On Belief and Skepticism

What happens if you don’t know how to believe? At first, this question might seem nonsensical as how could someone not know how to believe?

David Hume articulated what would later be framed as the “is-ought” problem. In short, this problem declares that you cannot derive an “ought” statement from an “is” statement, i.e., you cannot derive what you ought to do from what is factually true. That’s not all Hume wrote though. Rather, he noted that you couldn’t do this without some initial assumption, i.e., a belief that is taken as axiomatic, or on faith. This is something that scientists know all too well as science itself rests on a set of axiomatic assumptions that cannot be proven but which are necessary. This is, in fact, true of all belief. Belief itself requires a kind of absolute faith in a set of axioms. Now, once those axioms of faith are established then you have a framework upon which to validate future claims. Science uses hypothesis and experimentation, empirical evidence, and logic as its methodology to validate future belief. If something conforms to the methodology and the axioms then it is believable.

What happens if you reject axioms? What if you’re hyper-skeptical? Well, you run into a well-established philosophical problem, namely that you can’t prove the axioms. Such a person would be left adrift, incapable of believing anything. Of course, you can’t function this way because you need to act in the world and if you need to act, you have to have a guiding philosophy, which of course rests on axioms. If those axioms aren’t accepted explicitly (act of faith) then they will be accepted implicitly and this has some very severe consequences. Being hyper-skeptical might at first appear to be a virtue. Such a person probably imagines him or herself as purely rational. But that isn’t what happens. Rather, they become purely irrational. Why?

Consider research on risk. There are longitudinal studies on children and risk-taking, measured in a number of ways. What happens to a kid who doesn’t take any risks as a child? The intuitive assumption is that they’d grow up hyper-cautious, i.e., risk-averse but this isn’t what happens. Rather, they grow up without an ability to assess risk at all. They end terrible judges of risk and so they manifest a reliable pattern of behavior. They don’t take reasonable risks with positive expected value but they do take unreasonable risks. They end up like the kind of person who folds pocket kings to a raise but go all-in for an inside straight. They do the opposite of what makes sense. This is also what happens to people who are hyper-skeptical and reject axioms. They don’t end up hyper-rational. Instead, they accept wild and crazy beliefs but reject reasonable and compelling ones. They end up as the kind of people who adopt New Age mysticism and conspiracy theories. They end up almost poetically irrational, all the while imagining themselves as superior creatures of reason and logic.

Now consider a religious problem, specifically a Christian one. Why do we need faith in order to be saved? It seems like a kind of bizarrely petty demand. What is the point of it? Well, this is where it gets neat. What would happen if God just hung around performing miracles? Wouldn’t we all believe in Him and follow His moral commands? Well, no. That’s the trick. Many of us would deny what we see with our own eyes. Many of us would look for additional explanations for God, and so on. There is actually no sufficient evidence to believe in a perfect, loving, omniscient deity. Apparently, God knows this because there is a remarkable quote in the Bible; Luke 16:31. I’ll paraphrase it as there are a lot of translation but the core is “if they do not belief Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced when a man rises from the dead.” Now there’s a lot of interpretation in that but one that I think is neglected is that it is a warning against hyper-skepticism. Note, He doesn’t say that they won’t believe a man COULD rise from the dead but does. They will reject what they see with their own eyes.

The trick here seems to be that rational belief requires faith. Irrational belief does not. It can but it doesn’t require it. Rational belief requires a strong “faith muscle” if you will. You have to have explicit faith in a set of axioms in order to develop rational belief. Here is why I think God requires faith. It’s not petty. Rather, it’s cognitive training. If we are to function well in the world then we need the capacity for rational belief, which in turn requires a trained capacity for faith.

Then, God insists that we develop our faith further, moving beyond the basic mechanics into an elevated form. This, again, is also curious. Once we have established axiomatic faith, what more is there to develop? Well, this Christ and salvation. If God is our axiomatic belief (and this includes a number of critical beliefs such as the claim that the world is rational, objective, and independent, as well as the moral claim that existence is good) then what more do we need? Well, accepting that claim produces a people capable of succeeding in the world as it is. It’s a utilitarian benefit. It allows for science and reason and logic and so on. It doesn’t produce moral transformation though. That is what the higher, more developed is for. That is what faith in Christ is for.

We can’t be saved if we don’t believe and we won’t be able to believe if we don’t have faith. So faith itself comes full circle. It is an initial requirement and then it comes back as a tool for transformation. We quite literally can’t be saved without faith.

And this is what Luke 16:31 appears, in part, to be warning against. If we don’t develop faith, we will not believe what is reasonable to believe. That, will induce us to irrational belief, which in turn will prevent us from progress, essentially. Now how is it possible that someone could make a claim like that? As I’m fond of saying, if that’s not divine, it’s a hell of a guess.