Often in discussion with non-theists online, I witness a certain caricature of “belief” as though it is unnecessary to attaining knowledge. A recent post I read here, seems to echo these sentiments which I would like to address.
In this post, the author quotes Carl Sagan who states: “I don’t want to believe, I want to know.” This quote is ambiguous since it could mean at least one of two things. Sagan could be saying that (1) “belief” is antithetical to the quest for knowledge. If this is Sagan’s intended meaning, the history of epistemology is against him. According to most standard definitions of knowledge–whether on internalist or externalist accounts–belief is a necessary condition for knowledge. For example, according to the standard tripartite definition of knowledge, a person S knows that P, if and only if:
1. S believes that P.
2. S is justified in believing P when S believes P.
3. P is true.
Thus, it is not so much that belief is antithetical to knowledge; instead, it is a necessary component in order to know anything at all. Belief, in this more appropriate sense, is much like what J.P. Moreland states in his book Loving Your God with All Your Mind: ” A belief is a person’s view, accepted to varying degrees of strength, of how things really are” (Moreland 70).
Unfortunately, belief is a loaded phrase in some online circles. So loaded is the word “belief” that it indicates one who is willing to accept a proposition without any justification. So what I think Sagan and the author of the blog are getting at, though, is that mere belief should not be our end. Rather, we need to have beliefs which are justified for us in some way. This would be the precise way to state Sagan’s sentiment, and I think the more helpful way in conversation. We all, unquestionably, have beliefs. The issue, though, is whether those beliefs are justified or not.
Christopher Copan Scott
Daniel James Levy
sethshively
Thomas Andrew McPhail
If you knew much about Carl Sagan or atheists you wouldn’t think it’s ambiguous.
If some atheists didn’t use epistemological terms in a loaded manner, then I wouldn’t have written this blog in the first place. And, yes, I knew what he was getting at; however, employing technical terms in a muddled way is not fruitful for good discussion.
Furthermore, in the end, I tried to be charitable by promoting what I thought he, as an atheist, was getting at. Namely, that it is this notion of “unjustified beliefs”–not merely the act of believing– that he finds problematic. In so doing, I think I demonstrate that I have some understanding of atheism.
So you admit you knew how the quote was meant to be used but decided to manufacturer a point to quibble about. Feigning misunderstanding and attempting to deceive your audience isn’t fruitful for good discussion either.
Are all of the topics on this blog going to be as deceptive as this one?
I knew with some deal of probability that he was asserting the second understanding of “belief” which I discussed in my blog; nonetheless, I thought, and still maintain, that there’s a semantically meaningful distinction that would help clarify Sagan’s quote–namely, that it is unjustified belief, not belief in and of itself, that is antithetical to knowledge. Some today go around as though “belief” is the problem, when, in fact, it is a certain kind of belief that is.
Furthermore, It’s strange to say someone is “Feigning misunderstanding” when one states in the very blog that, “So what I think Sagan and the author of the blog are getting at, though, is that mere belief should not be our end. ” A sentence can be ambiguous in the sense that it offers itself to more than one meaning, even if you have inferred what the most plausible rendering of the sentence is.
As for your last question, yes. If by “deceptive” you intend to mean, “honestly stating the intent of the blog (both in the blog itself and the comments) and trying to help clarify muddled terms.”
I guess this occurrence is similar to this hypothetical: Suppose if you’re friend thought that the word “table” applied to both tables and chairs. Furthermore, suppose when you go to restaurants he sometimes tells the waiter or waitress to get him a nice table to sit on. Although you know what he’s getting at since you’ve been around him long enough, it’s not helpful when you conflate certain terms to mean things that, in and of themselves, they do not mean.
LIkewise, when you conflate the term “belief” with “unjustified belief”, it muddles the conversation since obviously everyone has beliefs. The important question is the amount of justification each belief has.
While you obviously got to #1, believing that christ is your redeemer, what now?
would you consider whether 2 and 3 also apply or would you just take it on faith that you’re justified to believe it and that the statement is true?
Good question, Yoav.
As you rightly state, I’ve satisfied the first condition that is necessary for knowing the proposition “Christ is my redeemer.” However, in order to know this proposition, conditions (2) and (3) have yet to be satisfied.
I do think that there are good arguments for the existence of God, for the reliability of the New Testament, and most importantly the resurrection of Christ. Furthermore, personal religious experiences I’ve had also amounts justification to my belief that “Christ is my redeemer.” If these reasons are adequate, then yes I am justified in this belief. Of course, this is beyond the scope of this individual blog piece; however, as I continue blogging, I will discuss in more depth certain arguments for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity that I find persuasive.
As an aside, I’m quite sure that how you define “faith” is different than how I define “faith.” On my understanding, faith is assenting to what you have reason to believe. Nonetheless, I understand that you mean to ask: “Do I believe this without justification?”
So to directly answer your question: If what I take to be justification is sufficient for my belief, then yes; if otherwise, then no.
Your understanding of belief, i.e. “faith is assenting to what you have reason to believe”, seems to be in contradiction of how the New Testament defines faith – “Now faith is being certain of what we hope for, and sure of what we do not see.” I would, and I certainly have heard that passage used, to justify faith without reason, and I’m sure is a major reason why many non-believers define faith this way. “Just have faith!” seems to me to be an exhortation to wishful thinking.
Please see, “Does the New Testament Affirm ‘Faith Without Reason’?”
http://christmyredeemer.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/does-the-new-testament-affirm-faith-without-reason/
Personal experience is extremely problematic as evidence.
1. Our senses are not always 100% reliable and we can sometimes be mistaken, I’m sure you are aware of this in other aspects of your life. If you’re shopping for a used car you’re not going to rely solely on the salesman coming on as honest and reliable since you know that his job is to look that way while sticking you up with an overpriced lemon, instead you will have the car inspected to make sure it doesn’t fall apart 10 minutes after driving off the lot.
2. Believers of other religions have the same kind of personal experiences and I doubt you will accept that as evidence for the truth of islam or hinduism or whatever, you will probably discount their experience as being, depending on which flavor of christianity you subscribe to, as mistaken or as being deceived by that satan fellow.
Yoav,
For one, it is important to note that I do not take my personal experiences in total isolation. It’s not as though I merely said: “I have these experiences.” Rather, I said I have these experiences along with some arguments.
Furthermore, simply because it is possible that we are mistaken does not mean that we shouldn’t trust our cognitive faculties. Else, how can you trust that you are not in a life-like dream or a brain-in-a-vat? It’s possible, logically speaking, that you are. Nonetheless, you are rational for not allowing these far-fetched possibilities paralyze trust in your cognitive faculties.
Moreover, I’m not one who would deny immediately that said experiences from other religions are by definition false. It could be that God is, indeed, granting them some sort of religious experience. If it is Satan, then that’s not denying that said people are having religious experiences; rather, it may be that they are interpreting them wrongly. In truth, it’s irrelevant. I’m only speaking of myself, and I’m justified in these experiences prima facie. That is, in the absence of defeaters, I am rational in holding to these.
A believe in another god can make the same claim and we have no way to tell the difference, however at least one of you is wrong. A true rational argument should be applicable
regardless of whether you already believe or not.
Unless you came up with the first new argument in favor of god/ jesus in the last 1000 years you may find that your argument all crumble if you don’t make the presupposition that christianity is true. Since you have already dabbled into UF I suggest you look around the forum section where the different apologetics have been discussed in great length and see if you have any argument that haven’t been addressed a thousand times before.
If two believers both appeal to personal experience, then they are, obviously, at an epistemic standstill. This is where the believers could offer whatever arguments they have in line with whatever creed they adhere to which would render certain “experiences” likely or unlikely.
Friend, don’t presume that atheism has the trump on reason. Also don’t act as though UF decisively lays down the hammer on any argument for the existence of God.It doesn’t. I can address the arguments in UF; they do not scare me.
And atheists value being “open to the evidence”. An argument that was once thought to be false could be revised in some way to make it seem plausible once again. A premise which was thought implausible, could be rendered plausible once new distinctions are brought into question and certain presuppositions are given light.
Go ahead.
You describe what you think is one of those two things, but you don’t describe what the other is. I guess you realised that it wasn’t so ambiguous after all.
I’d say that belief is very often not so much “unnecessary to attaining knowledge”, as it is a barrier to attaining knowledge. Once believers believe, any attempt to give them knowledge (or any searching for knowledge that they may consider themselves) is blocked by that belief. Pretty much what I guess that Carl Sagan meant, really.
I apologize if I was unclear in my assertion that the quote is ambiguous.
I laid out the other possible option in the blog, but did not explicitly state it as the second possible interpretation. So, in hopes of clarification, this quote by Sagan could mean that either
(1) Belief is antithetical to knowledge
or
(2) Unjustified belief–or, merely believing for the sake of believing– is antithetical to knowledge.
I demonstrate in the post how different (1) is from (2).
“Once believers believe, any attempt to give them knowledge (or any searching for knowledge that they may consider themselves) is blocked by that belief.”
Why does this only apply to “believers”?
Furthermore, perhaps it’s just that you’ve interacted with too many closed-minded believers who aren’t willing to consider arguments and evidence from alternative positions. I know of several “believers” who would be more than willing to consider arguments for atheism.
I must add, though, changing one’s beliefs–whether theist or atheist– is a tough process. One must really desire truth, in order to not be tied to some beliefs that, while held for a significant portion of one’s life, are nonetheless false.
Maybe you’ve explained it brilliantly somewhere that I can’t find, but what you seem to be saying is that Sagan’s quote could mean justified or unjustified belief is antithetical to knowledge. But as belief can only be either justified or unjustified, that boils down to saying that belief is antithetical to knowledge. Not so ambiguous, really, despite your attempt to muddy the water by splitting belief in two.
Sagan obviously meant religious belief, not belief (for example) that the earth is round and goes round the sun – which doesn’t need any belief (ie, faith) because it’s actually, demonstrably true; it is beyond belief, in the sense that it doesn’t matter whether we believe it – it is reality. Belief in what science has discovered is justified, because it represents the world we live in. And when we discover new things we will understand the world even better.
Religious belief is something else entirely. It is based on something that the believer accepts as being true, but which doesn’t necessarily have any equivalence in reality. And it cannot admit to being wrong about anything because that means that the believer’s understanding of their god was wrong. That’s not something that people who profess to be in touch with “the almighty” are generally willing to admit. That is the barrier to attaining knowledge.
I don’t expect any discussion such as this to change anyone’s religious beliefs, which are (pretty much by definition) based on stuff outside of rationality. Therefore no rational arguments will work to change those beliefs. Only some deep, honest thinking.
No, you’re misinterpreting me. I’m saying that *only* unjustified beliefs are antithetical to knowledge. Justified beliefs would not be since they fulfill both criteria (1) and (2) of knowledge, while unjustified beliefs fail (2).
So I’m advocating for an exclusive disjunction in which the second disjunct is antithetical to knowledge. To state it formally:
1) Either a belief, R, is justified or a belief, R, is unjustified.
2) If a belief, R, is unjustified, then the belief R is antithetical to knowledge.
What you say is comparable to this: some objects are conducive for brain surgery; therefore all manner of objects are conducive for brain surgery. This, like your prior example, fails to properly distinguish the types of objects there are, and which ones are conducive to surgery. Similarly, one must distinguish between justified and unjustified beliefs. The former is not antithetical to knowledge, while the latter is.
Also, you use certain epistemological terms in a very confusing way. Of course, whatever is true is true independent of what us humans think. Nonetheless, when it comes to the person in question, in order for *them* to know a certain thing as true it is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition that they believe the very thing to be true. That’s why it is a question of whether our beliefs are justified or unjustified, not whether we believe anything at all.
Moreover, saying that religious belief “doesn’t necessarily have any equivalence in reality” is begging the question that religious belief is false. Again, I’m sorry that you have discussed with such narrow-minded folks, but I can tell you numerous beliefs that I have changed my mind about in the course of being a Christian—several of which imply that my idea about God was wrong.
Furthermore, you strangely state that “no rational arguments will work to change those beliefs”, but “Only some deep, honest thinking”. By honest, I suppose you mean rational and probing, not irrational and superficial. So of course, one must rationally parcel through one’s beliefs. This includes examining “rational arguments”.
Maybe I was a little hasty in dismissing the difference between justified and unjustified belief without more explanation. You say (more or less) that justified belief is not a barrier to knowledge but is a necessity, whereas unjustified belief can be a barrier.
But to an atheist, all religious belief (which is the focus of the matter) is unjustified and irrational. It may seem justified to the believer, but not to an observer who doesn’t share those beliefs – whether they have their own religious beliefs or a complete lack of them.
So, religious beliefs are a barrier to acquiring knowledge because their inherently irrational nature will most likely block the believer from being able to accept the new knowledge that they could otherwise acquire.
Key phrase here is “to an atheist”. Of course, presupposing an atheistic worldview, indubitably religious belief lends itself to being unjustified and/or irrational.
The key thing is that only in begging the question that one’s perspective is true, can one say that religious belief is justified or not.
If God does exist and Christianity is true, perhaps not all of religion is unjustified and irrational. This is an open issue, which, while beyond the scope of this blog post, will receive a good deal of attention in future posts.
Prove god. Specifically, prove your god. Then maybe we can talk.
There are certain epistemological and semantic assumptions you have in this comment alone. I’ll bring some of them to light in the future.
Start here: http://christmyredeemer.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/is-absence-of-evidence-for-god-evidence-of-absence/ and stay tuned. We shall see what happens.
I’ll reply to you here, so I get more than one word width
I have not said that there is no god – absence of evidence is just absence of evidence. But I have never heard that there is any real or cogent evidence of there being a god – and certainly not the one described by Christians.
In similar vein to your belief in god in the absence of evidence – and not being able to say god doesn’t exist unless someone has looked in all the places they might find him, I guess that you must also accept the existence of the invisible pink unicorn (bless her tiny hooves). Or have you examined everywhere that she might be found, to be sure she isn’t there? See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_pink_unicorn
… and if god really wants us to know him, then why doesn’t he leave evidence that would convince us? It’s like he’s stacking the deck against us from the start?
[...] has come to my attention via a response to a comment on “Atheism, Belief, and the Traditional Understanding of Knowledge” that I ought to address a widespread misunderstanding of the biblical understanding of faith [...]
So we agree that the argument from personal experience is usless since anyone can claim that whatever experience and offer it as evidence for any god they happen to already believe in.
Addressing someone as friend is the most hostile thing you can do, haven’t you ever watched a gangster movie? Now seriously, I don’t say that UF have decisively settled the issue or try to scare you in anyway what I was trying to get is that many of the traditional arguments have been addressed before so it would save everyone the time if we don’t have to repeat the same arguments again. UF is obviously not the only place it was done but I suggested it since you already been over there.
It depends what you mean by “useless”. Remember that you asked me what *I* have for justification for *my* belief that “Christ is my redeemer.” You didn’t ask me, “How does your religious experience convince others of my belief?”
Keep in mind that I’m not using religious experience as an argument to persuade anyone else of the justification I have for my belief; rather I’m using it as an experience which confers justification only to myself.
Here’s an analogy. Someone whispers in your ear “Hello.” You then come to form the belief that “Someone whispered hello.” Your justification for that belief is that your sensory organs were functioning properly when said person whispered in your ear.
Now, if someone were to ask you what justification do you have for that belief you may say “I experienced someone whispering in my ear.” This is not to say that the person who asked you should, therefore, believe it too; rather, this is the experience which transferred justification to that belief.
I know it’s a cliche but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We have a reasonably good understanding of the way humans can produce and precise sound and interpret it as language, therefore there is nothing extraordinary i the claim you heard someone say the word hello, particularly if you were in an english speaking country at the time. The level of required evidence can also depend on the situation, for example if you say to me; I walked down the street last night and heard someone say hello, my likely response will be, OK sure whatever you say. However if I was a lawyer cross examining you and you would say; I walked down the street last night and I heard someone say hello, I recognized the voice as belonging to the defendant which place him at the scene of the murder around the time of death, I would require additional information such as how familiar were you with the defendant, what additional sounds were around that may or may not interfere with your hearing and so on, in order to asses the reliability of your experience.
[...] redundant because “belief” (if it is justified) entails “evidence.” (Revisit Chris’ post here.) Again, I will wait for your criteria for [...]