Faith Theory: – Notes toward a Cognitive Theory of Faith

Faith is not belief, and certainly not belief in anything specific. Faith is more fundamental and more primitive than belief. It is true that we have faith in anything we believe, but we can also have faith without belief. For example, the prelinguistic infant; the infant has not learned language and therefore cannot formulate specific beliefs, but the infant has come to understand that some “thing” (its primary caretaker, usually its mother) will be there in its moment of need; the infant has developed trust. This is faith. Faith is the trust that underlies any belief we hold, hence, if I believe X, then I trust (i.e., have faith) that X is true. But I may also trust without having developed any specific, clearly formulated belief.

1.0 I see a vase on the desk before me. I believe this on the basis of empirical experience, but I believe empirical experience on the basis of what? Philosophy is replete with vain attempts to prove the veracity of empirical experience, from Descartes’s genius malignus to the brain in a vat. There is no proof of empirical experience, it lies on a basis of faith. Our faith in empirical experience is deep, primitive, seldom disappointed, but it is nonetheless faith. All knowledge rests ultimately on faith; all chains of reasoning begin with faith.

1.0.1 One might say that faith is proven pragmatically, i.e., that I have faith in X expecting Y results and in fact I get Y results, so my faith in X is reinforced (or undermined if I do not get Y results). This assertion is true as far as it goes, but one must ask: How do I know that I got Y results? The answer, of course, is empirical experience, with the grounding of which is where we began. A pragmatic grounding of faith is therefore circular, faith is grounded in results which are grounded in faith. I conclude from this that faith is an absolutely primitive cognitive phenomenon; we cannot attempt to ground faith in anything beyond itself without finding ourselves moving in a circle. All belief is grounded in faith, even beliefs in so far as animals can be maintained to hold them. I affirm “animal faith.”

1.0.2 My main concern here is to understand how fath operates in human cognitive life, quite apart from anything pertaining to religion or religious faith. Then I hope to consider the different kinds of faith, of which religious faith will be one type. Finally I hope to determine whether there is any legitimate way to assess and rate the different kinds of faith; for example, is the faith we have in empirical experience in any sense better than or superior to religious faith, or vice versa?

1.1 Faith, even at its most primitive level, is always faith in something; its structure is intentional. That is to say, faith always has an object of some kind, although this object may be ambiguous or amorphous.

1.1.0 Generally the object of faith is a belief. Belief comes from the Latin “credo” (creed, doctrine, dogma) and faith comes from the latin “fide” (literally, trust). Beliefs are not identical with faith, any more than the object of perception (say, that vase) is identical with the process of perception (vision) itself. To say that belief is the object of faith, therefore, is to establish a clear dichotomy between belief and faith, just as there is a distinction between something seen (the vase) and the process of seeing it (visual perception).

1.1.1 The capacity for faith is innate, but skepticism is learned. This claim is evident from the gullibility of young children, who will initially believe anything. Only when their faith is betrayed do they learn distrust and skepticism. Experience teaches that it is inappropriate to have faith in all things equally, so we withdraw our faith in some things but retain it in others. This withdrawal is the beginning of critical thinking. The problem of epistemology is: when is faith warranted and when is it unwarranted?

1.1.1.1 We do not have faith equally in every product of cognition; for example, we do not have faith in objects of imagination. This lack of faith may be one of the main ways we have of discriminating objects of imagination from other objects in the cognitive flow. The faith we have in our own will is voluntary and requires effort; believing in myself is not necessarily easy. For example, I may wish to take an object of imagination (say, a plan) and make it real, but this may require great faith in myself and my abilities.

1.1.2 To say the capacity for faith is innate does not imply that faith is unlearned; quite the contrary, faith is developed through a natural dialectic of fulfillment and betrayal. Where faith is fulfilled it is sustained, where it is betrayed it is withdrawn. However, faith may also be acquired through non-natural means such as pedagogy. With the possible exception of religious faith based on mystical experience, all religious faith is acquired through pedagogy, although there is an innate need which this pedagogy satisfies. (There is a natural inclination toward forms of faith which satisfy innate needs.) All forms of circular faith are also initially acquired through pedagogy, although, having once been acquired, they become self-reinforcing. Belief in non-refutable theories would be a form of circular faith.

1.2 It is important to note that the withdrawal of faith is not the same as the affirmation of a counter-belief. Sometimes, if a belief is betrayed, the believer will revert to a kind of reaction formation and form a counter-belief. So, for example, if faith in God is betrayed, one may form a counter-belief that there is no God. But note that the counter-belief is itself a belief, and therefore comes with its own faith. A true withdrawal of belief does not lead to a reaction formation and hence there is no counter-belief; rather, in a genuine withdrawal of belief what remains is a suspension of belief, neither belief nor counter-belief, but rather all belief (on a particular subject) is held in abeyance.

1.3 Faith is necessarily open to the future. That is to say, faith inculcates expections about the future. The infant comes to expect the mother to care for it in its time of need. Because faith is open to the future it can be confirmed or disappointed. It is perhaps the severity of the disappointment that determines whether, and to what extent, a withdrawal of faith will result in the reaction formation of a counter-belief. But faith can also become circular or self-affirming.

1.3.1 Faith is circular or self-affirming when it becomes closed in upon itself. A circular faith cannot be challenged, the challenge or failure will always be explained away as something less than a betrayal. Circular faith is only possible at a fairly high level of cognitive development (high enough for explanations to exist), but its origins are probably to be sought in pre-linguistic training. If a child is taught that “X is true” even in the face of massive contrary evidence, then circular faith is the probable result.

1.4 Faith undergirds our acceptance even of empirical or a priori evidence. It is faith that leads me to believe my senses, it is faith that leads me to conclude that a certain line of reasoning, for example mathematical reasoning, is infallible.

1.4.1 When faith is shaken, doubt results. Doubt may lead to a reaction formation and the development of a counter-belief, but this is the result of doubt and is not to be confused with doubt itself. Pure doubt is simply the withdrawal of faith, as, for example, when one might withdraw one’s faith in one’s visual senses while trying to make one’s way through a house of mirrors. Doubt does not necessarily entail the formation of a counter-belief; doubt is the cessation of belief, not the negation of it.

1.4.2 Faith and doubt are dialectical and always come together. The possibly of doubt is always inherent in the actuality of faith. What I trust I may learn to distrust without necessarily learning to trust something else. Because faith is always dialectically connected to doubt, faith may require courage. No one who has seriously wrestled with the Genius Malignus of Descartes can disavow the courage necessary to infer conclusions about reality from the evidnce of the senses.

1.4.2.1 The preceding remark could be misleading and requires some clarification. Belief and doubt are dialectical and always come together, but faith, which is an innate propensity, does not come with doubt built in. Perhaps the closest thing to an innate counterpoint to faith is fear or anxiety; the infant is capable of feeling fear, as psychological studies have shown. In effect, the infant is born to trust but learns to doubt; there is some element of tragedy in this fact, but it is the necessary tragedy of life.

1.5 The main difference between belief and faith concerns the existence of language and the sophistication of thought. Faith, as stated above, can exist before the acquisition of language. Faith in its most primitive form is a wholehearted trust which rests in a feeling of security and the termination of all anxiety and fear. Belief, by contrast, can be highly abstract and command only minimal faith. For example, I can believe that all prime numbers greater than 2 are odd; I have faith in this assertion (and perhaps even a sense of security in the abstract domain of mathematics); but, the abstract faith which is attached to this belief is not the kind of whole-body, all consuming experience of primitive (i.e., infantile) faith. The negation of faith can be fear and doubt; the negation of belief is not fear but doubt.

1.5.1 A further difference between faith and belief is that there can be negative beliefs, but no negative faith. For example, the belief that “X is false” can be construed as a negative belief, but the faith one has in this belief is the same as the faith that one would have in the claim that “X is true.” (Remember that “faith” and “trust” are largely synonymous; there is no “negative trust.”) Any statement or proposition which one regards as true is an object of faith. As noted above, there can be a withdrawal of faith, but the withdrawal of faith is not the same as “negative faith,” which is an oxymoron. Rather, the withdrawal of faith my result in the reaction formation of a negative belief, and faith may subsequently be re-extended to this new belief.

1.5.1.1. It follows that demonic faith is as much faith as religious faith; so likewise the faith of an atheist is as much faith as that of a theist. The only position which is neutral on faith is the position of agnosticism, which is difficult to maintain and requires extreme intellectual vigilance. The agnostic withdraws faith, but does not allow it to re-extend itself to any new object, especially not to the reaction formation of a counter-belief. The “epokhe” (Greek meaning “abstention”) of Edmund Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology is the closest thing to an agnosticism toward the objects of cognition in general. The opposite of the epokhe Husserl calls the “natural attitude” and it is taken for granted that when the Phenomenologist is not exerting a conscious effort to sustain the epokhe, he will naturally slip back into the natural attitude. The natural attitude is therefore where we spend most of our cognitive lives, although it is possible to stake out areas (e.g., religion) where one will automatically re-enter epokhe.

1.5.2 It is a truism, therefore, that theists and atheists are “brothers in faith.” Both have a complete and usually unquestioned commitment to their beliefs. The doubt which comes dialectically attached to belief is willfully suppressed in both cases. The agnostic alone remains open to both sides, doubtful of both sides, and is able to hear the arguments of both sides with an unprejudiced ear. But if the agnostic is to remain agnostic he must be wary not to be swayed by the arguments of either side. The epokhe is an exacting discipline.

Moral Motivation

1.5.3 It is important to understand that faith is a feeling — or better, an attitude — that accompanies belief, in various grades and degrees. So a cognitive theory of faith is going to be the congitive theory of an attitude and the role of that attitude in cognitive life, including the holding of beliefs. My concern with infantile faith is merely to understand this feeling/attitude in its purest form. When we reach more sophisticated levels of thought we will usually, though not always, find this attitude in a more diluted form. Faith and belief are NOT synonymous. Belief always involves some propositional content; faith need not involve such content. So faith and belief are NOT logically coextensive. While every instance of belief involves some admixture of faith, some instances of faith (primitive, infantile) do not involve any admixture of belief. (I think this distinction may be at the root of the Biblical exhortation to the “faith of a little child”; the Biblical authors understood this distinction.) Belief is therefore a sub-category of faith, and not vice versa.

1.5.3.1 Doubt is also accompanied by a feeling or attitude. Doubt, as the withdrawal of faith, leaves a vacuum of security into which anxiety rushes. Anxiety is therefore symptomatic of the withdrawal of faith, but anxiety is not identical with the withdrawal of faith. Rather, the withdrawal of faith leaves a vacuum which must be filled by something, and anxiety is the most ready candidate. This interpretation conforms roughly to my reading of Kierkegaard’s “The Concept of Anxiety.” Kierkegaard regards anxiety as the consciousness of sin, and with this I do not agree. However, in so far as the consciousness of sin is coextensive with the absence of faith, then I think Kierkegaard has a piece of the truth. The presence of anxiety in doubt possibly explains the ease with which reaction formations develop in the wake of doubt.

2. Faith cannot come into conflict with faith, although faith may attach itself to conflicting ideas, and these ideas may come into conflict. For example, one may have faith in science and at the same time have faith in the Genesis account of the origin of the world. Or two different people may have faith in conflicting beliefs. This conflict indicates that faith is not necessarily rational, so when we are looking for “laws” (if such there be) which govern the attachment of faith to its object, we should not expect logical laws with a priori force, but rather empirical regularities which admit only of a posteriori support. However, the laws of faith may be logical in the sense that they may contain their own internal logic.

2.1 The first law of faith: Faith is the adhesive through which one becomes attached in the manner of belief to a concept, perception or experience. Such attachment entails acceptance, and so faith is the attitudinal basis on which any form of evidence (including and especially authority) is accepted. Faith is the attitudinal accompaniment of all positive or negative thought, although negative thought (reaction formation) requires faith first to go through a withdrawal process of doubt, then a subsequent reinvestment process.

2.1.1 Psychoanalysis speaks of a similar adhesive called “cathexis.” A cathexis is an investment of libinal energy which attaches the subject to an object of desire, the basic forms of which are “oedipal” and “narcissistic” cathexis. Faith does not attach us to objects of desire — although objects of faith may also be objects of desire — rather, faith attaches us to the objects of expectation or belief. The attachment of faith is as primitive and as invisible as the cathexis of desire. Faith is the ultimate credential for all our foundation beliefs, it is the first premise from which all chains of reasoning begin.

Etiquette vs Morality: Is Morality Relative Or Universal

2.2 Second law of faith: Faith is innate and its first stirrings are evident in infancy.

2.3 Third law of faith: Under normal circumstances, faith occurs involuntarily; however, it is possible to voluntarily induce faith through a process which amounts to pedagogy or propagandizing. Self-propagandizing in faith is possible.

2.3.2 Corollary of the third law: Circular (self-reinforcing) faith, and faith in conflicting objects, are in most cases the result of a propagandizing process which begins, typically, in youth.

2.3.2.1. The manipulation of faith makes possible something like Orwell’s “doublethink.”

2.3.3 For the agnostic, circular or self-reinforcing faith and the reaction formation of negative belief are both anti-critical in content and are therefore problematic.

2.3.3.1 The point of agnosticism is to attain a standpoint on faith which is at the same time critical but open to the legitimacy of the various attachments of faith. It now becomes necessary to ask: How does one judge the objects of faith? How does one say that this object of faith is justified and this one is not? Here we enter the realm of epistemology which deals at the higher level of belief and has little to say about the deeper levels of faith; we may say this much, however: Given its pre-rational nature, one must always be prepared to surrender one’s object of faith, even to the point of an absurd solipsism. Only in this way can anything approaching objectivity on the subject of faith be possible. If the “sacred” is that faith which cannot be relinquished, then nothing is sacred. This requirement is methodological.

3. What, then, causes faith to attach itself as it does? An infant enters the world, helpless, destined for death unless some outside party takes care of it. If the infant dies, faith never arises; but, if the infant is cared for and survives, the first act of faith is invested in the caregiver responsible for this survival. The similarity between the dynamics of faith and the dynamics of object relations in psychoanalytic theory is not lost on me, but this theory is purely phenomenological and based only on what is accessible to conscious observation.

3.1 Faith, once it appears on the scene, begins to attach itself to whatever fosters survival or, in a broader sense, whatever is successful, whatever works. The infant discovers that the caregiver comes when it cries, and so faith is invested in the first pseudo-causal relation. But then one day the caregiver does not come. Faith is shocked into withdrawal. Later, the caregiver returns and faith is reinvested, but now the dialects of faith and doubt has begun in its most rudimentary form.

3.1.1 Faith is the precondition of all action. No action, no matter how simple — say, reaching for my wallet — is possible without absolute faith that the world is the way I perceive it to be. Moreover, it is not possible for me to string thoughts together in a rational manner without absolute faith in the laws of logic (especially non-contradiction and excluded middle). Since faith is the precondition of physical or psychological action, this means that faith has already entered the scene when such actions become possible. Clearly there is a connection between faith and what Hume calls “habit,” but faith is more fundamental because the formation of habits (behavioral or psychological) already presupposes the ability to act. We are, as it were, born in a state of faith.

3.1.1.1 To say that humans are born n a state of faith is merely to say that we are predisposed toward abolute trust in our senses and in reason. But this predisposition to faith is easily extended to other things through natural or pedagogical reinforcement. At some point we must raise the ethical question: Are there some things in which it is wrong to have faith, either for reasons of straightforward error, or because any act of faith (which is any act at all) has consequences.

Is It Possible for God to be Perfect ?

3.2 It is wrong to have faith in supernatural entities or forces. Such faith is wrong not merely from the standpoint of lacking natural reinforcement — i.e., it is erroneous — it is also wrong in a moral sense.

3.2.1 Moral reasoning must always be perspicuous; this is necessary in order for us to know what we are doing, and in order for us to offer rational explanations for the morality of what we do. Faith in the supernatural is not only rationally indefensible, it can lead to actions the morality of which is indefensible. When a “supernaturalist” is tasked to give a moral justification of his actions, he is unable to do so; he can do nothing but appeal to a supernatural authority. The justification is irrational. Moreover, supernaturalists may claim that their supernatural authority is not only “above nature” but also “above reason” — super-rational. In this case, anything goes; no rational justification is possible, and none is expected. “Because X says so” becomes the ultimate explanation and justification for everything.

3.2.1.1 Moral reasoning should always be based on principle or on consequences — or both, if you’re clever enough. But moral reasoning should never be based on authority, for all authority is capricious.

3.2.1.2 Suppose you died and found yourself before the bar of divine justice. But suppose God, the judge, came forth and said, “I am bored with the saints. You sinners come in and party; you saints go to hell.” What is to prevent all the devout believers from being left in the outer darkness while the children of light are admitted to the inner illumination? What is to prevent this but a promise, a covenant. You have faith that God is a promise keeper, but on what is this faith based? It is based on the faith that God is morally perfect; if this is taken as a moral truth, what does it entail? Inter-alia, that God cannot be omnipotent, for a God who is morally perfect cannot sin, and therefore cannot do anything. If God is logically possible, then His power is limited.

3.2.1.3 It makes sense to think of God in terms of limited power, because it explains why God would be interested in our souls; to sway the balance of power.

3.2.1.4 I say “it is wrong to have faith in supernatural entities,” then I speak of God. Either I contradict myself without compunction, or God is not a supernatural entity. The God of Spinoza would fit this description; this was, incidentally, the God in which Einstein believed.

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