The Nature of Faith
Year Delivered or Published: None
Author: Jennifer Kerns
Author's Faith: Athiest
Date Submitted to Inspiration and Issues: November 16, 2006
Topic: Interfaith Issues
Any kind of forum on the topic of interfaith dialogue brings to my mind the old futile debate of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Faith is not something that can be discussed rationally, and that’s because religious believers invoke faith at precisely those times when reason fails to give them the answers they want. Some wish to claim faith as a way to attain knowledge that reason allegedly is incapable of providing, but the question then remains: What, exactly, should I have faith in? Christians have faith, Buddhists have faith, and so do Muslims and Moonies. Once again we’re left with reason to sort out the differences.
The problem with faith as a means to knowledge is that one person's faith can directly contradict another's. For example, the Bible says that all non-Christians are going to hell (John 14.6), and the Koran says that all Christians and Jews are going to hell (Chapter 9:73). Obviously, at least one of these religions has to be devastatingly wrong. To invoke faith here is just a way to justify averting one's eyes from the glaring contradictions one doesn’t want to see.
It’s time we realized that faith is not a path to knowledge; it’s a path to unsubstantiated certainty. Faith will never tell us which religion, if any, is true; it will only convince us that whatever religion we happen to believe in must be that true one. Those who say that reason isn’t everything, that reason is fallible, are correct. But reason is the best thing we have when it comes to learning about reality, and to abdicate it in favor of something that leads to blatant contradictions is to give up on the quest for truth.
