The Proper Role Of Faith: To Supersede Evidence?

[3DOP]

Faith can fill the void where there is no evidence and thus allow a person to believe in something which is otherwise not supported by evidence. For example, there is no definitive proof ONE WAY OR THE OTHER that God exists, so faith can properly stand in where there is a lack of evidence and allow us to believe in God.

But when evidence does exist, should faith ever be used to supersede the evidence? For example, suppose you a member of one of those apocalyptic religions with a prophet who says God has communicated with him and told him that the world will end on a certain date but the prophesy fails. This is evidence that the prophet was unable to differentiate between his own imagination and revelation from God. Therefore, we are not without evidence, there is evidence indicating that the prophet is not who he claims to be. Is it alright in this situation to supersede/reject that evidence by relying on faith that the prophet is actually who he claims to be? In other words, should you as a member of the religion dismiss that failed prophesy by superseding it with the fact that you have faith that the prophet is really who he claims to be?

Background: I have been going through a faith crisis based on things I've learned about the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, etc. There seems to be legitimate (though not indisputable) evidence pointing to the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham not being entirely what Joseph claimed them to be. I'm not looking to debate these things, I'm just trying to figure out what the role of faith is in all of this. Can I use faith to supersede this evidence? Or should faith only be used as a stand in for evidence where no evidence exists? In other words, is evidence that the BoM and BoA ARE what Joseph claimed them to be the proper counter to evidence that the BoM and BoA are NOT what Joseph claimed them to be? Or should faith play a role?

Thanks!

 

If this is written exclusively for LDS you might be okay. But I reject your premise regarding proof that God exists. It is an article of faith with Catholics, that one may and should arrive at the belief in the mere existence of a Creator God by the light of natural reason. (Vatican Council I taught this).

 

It cites passage like Rom 1 and Ps. 18 or 19 as the Scriptural evidence. Heavens declaring the glory of God and stuff like that saying that a rational look at nature leads to this knowledge. Like LDS, I think most Catholics would reject the teaching of Vatican I today. But there are a lot of us who still believe it.

 

But to your bigger question...How could faith overturn evidence of a rational nature. Faith is seeing through a glass darkly. It is knowledge of higher things and therefore superior to reason in subject matter. It goes where reason cannot follow. But it is inferior knowledge in that it is vague. We are not always supplied with reasons. I could not have faith in something that was demonstrably irrational. But the problem is resolved when one reflects on the fact that faith knowledge is ordinarily not something we could know of by reason. Take baptism. How could reason be applied to the question of whether baptism does what faith says it does? 

 

Anyway, I wasn't trying to be contrary, and I know Mormons might not teach a line of demarcation between that which may be known by reason, and that which may be known by faith only. Except for the Vatican I part (you guys think God is inaccessible to reason), I don't think it is necessarily contrary to the LDS faith.   

Edited December 21, 2013 by 3DOP

[mfbukowski]

As we all know, I can go on for hours on this topic and could completely take over this thread if y'all let me.

 

But let me say at least this:

 

Science and logic teach us how the world works- how to get things done and how to make up stories about the way things "really are" though we can never get beyond our human experiences to know more about "reality" than what we perceive it to be.  So ultimately even science and logic are really STILL about how humans perceive the world, not about the "world itself".  Science and logic show us how to make rockets, and build bridges, and make computers which almost "think".

 

The problem is that science and logic do NOT tell us anything about what is important to mankind.  We can build a bridge- but SHOULD WE?  What is the environmental impact?  What is the economic impact?  Is building a bridge the "BEST" thing to do?

 

Science cannot answer the question.

 

Science cannot prove that it is "wrong" to commit genocide.  There is no logic that can show that we "should" or should not do anything.

 

So there are two questions:  1- How do things work and 2- what is important in life?

 

All answers to the question of what is important in life are based essentially on faith, or what we "feel in our hearts".   We feel in our hearts that genocide is wrong.  We feel in our hearts that we should not cheat on our wives.  We feel in our hearts that we should save the environment, provide for the poor, feed the hungry, etc etc etc.

 

Long ago a philosopher named Hume showed that statements about the state of the world are talking about something quite different than statements about values and religion.

 

So really religion and science are speaking about two different things, as disparate as baseball and Impressionist painting.  One is about what is important in life and why it is important, and the other is about how the world works.

 

"But surely factual information is important in religion- if Christ was never really resurrected, if that event never actually happened, then all of Christianity is a lie" one might say.

 

Wrong.

 

The religious meaning of Christ's resurrection cannot be proven scientifically any more than "genocide is wrong" can be proven scientifically.   Even if there WAS a human being named Jesus who came back from the dead, does that prove he was the Son of God and that he died for our sins?  Of course not! 

 

The importance of an event is not the event itself- IMPORTANCE is in the human INTERPRETATION of the event, and science does not make value judgements or interpretations which imply value judgements.

 

Science tells us (arguably) that the worldwide temperature is going up, and essentially says "So what"?  For all one might say about Al Gore, his movie captured this point perfectly in it's title- "An Inconvenient Truth".

 

Why was this alleged "truth" considered "inconvenient"?  Just because it (according to one INTERPRETATION) forecast the extermination of mankind.  Science makes no judgements about whether or not the extermination of mankind is "convenient" or not- according to science, that is just a "fact" that just plain "IS".

 

So faith and science are discussing two different realms, and I wouldn't get all hot and bothered with what appear to be alleged "conflicts" because there really ARE no "conflicts" there at all.

 

That's the short explanation, but if you really want to go into the long one, I can repost all the videos etc.  Yawn.

[mfbukowski]

If this is written exclusively for LDS you might be okay. But I reject your premise regarding proof that God exists. It is an article of faith with Catholics, that one may and should arrive at the belief in the mere existence of a Creator God by the light of natural reason. (Vatican Council I taught this).

 

It cites passage like Rom 1 and Ps. 18 or 19 as the Scriptural evidence. Heavens declaring the glory of God and stuff like that saying that a rational look at nature leads to this knowledge. Like LDS, I think most Catholics would reject the teaching of Vatican I today. But there are a lot of us who still believe it.

 

But to your bigger question...How could faith overturn evidence of a rational nature. Faith is seeing through a glass darkly. It is knowledge of higher things and therefore superior to reason in subject matter. It goes where reason cannot follow. But it is inferior knowledge in that it is vague. We are not always supplied with reasons. I could not have faith in something that was demonstrably irrational. But the problem is resolved when one reflects on the fact that faith knowledge is ordinarily not something we could know of by reason. Take baptism. How could reason be applied to the question of whether baptism does what faith says it does? 

 

Anyway, I wasn't trying to be contrary, and I know Mormons might not teach a line of demarcation between that which may be known by reason, and that which may be known by faith only. Except for the Vatican I part (you guys think God is inaccessible to reason), I don't think it is necessarily contrary to the LDS faith.   

So faith is still "reason" but we are not supplied with reasons.  A tad problematic.

 

Dualism.  Sigh.  Greek philosophy.   Sigh.  How come you guys don't get that once you bring "reason" into "faith" your goose is cooked?  You essentially stipulate from the beginning to a position that caused all this science/faith alleged conflict two thousand years ago!

 

Become a heretic (you already are, you traditionalist you), and read some Teilhard de Chardin who, in the last news I got from the other side is already a Mormon.  He got this eternal progression thing right on the money!

 

You know I love you!  

 

Besides I think in our hearts we are already members of the "same church" that the institutions haven't quite caught up to yet!

Edited December 21, 2013 by mfbukowski

[Robert F. Smith]

This is interesting, thanks Robert. So it seems like you view faith as sort of evidence itself, not something that supersedes evidence. Faith is 1)a trust built up over time based on consistent positive results of testing (what would this be, by the way, like feeling you are happier by living what's taught in the BoM?) and 2)spiritual confirmations of truth. So it sounds like faith is simply another piece of evidence to consider when comparing the evidence for and against something like the Book of Mormon being true. Did I understand you correctly?

Yes, and I would add that one should not jettison that faith or trust for light and transient causes (anger that something didn't go my way today), or even based on some major tragedy.

[Robert F. Smith]

If this is written exclusively for LDS you might be okay. But I reject your premise regarding proof that God exists. It is an article of faith with Catholics, that one may and should arrive at the belief in the mere existence of a Creator God by the light of natural reason. (Vatican Council I taught this).

 

It cites passage like Rom 1 and Ps. 18 or 19 as the Scriptural evidence. Heavens declaring the glory of God and stuff like that saying that a rational look at nature leads to this knowledge. Like LDS, I think most Catholics would reject the teaching of Vatican I today. But there are a lot of us who still believe it.

 

..........................................................  

Anyway, I wasn't trying to be contrary, and I know Mormons might not teach a line of demarcation between that which may be known by reason, and that which may be known by faith only. Except for the Vatican I part (you guys think God is inaccessible to reason), I don't think it is necessarily contrary to the LDS faith.   

I am sympathetic, Rory, and the Book of Mormon suggests likewise that proof of the existence of God can be based on the grandeur and wonderfully designed natural world in which we live (Alma 30:44), suggesting that, as with Goldilocks, everything was "just right" and fine-tuned for human habitation.  Modern science makes it clear that the spontaneous appearance of life is highly unlikely.  Yet here it is.  Who fine tuned everything?

[pogi]

Faith does not trump evidence, faith is evidence.  Evidence is not limited to the temporal realm, we should not ignore or dismiss spiritual evidences when weighing spiritual claims.  If you are only observing physical evidence, you are only observing a fraction of what is.  It would be like trying to study the anatomy of a person by only looking at the skin.

 

Here are some quotes from a great talk by Elder Bednar.

 

https://www.lds.org/topics/faith?lang=eng

 

The Apostle Paul taught that “faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Alma made a similar statement: “If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Faith is a principle of action and power. Whenever we work toward a worthy goal, we exercise faith. We show our hope for something that we cannot yet see.hings which are not seen [but] are true” (Alma 32:21).

 

These teachings highlight three basic elements of faith: (1) faith as the assurance of things hoped for that are true, (2) faith as the evidence of things not seen, and (3) faith as the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

 

Assurance, action, and evidence influence each other in an ongoing process. This helix is like a coil, and as it spirals upward it expands and widens. These three elements of faith—assurance, action, and evidence—are not separate and discrete; rather, they are interrelated and continuous and cycle upward. And the faith that fuels this ongoing process develops, evolves, and changes. As we again turn and face forward toward an uncertain future, assurance leads to action and produces evidence, which further increases assurance. Our confidence waxes stronger, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.

[Bikeemikey]

You need to gain a more basic understanding of what faith actually is, which is to be sure about something.  And that's all it is.

 

Once you have it, or in other words once you are sure about something, you can then probe to determine where your faith may have come from by trying to determine what it was that caused you to be sure in the first place.  Are you sure about that because somebody told you that in Sunday School and you just believed what that person told you?  Why did you believe that person?  What was it that caused you to be sure that what that person was saying was true?

 

Lots of people have faith in something that isn't actually true, even though they are sure that what they are sure of is true.  Like some people are sure the Book of Mormon is NOT what it claims to be within its pages, but the fact that they are sure about that doesn't mean they are right about that.  And why are they sure it is not what it is?  Because they believed someone who told them it is not what it actually is.

 

I think the constant tendency to equate faith with surety can create a lot of issues for religious folks. 

 

Alma 32 does not express faith in terms of surety... in fact, it suggests that once you have faith you should go about constantly testing it until you can move past it. The objective beyond faith? Knowledge... or surety.

 

Faith is Hope. It is possible to be highly hopeful with very limited surety. Of course we also equate faith with hope in truth, but we only know if we have had faith in truth based on the outcome... that is the testing of our faith.

 

It should be noted that we never actually test out "faith" directly. That is faith is not actually the thing being tested. Rather, Alma is proposing a process where "faith" is the process having enough hope/belief in a concept, idea, or principle that we are willing to test it. Faith is more a process in Alma's exposition on the subject. Faith is a process that we apply to our own concepts and ideas in order to test them. 

 

As such, the faithless are both those who disregard a principle out of hand and refuse to test it, as well as those who accept a principle fully and thereby refuse to test it. Faithlessness is a process we apply to our ideas.

[Helen47]

Just reading a book called The Bible Unearthed:Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman both involved in archaeology. Chapters like 'Searching for the Patriarchs", "Did the Exodus Happen?", "The Conquest of Canaan" The authors come down on the negative side. Finkelstein is director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. If it is shown the 'wall did not come tumbling down at the battle Jericho"how much faith can we have in much of the historicity of the early OT.

[mfbukowski]

I am sympathetic, Rory, and the Book of Mormon suggests likewise that proof of the existence of God can be based on the grandeur and wonderfully designed natural world in which we live (Alma 30:44), suggesting that, as with Goldilocks, everything was "just right" and fine-tuned for human habitation.  Modern science makes it clear that the spontaneous appearance of life is highly unlikely.  Yet here it is.  Who fine tuned everything?

I totally agree.

 

For some crazy reason I tend to want to describe everything in two alternative ways, one of which will appeal to theists and the other to atheists.  My reason for doing that is to come up with a unified description of the two positions, which hopefully might create a statement which is "true" for all.

 

The alternative explanation I would use in this case is that WE humans are the ones who "fine tuned" everything in the sense that we SEE FINE TUNING.  We want to see that fine tuning, and so we see it.

 

We are the ones who come up with seeing the universe as "organized" because we are organizing creatures.  That's what humans do- we organize things.  We knock one rock against another to make a flint which we can tie to a stick to make an "arrowhead" to kill an animal.  Why do we do that?  Because we have a purpose in mind.

 

All we do we do for a purpose.  We create "order".  A field full of trees and rocks and brush is "matter unorganized" so we clear the field, get rid of the rocks, plow it, and now we have created "order".  We take the lumber from the trees and create a house, and now we have "order".  All this activity has a purpose, so we look at the universe and wonder what its "purpose" is.  What purpose can we see in all this?

 

As I see it, in Mormonism both these views become harmonized in the incredible notion that God himself is a Glorified Human.  Humans are the creators of purpose, and we impose these purposes and make matter unorganized into a purposeful creation.

 

So at the same time, we can say that a Glorified Man created the universe and simultaneously that Man's need for "fine tuning" actually created that "fine tuning", just as our need for a house created the house.

 

So which is it "really"? 

 

Do we perceive the fine tuning because we want to see purpose in the universe, or did Man create the universe with a purpose?

 

If Man (The Man of Holiness) organized the universe, both these perspectives are true simultaneously.

 

Yes, we perceive "fine tuning" because we want to see purpose, just as we want to see purpose in the natural field, waiting to be plowed.

Yes, we are humans are mini-gods in embryo, seeing purpose in matter unorganized, just as our human Man of Holiness sees it in the universe.

 

It is as if we can look through one eye and see it one way, look through the other eye and see it the other way.

 

So who is right?  Both.  It depends on how we want to see it.

[mfbukowski]

I think the constant tendency to equate faith with surety can create a lot of issues for religious folks. 

 

Alma 32 does not express faith in terms of surety... in fact, it suggests that once you have faith you should go about constantly testing it until you can move past it. The objective beyond faith? Knowledge... or surety.

 

Faith is Hope. It is possible to be highly hopeful with very limited surety. Of course we also equate faith with hope in truth, but we only know if we have had faith in truth based on the outcome... that is the testing of our faith.

 

It should be noted that we never actually test out "faith" directly. That is faith is not actually the thing being tested. Rather, Alma is proposing a process where "faith" is the process having enough hope/belief in a concept, idea, or principle that we are willing to test it. Faith is more a process in Alma's exposition on the subject. Faith is a process that we apply to our own concepts and ideas in order to test them. 

 

As such, the faithless are both those who disregard a principle out of hand and refuse to test it, as well as those who accept a principle fully and thereby refuse to test it. Faithlessness is a process we apply to our ideas.

I think the confusion arises because the word "know" is ambiguous- one can "know" things or be "certain" about things which may or may not be "true".

 

All of these terms are ambiguous so we have to watch out and see exactly what the intent of the statement is.

 

One can be absolutely certain that the moon is made of green cheese, or accept that on faith and be wrong.  On the other hand one can be certain that it is wrong to kill babies and accept that on faith and be right.

 

So all of these are kind of independent variables all with variable meanings.  You have ambiguity on top of ambiguity in almost geometric progression!

 

So I think it's important not to get too caught up in words. 

[mfbukowski]

Just reading a book called The Bible Unearthed:Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman both involved in archaeology. Chapters like 'Searching for the Patriarchs", "Did the Exodus Happen?", "The Conquest of Canaan" The authors come down on the negative side. Finkelstein is director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. If it is shown the 'wall did not come tumbling down at the battle Jericho"how much faith can we have in much of the historicity of the early OT.

None, but that doesn't matter.  The bible is not about history- it is about religion.

 

Of course if you actually think God made the world in 6 days, you will probably be in for a rough ride.

[Helen47]

I follow the views on this site http://biologos.org/  

 

Do you believe Abraham was a historical character or accept van peters views?

[Robert F. Smith]

Just reading a book called The Bible Unearthed:Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman both involved in archaeology. Chapters like 'Searching for the Patriarchs", "Did the Exodus Happen?", "The Conquest of Canaan" The authors come down on the negative side. Finkelstein is director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. If it is shown the 'wall did not come tumbling down at the battle Jericho"how much faith can we have in much of the historicity of the early OT.

Israel Finkelstein is what is known in biblical scholarship as a "minimalist."  He goes for the half-empty rather than half-full explanation every time, but he is a great guy and has many "maximalist" friends -- to whom he has been on the losing side of the debate for about a decade now (due especially to the discoveries of Eilat Mazar in her Jerusalem excavations, and based on the 7 years of work by Joseph Garfinkel  at Khirbet Qeiyafa).  See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/king-david-palace-archaeologists-khirbet-qeiyafa_n_3620053.html .

 

I recall attending a two-hour debate at UCLA a decade ago in which Israel Finkelstein and Lawrence Stager took opposite positions.  Finkelstein lost, but everyone remained buddy-buddy.  Scholarship cannot advance when everyone agrees on everything.  There must needs be opposition in all things/

[Helen47]

 

_{http://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/reviews/unearthed.htm}

 

 

Edited December 23, 2013 by Helen47

[Robert F. Smith]

I follow the views on this site http://biologos.org/  

 

Do you believe Abraham was a historical character or accept van peters views?

You are referring to John van Seters, who is a great scholar.

 

There is no direct historical evidence for the existence of the Abraham of the Bible, and until late in the 20th century there was no direct evidence for the existence of King David.  There is likewise no direct historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus.  In such cases of lack of direct evidence, historians must extrapolate from other indicators, such as the mise en scene:  For example, are the cultural traditions in keeping with the time in which Abraham is supposed to have existed, or are there signs that it is mere folklore invented in a later age?  What can we know based on the facts which we do have, and what can we infer from them?  After all, history is not facts, but the interpretation of facts.

[mfbukowski]

I follow the views on this site http://biologos.org/  

 

Do you believe Abraham was a historical character or accept van peters views?

I don't know who van peters is.

 

I think he was historical but it really doesn't matter.  It cant be proven either way, and the importance of what we learn from "Abraham" is not about history or science.  It is about the right way to live.

[Helen47]

Unusual approach for a Mormon, are you quiet in your GD class?

[mfbukowski]

Unusual approach for a Mormon, are you quiet in your GD class?

No need to be!  Perhaps you did not understand.

 

I THINK HE WAS HISTORICAL.

 

Suppose our beliefs were based on the historic fact that Xylon of Org defeated Kongu at the battle of Sephardonu on the planet Jujubee.

 

Unfortunately we cannot confirm the history.  We still can believe that it actually happened.  No difference.

 

If something cannot be proven, it cannot be proven.  And even literature can have spiritual value.  Have you ever read philosophy or even CS Lewis?

 

None of that is historically provable- neither is any religious belief in any religion.

 

No,  trust me.  I am about as true blue Mormon as they come- I have just thought these issues through for my whole life where others may not have.