Trusting Your Understanding of the Way Things Really Are
Facts are the way things really are. Truth is perfect information about the way things really are. Knowledge is a justified understanding of the way things really are. What is faith?
Mark Twain once quipped: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Was he right?
When we hear the word "faith," certain assumptions tell our brains to take a short-cut and think religion or mysticism. That is, we hear the word "faith," and think belief against reason—or belief in the absence of evidence. Culture has conditioned us to think like this. And normally we obey our conditioning as "faithfully" as one of Pavlov's dogs. But faith itself is actually independent of the manner in which it is expressed. As a matter of fact, faith is expressed in a number of ways. How do you express faith? Because you certainly do.
Faith is nothing more than trusting your understanding of the way things really are. Consider this carefully. Did you drive to work this week. Wasn't that an act of faith? Think about it. Did you use the scientific method to prove that semi-trucks always stay in their own lanes? How many roared past you in the past week? You don’t have to be a physicist to notice the danger you were in every time you climbed behind the wheel. It's a good thing the drivers of those trucks "kept faith" with you!
Even though horrible accidents happen every day, we consider them rare. Rare enough that most of us will get up tomorrow morning and jump into our cars without giving safety a second thought. Why? Because you trust your understanding of the highway system. And you are counting on a shared-trust in the others with whom you share the road. Indeed, you wager your life on that trust every day. That’s faith.
What else do you have faith in? Is it a reasonable faith? Is it a livable faith?
"You must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked."
Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662 AD
Persuasion + Trust + Action = Faith
Do you trust your worldview like you trust the highway system. If you don’t—why not? Notice that faith produces action. You're comfortable enjoying the convenience of your automobile because you are persuaded that it's safe to do so. Your persuasion isn't just a mental state. You act on it by starting your car and driving it places. When you do, you're "living your faith."
Today there is a bizarre (and arbitrary) categorization of truth being attempted by our post-modern culture. Moral, religious, political, and even economic "truth" is flexible and totally up for grabs. People are free to understand these topics any way they want. Yet everyone expects to have their subjective understanding validated by everyone else at all times. This is a "closed" open-mindedness—and it's widely celebrated today as "progress." Still, nobody has the intellectual courage to integrate post-modern relativism with meaning on the highway—or even with meaning on the lunch-menu at their favorite hangout.
Let's imagine that you're visiting your favorite lunch-spot. You're hungry and order a bacon-double-cheese-burger and a chocolate shake (extra thick). These items are featured on the menu with appetizing photographs and mouth-watering descriptions like "tender," "juicy," and "rich." You give the server your order, and your tummy rumbles as you wait with anticipation. Moments later, the server sets a plate of baked kale chips and a green-smoothie down in front of you.
If this illustration offends you, simply flip it around. Instead, imagine you ordered a "crispy" kale salad and a "vitamin-rich" vegetable smoothie but were given a greasy hunk of bloody carcass and a carb-bomb to wash it down. The point is that you have your preferences, you shared them with your server, and they flatly ignored you.
You spread your hands and give your server a confused and frustrated look. They return your look confidently and respond: "What's the problem? This is my truth."
Do you have a meaningful reason to complain to the manager? You do—if and only if your worldview equips you to recognize that confusing a hamburger for a pile of kale is a mistake. Because the truth of the matter isn't relative at all—it's stable and objective. Because truth is perfect information about the way things really are. Because it's a fact that "kale" and "hamburger" are not English synonyms.
So sober up and ask yourself honestly: "Can I trust my worldview to integrate with a lunch-menu?" Ask again: "Can I trust my worldview to integrate with a highway system in the real world?"
If you can't, then why trust it at all?
The Big Wager
If we are to live meaningful lives, Meaning Itself has to be trustworthy. We all bet our lives and eternities on something. Are you making a smart bet? You may want to notice your position relative to the Dealer (the Logos)—and calculate your "pot-odds" in the life and death game of reality that you find yourself in. Because wager you must. It isn't optional. You're already embarked. That is to say: You are "all-in!"
Preliminary Questions is here to help you make a smart wager. A trustworthy faith has to be a meaningful faith. Many popular interpretations of reality can be excluded by carefully noticing and asking the begged-questions—and then applying a little common-sense to the answers.
The mission of good-philosophy isn't to seed doubts. It's to foster discernment so that you can live a meaningful life. A life in which you trust your understanding of the way things really are—and through that true understanding, come to know Reality Itself.
A good-philosopher always asks these preliminary questions:
1. Is my worldview internally consistent (Is it logical)?
2. Does my worldview explain the known facts (Is it plausible)?
3. Does my worldview integrate with life in the real world (Is it livable)?
If your worldview fails the first challenge (logic), you should abandon it at once and start again. Nobody should trust in something that violates the law of non-contradiction and is therefore meaningless. It is hopeless to trust in something that cannot be the way things really are.
Mark Twain said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." While I think there's a demonstrable exception to his rule, he's mostly right when it comes to a believer's trust in their worldview.
Is he right about your faith?
Ask, Seek, Knock
Now, If your worldview falls to the second or third challenge, then it's incomplete and stands in need of revision. To some degree this state of affairs holds for all of us. Why? Because "we see through a glass darkly." Like Odysseus, we are trying to get home, but it's a perilous journey. There are lots of monsters to deal with along the way—and we can't just ignore them and sail safely by.
A good-philosopher recognizes this fact and takes it seriously. Unlike the fundamentalist, a good-philosopher knows that they haven't arrived yet. Indeed, all of us are orbiting Meaning together, even as "He" holds all things together for us to know (Colossians 1:15-23). Every time we engage with Meaning and learn something new, our knowledge grows and we move into a closer orbit to His Reality.
The mission of good-philosophy is a mission of ultimate hope—a justified hope that one day we can in fact make it home. That one day we will come face to face with Meaning Himself, and through Him know Reality as He Really Is. (1 Corinthians 13).
So, with these "First Things" firmly in mind, let us begin a discerning search for The Truth. Let's set out in search of the first Fact. Let's explore meaning together and see if we can find its Perfect-Headwaters. Of course, the journey starts with a question.
What does "God" mean? Don't beg the question. Let's find out together.