Faith - Vice or Virtue?

The words "faith", "belief" and "trust" are assumed to be ideals and virtues one ought to admire and strive to posses. This notion is especially true when it comes to religion and is understood to be a fundamental principle in the world view of the religious person.

However, between the constructive and healthy form of faith and destructive and senseless gullibility, lies a very thin line. Many a religious person, motivated by zeal and devotion for their respective path, have crossed this line. There are even groups and sects which have come to demonize reason all together and have turned "baseless belief" and "blind faith" into the ideal way of life.

It is thus imperative to properly establish and define the proper place for faith and belief in our lives and to understand exactly where and how it ought to be inculcated within our world view.

But first we must lay down some foundations. These will allow us to proceed with a framework that is consistent throughout and grounded on solid principles.

1. There is no reason to believe anything until there is a reason to.

Simply put, to believe something is, without convincing evidence, is pure foolishness. What constitutes a "reason" and what defines "evidence" can be a matter of great debate, but we all ought to agree that in the absence of any and all reason / proof, believing is stupidity.

If one does not accept this as an irrefutable absolute fact, there is no point continuing to read this. There is also no point in ever engaging that person in a serious dialogue. There is simply no common ground to be found with them and you and them will never be speaking the same language.

2. Our "experience" is real. What we see and hear is true.

The human being was endowed with a number of tools for the purpose observing reality and for discerning truth. Chief among these are our eyes and ears. These then are what we can rely on in the pursuit of truth. To ignore what we can clearly see and hear and instead cling to beliefs which run contrary to our experience is to be foolish.

This does not mean that whatever cannot be observed is not true, but it does mean that whatever we do observe is true. We should never cast aside what is clearly observable in favor of some unfounded and unproven contrary belief.

Even if one argues that our experience cannot be the objective deciding factor of absolute truth because perhaps there is some other explanation as to what, how and why we experience things the way we do, never the less the point being made here would still be true. This is because at the end of the day these are the truth determining tools we have at our disposal. We can only work with what we have. If our senses are somehow collectively compromised, there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is go about being the best we can be and utilizing the powers we do posses in the best way we can. It is of no productive consequence to ponder any alternative realities, as we anyways have no way of determining the truthfulness of any such claims . True to ourselves then, our experience is our reality. Any other suggested reality that runs contrary to our experience is to us nonsense and nothing more then a silly conspiracy theory. It should have no bearing on the way we live our lives.

If one does not accept this premise, once again there is nothing left to be discussed. "Seeing is believing" must be one of the fundamental pillars of our world view.

3. Reason is king. The mind / intellect is a good thing. It is a tremendous gift and is the greatest tool we have for discerning truth.

Reason has often come under great attack for its limited nature and for its inability to grasp the infinite nature of G-d and the like. However this is a destructive and silly argument for the same reasons explained earlier. This is the tool we have. What is the alternative? To cast aside all reason and blindly accept any ridiculous claim with pure faith?! Intellect is all we have to rely on and it is the last line of defense in protecting us from crazy and foolish ideas. There is nothing we can do about its limitation as there is no substitute power we can call upon for establishing truth. So while it is indeed limited, its all we have. Once again, it is of no productive consequence to ponder what might lay beyond the reaches of reason, as we have no way of discerning those truths anyway. We have no choice then but to subject every idea we encounter to a strict test of reason and logic. If the ideas don't pass the test, there is simply no basis upon which to accept them.

If one looks down upon the mind and treats it as a hindrance towards truth there is simply no one to talk to. Only if reason is seen as the ultimate judge of truth (as least as far as the human being is concerned, even if not objectively the ultimate) can we continue this dialogue.

With this established, we can turn to the matter of faith.

All of our beliefs need to be anchored on logical principles or on observable / experienced phenomena. In the absence of both, there is nothing upon which any claim can be substantiated. Why should we accept something is true just because the idea is out there, when it has no basis to stand on? How is believing such things virtuous? Why is it good and admirable to be a gullible ignoramus? This simply cannot be the kind of faith one ought to strive for.

Let's turn our attention now to the claims of Judaism. Primarily, its two main principles: 1. Belief in one G-d, creator of the entire universe. 2. The Torah being the work of that G-d and given to us as a guide by which to live our lives.

These are ideas that a Jew ought to accept rationally, not based on blind faith. If the only basis for accepting these "truths" is because "I believe", then there is no difference between this and any other crazy cult and their nonsense claims. Any justification given why these beliefs out to be blindly accepted, can be applied to the cult in precisely the same way.

The basis for belief in G-d has been debated forever. In short there are two "proofs". One based on logic and one based on experience.

The logical proof is in itself divided into two:

A. The need for a primordial existence, from which everything else is brought into existence. The primordial being must be of the nature of an absolute truth which by its very definition must always exist. if not, how then did it come to be?  Evolution has thus far failed to explain the origin of the first particles of existence and until someone comes up with an alternative explanation, the existence of G-d is still by far the most logical explanation for the origin of the universe.

B. Intelligent design. The beauty, complexity and infinite potential inherent in the universe, suggests an intelligent designer and not the outcome of some chemical explosion. Admittedly, this argument has its weaknesses and will continue to be challenged heavily by the progress of scientific discovery.

The experience proof is of course the revelation at Mount Sinai.

We have an unbroken chain of generations, that even today can be traced and charted leading back to Mount Sinai. There are no dark holes or missing gaps in this chain. It only takes about 50 people whose lives would've overlapped to get back to Mount Sinai. We also know exactly who these 50 people are. At Mount Sinai 3 million people saw and heard G-d. They told their children about it, who in turn told their children, until the present day. As one Rabbi put it, when asked how he knows G-d exists, "because my mother told me so." This is a cute answer but also incredibly profound.

I would completely agree that if one person made a claim that he saw or heard G-d, this would not count as anything. It is ridiculous to base an entire set of beliefs on the word of one person. But this is different. This was a revelation witnessed by the entire Jewish nation who collectively passed this information on to the next generations in an unbroken chain.

The fact that no other religion ever attempted to make this claim only reinforces the power of this argument. If it possible for one persuasive person to conceive of and perpetuate such a claim surely other religions would've attempted the same. The fact that they didn't, somewhat proves that it is close to impossible to successfully make this claim unless it is actually true.

This of course is also the proof for the authenticity of the Torah.

The fact that other smart people don't see it this way is of no relevance. This is our family tradition and within the family of Jews it is known to us as the truth. The same way any atheist would believe and perpetuate stories told to them by their parents, who heard them from their parents regarding their own ancestors and they would certainly consider this sufficient evidence of truth, likewise us Jews know from within our family the stories and truths about our ancestors.

This is why a Jew believes in G-d and the Torah.

With this foundation firmly in place, we can now turn our attention to some of the questions which arise from the conclusions drawn above:

1. Granted G-d gave the Torah at Sinai but does this mean that every word, detail and claim found in the Torah is absolutely true and the word of G-d or is it possible that some things are not?

2. What do we make of Rabbinic Torah? Should we believe every word, detail, statement and claim found in the works of the Rabbis, ranging from the Talmud until the present day, to be absolutely true or  is it possible that some things are simply not?

3. Is it proper to venerate our sages, Rabbis and spiritual leaders to the point of considering them infallible or should we keep a critical mindset towards their words?

These questions will each be dealt with in separate essays and posted in upcoming blog posts.