Faith Is Not Blind, It Is Fundamental

Faith is a part of our system of perception. It does not stand alone, but serves as an extension of the other two parts of our system of perception – empiricism and rationalism. Faith is what we use to bridge the gap between what is provable and improvable by empirical evidence and rational thought alone.

Faith is fundamental. It is the cornerstone of the foundation of our minds. Without it, we do not develop the capacity for rational thought. Rational thought is contingent upon language – the ability to build vocabulary, conceptualize the world in which we live, and to communicate among ourselves. As infants, we learn language by faith. As our capacity for language develops, we accept – by faith – the system of sounds and symbols that are our languages. It is not proven to us empirically or rationally that that’s mommy, that’s daddy, that’s a cat, dog, chair, table, or house. As our facility for language increases, our potential for rational thought increases.

We are born empirical beings. We develop our capacity for rational thought by accepting – through faith – the meanings of the symbols of our language. We are finite beings. Our senses are limited; our capacity for thought is limited. Empiricism and rationalism can not be divorced from faith; scientific methodology can not be divorced from faith. Evolutionary theory begins with faith in the axiom – the presupposition, the assumption – that the origin of life can be explained by purely natural causes.

Harvard Professor of Genetics, Richard Lewontin, a world leader in Evolutionary Biology, acknowledges the nature of evolutionism’s foundation.

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, [. . .] because we have a prior commitment, [. . .] (W)e are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, [. . .]. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a divine Foot in the door.”1

The theory of evolution does not end with naturalism; that is, “the view that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes.”2 It begins with an assumption of naturalism.

Faith is fundamental to those who believe we have been created; faith is fundamental to those who believe we have evolved. The billions of dollars spent and the billions of person-hours invested in the devout pursuit of a “scientific” explanation of the origin of life is the simple seeking of justification for believing what the evolutionists accepted – by faith – in the beginning. The pretentious ridicule of faith by evolutionists is a foolish denial of the fundamental role of faith in the functioning of human perception. The self-righteous disdain in which some of the religious look upon many scientists is an ignorant denial of the nature of the human mind – whether created or evolved.

“I am not a person of faith, I am a person of science.” Humbug. “I am not a person of science, I am a person of faith.” Equally humbug. At the core of science is faith in our ability to gather sufficient evidence, measure it with satisfactory accuracy, and to interpret it correctly. And the most faith-based persons among us use rudimentary scientific reasoning in the course of our daily lives – our vocations, our decisions.

Maybe it is better to be uncertain of a truth which we can not prove, than to be certain of a falsehood which is assumed to be proven.

---

[1] Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons.” The New York Review.

(9 Jan. 1997) 31.

[2] The American Heritage Dictionary. (New York: Dell, 2001)