Evidence
1. First, a plausible concept of evidence. Evidence is, in the broadest sense, the stuff of our experience, the stuff of which we try to make cognitive sense. A given state of affairs (A) can be evidence of a given proposition (P) in two ways: subjectively and objectively. A is objectively evidence of P if A is more likely if P than if not-P. But, A can only be evidence of P to a subject (S) if S has sufficient background knowledge to reasonably believe that A is more likely if P than if not-P. ‘State of affairs’ ought to be construed very broadly. Also, note that A can be objectively evidence of P even when it is not subjectively so for S, or vice versa.
2. Human beings form beliefs because of evidence (though not exclusively so). That is, we see and experience stuff, our brains try to make sense of that stuff, and thus we form beliefs. This happens consciously sometimes but subconsciously a lot more. We can reason incorrectly from evidence or choose to focus on certain pieces of evidence over and against others in ways that turn out to be misleading. And, sometimes, the incomplete nature of our background knowledge causes A to appear to be evidence of P when it isn’t. In each case, however, we are forming beliefs from evidence.
3. There appears to be some beliefs for which we cannot get evidence for directly, but nonetheless are rationally accepted. I think there two classes included here. We might call the first necessary assumptions. Among these might be such beliefs as the acceptance of a minimal rationality, the assumption that our sense perceptions are basically reliable under normal circumstances, etc. While it’s hard to imagine what would constitute evidence of these beliefs, there is a sort of pragmatic necessity to hold them. For, if we do not grant them, we can’t get anywhere, epistemically speaking. So, a strict evidentialism (let alone empiricism) does not hold up.[1] Note, however, that the class of beliefs in question appears to be fundamentally epistemological—they are about how we know. They have a kind of boot-strapping problem. The only way to know the propositions in question would be to carry out the procedures they specify, but carrying out those procedures assumes that they are true in the first place. Hence, we accept them on the basis of intuition, pragmatic necessity, and the fact that, at the least, the evidence doesn’t falsify them (which, it’s worth pointing out, it could theoretically do). The second are a priori beliefs, i.e., beliefs arrived at purely on reflection with no observation about the world needed, e.g., the truths of mathematics and logic.
4. Nonetheless, aside from basic epistemic commitments and a priori beliefs, it appears that people form beliefs about the world based on evidence.
Faith
5. If faith is belief without evidence, then faith is something that only exists in the insane. The extreme language of some detractors of religion notwithstanding, insanity does not account for religious belief in general. Indeed, religious people might even describe their own epistemic procedure as “blind belief”—intending to imply belief in the absence of evidence or any rational basis. But I reject this testimony for two reasons. First, because it does not appear that human beings can directly control their beliefs or directly access their belief-forming processes. Therefore, while S can incorrigibly know whether S believes P at any given moment, S cannot know in quite the same way how S came to believe P. Second, because even among people who recommend that one “just believe” or “just have faith,” only a particular class of beliefs is recommended, and thus the recommendation appears to result from specific reasons rather than arbitrarily. Religious belief is, apparently, formed on the basis of some evidence, and thus, faith as belief in the absence of evidence is something that doesn’t accounts for religious beliefs in the case of sane believers.
6. And, anyway, faith isn’t primarily a matter of belief, but of the orientation of one’s whole life. To have faith in the Christian sense is not merely to believe certain propositions. After all, as James tells us, “even the demons believe!” The difference is the response to those beliefs. The Christian experience of conversion is not (by and large) one of conceding certain intellectual points. Rather, we people of faith come to recognize ourselves in relationship to an Other. As Ben Myers put it, we “[are] grasped by a reality outside ourselves.” Faith is a particular response to that recognition, namely a response of trust in which our whole lives now have their meaning in relation to that Other. If it can be true that the demons believe and yet shudder, then faith is not the only possible response to the beliefs implicit in Christian faith, and thus it is possible to believe and yet not have faith.
7. Faith does involve beliefs, but those beliefs are arrived at based upon evidence: the evidence of testimony from trusted people and from a long tradition, the evidence of the lived experience of receiving salvation and newness of life through that tradition, and the experience of the risen Christ in liturgy, sacrament, and fellowship. You can think what you will of how well or poorly the evidence in question has been interpreted. That is well within bounds. It is nonsensical, however, to pretend this evidence is non-existent.
8. There are some a priori arguments which attempt to some faith claims on the same kind of foundational level as the beliefs in #3 (e.g. Reformed epistemology), and others try to prove them on an a priori basis (e.g. Anselm, Descartes) but even if they succeed, evidence is required to get from those beliefs to Christian faith. Christianity is an irreducibly particular and historical faith. It is true that faith involves threshold beliefs, i.e., beliefs which—once accepted—change how everything else is seen and interpreted. But this does not change the fact that we cross through the threshold (in part) via evidence.
9. Hebrews 11—“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” but this implies the absence of ultimate confirmation, not the absence of evidence. As a professor of mine once said, to ‘hope’ is not the same as to ‘wish.’ A hope, unlike a wish, must have some basis in reality. This is borne out by the examples of faith the writer of Hebrews gives in the very same chapter. Each and every one had an evidential basis for hope. Abraham had hope that through his descendents the whole world would be blessed because God told him so—a good prima facie case if ever there was one. What Abraham lacked (what he hoped for but did not see) was ultimate confirmation. He did not get to see his children living in the Promised Land, God present to them in the Temple, the Magi worshipping Jesus, or the Gentiles coming to faith in YHWH through him. He did not get to see those things, and could scarcely have imagined them. He did have faith, as shown by his obedience to God’s call, and the beliefs implicit in that faith were clearly based on evidence.
10. Therefore, to have faith is to hold on, to act consistently with respect to the beliefs we’ve come to when such action requires patient endurance or other costly action. A man confronted by a close friend with a hard truth may not want to believe it. His mind may grasp for other explanations: his friend is jealous, perhaps, and is only saying this to hurt him. To remember in that moment all the evidence that the friend really has his best interests at heart, and to act on that possibility, that is faith. A person on the brink of a lifelong commitment to another may have “cold feet” no matter how strong the evidence is that the relationship is rock solid. No amount of evidence would make such a commitment truly risk-free. To make the leap to the appropriate action in response to the evidence, therefore, requires faith.
[1] This is so because the claim “Evidentialism is true” cannot be supported by evidence without circularity, and, if evidentialism is true, then the claim “Evidentialism is true” could be supported in no other way than by evidence.
[Theses 2, 3, 4, and 8 have been modified to explicitly include a priori beliefs thanks to my friend Adrian Woods].
