History

In reviewing the different attitudes to faith we have been gradually moving away from reliance upon what we might call 'propositional truth'. Such a thing necessarily involves things that have at least some possibility of being proven. So, the statement "God exists" is seen as something that a particular experience - whether now or at some point in the future (even after death) - can be proven true.

However, our discussion of Pascal and William James has brought us some way towards a different attitude to religious belief. From certain perspectives propositional truth is seen as unnecessary - even harmful. Such a view was held by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55). The basis for this view was his assertion that no objective knowledge was possible because things were always open to sceptical doubt and changing interpretation. In this way he came to be seen as the first Existentialist philosopher, influencing later figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre.

Summary

From this point of view, the main question in life is not "What can we know?" or "What is knowledge?", but "What shall we do?" Since it is possible to view things in different ways, the emphasis is not on 'finding out' what things are like, but of choosing between various options. Since this choice leaves us with feelings of overwhelming responsibility and doubt - or "dread" and "despair" to use existentialist terms - the only real option is to have faith.

Accordingly, reason cannot provide a solution to our problems because there are no absolute standards by which to judge whether we are correct (we might think of sceptical arguments such as the "problem of induction", where things are only ever probable). Hence, faith is not reliant upon propostitions - such as "God will answer my prayers" (which, if it were taken as a proposition or statement of fact, might lead us to think that God doesn't exist).

Questions

1. What is non-propositional faith?

2. Why does Kierkegaard think there is no such thing as objective knowledge?

3. Can we have faith without reason? Think of examples.

4. Does this view make it possible for anyone to believe anything?

5. Does this view solve the problems associated with religious belief (such as the lack of evidence, the problem of evil, etc.)?

The problem of induction states that no matter how many times we experience something, we can never be sure that it will always happen that way.

Since induction is the process of deriving general laws from individual occurences, we can only ever observe a finite number of occurences.

The example most often given is the statement "All swans are white". Until the discovery of Australia - and black swans - this statement was seen to be as certain as "All men are mortal".