Faith is a squirrelly term. One uses it in many contexts and causes it to mean many things. This is true of most terms, and it only is a problem when one does not clarify the sense one intends with one's usage. An example I can think of occurred in a debate between Rabbi Wolpe and Christopher Hitchens.
In that debate, Wolpe told Hitch that he is a man of great faith. According to him, Hitch has a great faith in freedom, equality, morality, love, and reason. Hitch could not object, but what was he saying? That there are unseen things he loves without evidence? If so, I am sure Hitch would deny it. I accept that list of principles based on evidence, I do not posit some independent medium of trust as evidence for the existence and goodness of love for example. I experience it. I test it. I accept it only until it is disproven, and the continued strength of the principles, given the evidence, increases my acceptance.
Really Wolpe was playing a trick. He associated the principles most dear to Hitch, indeed to all humanity, with faith, and while failing to give him the courtesy of a definition for faith.This association meant that refuting his claim about faith would, rhetorically at least, refute these principles that were so dear to him. This is rather like Lewis Caroll being praised for his rhyming scheme in Jabberwocky, all the while purposefully inventing words that would fit in that scheme.
This trap can get the best of thinkers. Eugenie Scott, for example, once debated His Gallopness Duane Gish. On that occasion, she stated that science depends on a few tenets of faith that are not provable. The major admission was that the scientist must accept the rational intelligibility of nature by faith. This was simply stated, but not defended.
I love Dr. Scott and fully concede that she knows far more than I do on this topic, but let me review this claim skeptically. First, we must consider what she meant by faith in this context. Was it simply by fiat? Are scientists dogmatically, uncritically proceeding in simple faith?
No. Scientists proceed with assumptions, only when substantiated. So, we must ask how the rational intelligibility of nature can be substantiated both inductively and deductively.
This immediately leads one to an extremely frustrating issue called hard solipsism. If you can stomach it, here is Matt Dillahunty struggling to wade through a proponent of the problem:
The problem is that even if one has found an assumption that aligns progressively with the external world as one perceives it, one cannot know that one's perception is, in fact, reliable. The argument is often made by saying, "you cannot trust your deductions because you could be a brain in a vat, or living in the matrix, or in Plato's cave observing shadows." Taking, for a moment, the brain in a vat interpretation, apply it to the most simple decisions you make on any given day. What should you eat? My perception is that I should eat food that is the right balance of tasty and nutritious to make me happy and healthy. This, however, only makes the high definition hologram of my subjective experience healthy and happy. My objective experience regarding nutrition should focus on the solution in which my brain is suspended in a vat. That is the only relevant variable. to my continued, thriving, existence.
Simply to demonstrate the frustration of hard solipsism, let me present two additional thought experiments. The first I heard from Sam Harris:
The Drake Equation makes the inference that life of superior intelligence to ours exists somewhere in the universe. If one accepts that a civilization would still discover simulation software, it stands to reason that such software could be any degree of superior to our own. Thus this universe could simply be one of a large number of simulated universes. Indeed the possibility that a simulated universe could exist makes it much more likely that any given universe is simulated rather than real. Harris hints at the fact that simply because our simulators are more intelligent than us, or have access to far superior technology, does not mean that they know the truth. Nothing prevents a radical Muslim from creating and detonating a nuclear bomb. So the simulators could be Scientologists or Mormons as Harris indicates, which exacerbates this problem of hard solipsism.
Theists claim to have an out for this. The solution is an absolute entity. A dictator and regulator of reality. A supremely real being can produce a reliable reality. There is no reason to accept this. The simulators in Harris' experiment are everything that Aquinas or Craig is looking for in a first, transcendent, cause. The simulators transcend this space and this time and we have no reason to posit perfection in them. God is simply another simulator, another vat. Why can the theist depend upon a rationally intelligible universe?
Many put it this way: God is a transcendence who designed the universe. Dependent phenomena are dependable because they are designed to be. I sincerely hope that this has caused you to ask the question: but how do we know God won't change her mind? How do we know that the universe is designed to be rationally intelligible? I have heard the answer that the "Noaic Promse" in The Bible, for the Christian, guarantees that this is the case. This covenant is located in Genesis 8:20 - 9:17.8:22 is t he passage most often quoted: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime, and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." There are many problems with this.
First, if we accept that this is a real covenant fro ma real god who meant what she said, it does not grant one the ability to appropriately trust one's senses. A simple semantic analysis of the passage would take this to mean that God is promising to not interfere with the phenomena of nature, with a few cryptic caveats such as that this abeyance will last "while the earth remaineth." One wonders how the end times could come if Jehovah has promised to not end the world. If that was what God literally meant then she did not keep that promise anyway. The Bible tells of many instances of her action in changing the natural order. It is simply the case that no one can know precisely what this passage means.
The bigger problem is that we do not know that this is a real covenant from a real god who meant what she said. The author could have made it up, misunderstood god, received the revelation from a lying god, or one of many gods, or a god who was impotent to make good on her word. There may not be a good answer to hard solipsism but as with all questions, "because god" is not the answer.
Given the problem, however, how can a scientifically minded person appropriately expect to be able to make predictions about the future? We need to be aware of circularity here. It seems like circular reasoning to say that we can make predictions about the future because of the success of those who have made such predictions in the past. How do we know that the past is reliable? Because of its reliability of the past. Reasoning in that way is, in fact, circular and places one on the horns of an epistemological dilemma. That is not, however, how the scientist legitimizes uniformitarianism. The basis of prediction is testing. How do I know my pen works? Because when I use it, it works! If that is circular, every action is futile and this essay does not exist.
So does science require faith? Yes, a little. In order to accept any prior findings or the efficacy of the results of any future experiments, the scientist must have faith that she is not a brain in a vat, or that a god will not come in and muck with the variables of nature. If such a contradiction to universal intelligibility is discovered, or to any particular worldview, we must ask if the dogmatic believer or the provisional conductor of experiments will be better prepared to change. To close I will argue in bumper-sticker form: science has not proven that science cannot science, therefore let's keep sciencing.
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