > glen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
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