Blind Faith, Informed Faith, and the Essence of Knowledge

Philosophers love to hate blind faith. Informed faith seems acceptable, though.

Blind faith is believing in something without any assurance of evidence. Informed faith is believing in something with some degree of assurance of evidence: it is faith informed by observation and reason.

Informed faith without a core essence of blind faith is just a conclusion drawn from evidence, a theory drawn from empirical observation. To go from a conclusion or theory, along with the reasonable, properly schooled, responsible man's admission of doubt, to having no doubt in one's mind - to absolute truth, to theorem - takes faith: informed, yes, but faith nevertheless.

Truthfully, there is always at the core an element of blind faith in any faith, however qualified. Blind faith are not dirty words, but fundamental necessities to inform what the term faith really means.

Belief in anything beyond a brain in a vat requires informed faith (yes, and that with blind faith at its core) despite the loudest protestations of those who decry it.

It takes informed faith to break free from the bondage of that most constricting prison of "I think therefore I am." That is the start, but without informed faith, it is also the end. No worldview devoid of a faith leap can exist that does not require one to admit the possibility of devolving into "but, we could just be a brain in a vat tied to a computer simulation by wires."

I have a dog. I love her. I interact with her. I see love, patience, fear, anticipation, joy, frolic in her. Yet, how can I know I am not just a brain in a vat and my dog is not real? How can I know anything is real? What indeed is know?

Without informed faith, I cannot know anything beyond experience. I am tied to the absurdity of admitting to the possibility of non-reality beyond experience, or an infinite number of possible realities behind that experience with no ability to truly know if any of them is actually the right one: I am a prisoner to the vat, or sentient Tesla, or The Grand Butterfinger of Experience.

Yet, the vat (or whatever one comes up with in one's random musings) is not entirely absurd: it could be possible: I could be a brain in a vat; I could know nothing more than "I think, therefore I am." I could be pure experience without certainty of a particular external reality behind it.

How can I move from that bondage into a reality where my wife, son, dog, and all creation are real and meaningful? Are knowable? Are external reality beyond me?

As stated above, even the most basic move from that absurdity to reality requires informed faith with that essential essence of blind faith at its core. Informed by the knowledge of myself, others, and nature: informed by the absurdity of the brain in a vat position based on very real emotions, sensations, experiences, thoughts. Informed by very real awareness of the reality and humanity of it all, very informed, but still needing a faith leap to escape that taunting prison of unknowability.

Knowledge of anything as concrete, beyond the whisp of experience alone, or random musings of what might be behind those experiences, is impossible without faith.

Given all the above, faith becomes a normal, natural, and necessary ingredient of any worldview beyond existentialism or experientialism - beyond a complete capitulation to the absurdity of unknowability except for my own thoughts, my own experiences.

Is it so absurd therefore to have faith in God? In the God of the Christian Bible?

No, not any more absurd than to believe in atheism, agnosticism, experientialism, existentialism, naturalism: the very idea of external reality itself.

I would posit there is more evidence - including biological, anthropological, historical, literary, archeological, etc. - to inform my faith in God than there is for any of the other above mentioned worldviews and ideas.

Faith sets us free. Faith in the Christian God, in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, not only frees us from bondage to sin, but from bondage to unknowability.

Faith in the only absolute truths one can know (God's general revelation in nature and special revelation in the Bible) are His gracious gifts to us through that faith: He gives us the beginning, the end, and the in between, all indicating unequivocally that Him and His creation - including nature, ourselves, and others - is a true external reality: a reality that is knowable and meaningful beyond the prison that results from no faith.

Among the Bible's many wondrous attributes, it is a powerful treatise on knowability and the truth of external reality beyond the prison of pure experience alone, especially in the creation account of Genesis and prologue to John. It is the one and only book ever written that can claim that, and it takes informed faith in the absolute truth of the Bible, the perfect revelation to all mankind of the omniscient, wholly good, sovereign, creator-sustainer God, to actuate that truth.

Kneel at the cross and partake of the cleansing blood of the once and for all Paschal Lamb. It will not only free you from bondage to sin, but free you from slavery to unknowability: He can indeed be your All.

Without faith, without the Bible, without Christ, you are, when your worldview is taken to its ultimate conclusion, just a brain in a vat, or maybe a disembodied sprite of an ether of pure experience, on the road to perdition.

Six Pence Song - written Tuesday February 28th 2023 at around 11:47 PM CT. Further edits later.