2 - Fideism and Faith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
“The certainty in the religious life is bound up with the autonomy of that life, its uniqueness and its independence of other knowledge. Our natural modes of rational certainty are but points of attachment, or under-agents for the certainty of faith; they are not germs of it, and they are not tests of it.…Our ultimate authority, then, which justifies every other authority in its degree and measure, is the Creator of the New Humanity as such.”
– P.T. Forsyth 1913, pp. 135–6.In the wilderness parable of this book's Introduction, some people lost in the wilderness gorge named “Hells Canyon” disown any need of a well-grounded, or trustworthy, indication of either a rescuer or a plan to reach safety. Nonetheless, they are committed to a rescuer who will bring them to safety. Perhaps their commitment is motivated by what seems either prudent or morally advisable to them. In any case, their belief in a rescuer is not accompanied by acknowledgment of a need for well-grounded, or trustworthy, evidence to support their belief. This position is akin to fideism about theistic belief, the view that belief in God does not depend for its acceptability on well-grounded, or trustworthy, supporting evidence.
We shall use “well-grounded” and “trustworthy” to signify something's meriting, or being worthy of, trust or reliance, either as a (possibly fallible) basis for a truth-affirming commitment or as a (possibly fallible) supported truth-affirming commitment, such as a supported belief.
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- The Evidence for GodReligious Knowledge Reexamined, pp. 88 - 141Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009