Faith no more?

"Faith" seems to have a bit of a bad reputation in certain circles these days. Many people, particularly many atheists, seem to think it refers to a decision to believe something without sufficient evidence, or even against the evidence, on the basis of external authorities like the Bible or religious leaders. If this is all that faith means, then it certainly seems like a poor thing beside the knowledge that can be gained by carefully examining the evidence.

And it's not just atheists. Carl Jung, who would certainly not have accepted that label, was once asked in an interview "Do you believe in God?". He answered, "I don't have to believe -- I know"; thereby implicitly contrasting mere belief (based on theorizing, or others' reports) with direct experience. "Faith", to modern ears, has something of this aura of the second-hand to it. Knowledge, surely, is far better.

The words for "knowledge" in Latin and Greek have both found their way into modern English, but in rather different guises. The Latin word was "scientia", from which we get our "science" -- the modern way of knowing par excellence, at least about things we can observe with our senses. The Greek word, meanwhile, was "gnosis", which, to the extent it is understood at all today by English speakers, refers to something much more mysterious -- a direct, intuitive apprehension of realities that go well beyond what science can get a grip on.

In my experience, most of the people who value science as a way of knowing would be highly dubious about gnosis, often denying that it can tell us about anything real whatsoever; while those to whom gnosis is a core reality, while not going so far as to claim that science has no value at all, tend to be very wary of it, and are quick to point out its limitations and its potential for misuse.

And yet for me, they increasingly look like two aspects of the same calling. I would like to draw out some of parallels between them, and in the process, I hope, to cast "faith" in a different and more positive light.

Recently I've much enjoyed listening to Alex Tsakiris's Skeptiko podcasts, in which he interviews various people active in or interested in some of the topics around the fringe of modern science -- things like telepathy, mediumship and near-death experiences. Alex seems to me like a genuine sceptic -- he is genuinely open to all interpretations, and his favourite phrase is "Follow the data!". I think this is what both the scientist and the gnostic do -- or at least, it's what they should be doing if they're true to their respective callings.

But then the question comes up, what is the "data"? How widely should the net be thrown? The data of everyday experience surely has to be included in any attempt to make sense of things. But one important parallel is that both scientists and mystics (I could say "gnostics", but that word has a more specific meaning than I want) insist it has to be more than that.

The mystics also want to include the data that can be gained by non-ordinary experience -- through meditation, the consumption of magic mushrooms or a host of other practices. And this is where the difficulty starts. I count myself immensely fortunate that ever since I started to meditate almost twenty years ago, I have found the rewards easily enough to draw me in further and encourage me to continue. There have been quite long dry patches, but never so long or so intense as to cause me to forget what the whole thing is about. Having built up a regular and sustained practice I now find the spiritual dimension I experience through it to be every bit as real as the everyday, although in a very different way. And yet I know that others have attempted the same path and given up, because they have not experienced the same rewards. It's certainly not that they haven't tried as hard, because I don't think I have tried hard -- I have been helped along by grace. And it's a real mystery to me why this isn't a more common experience.

The difficulty in all this for our question of what should be accepted as "knowledge" is that the data that meditative practice offers are simply not available to most people -- at least in the short term, and perhaps not ever. So should it be accepted as real? The philosopher of spirituality Ken Wilber certainly thinks so; he constantly draws out the underlying similarities between the fruits of spiritual practice by people in many different traditions, and argues that they are so widespread that they do have to be accepted. Yet those without the experience are often understandably dubious.

Yet one important parallel is this: exactly the same thing happens in science. The raw data of science can very seldom be appreciated directly by the untrained observer. Much more often, they only make any sense to people with years of training, either in the specific scientific discipline, or in mathematics, or both. And just as -- perhaps -- not everyone's brains are "wired up" in such a way that meditation will ever work for them, so not everyone is ever going to gain the required expertise in even one science, let alone all of them.

The result: most people end up taking most scientific results on "faith", in the sense I used it at the beginning of this article: a trust in the authority (expertise and integrity) of specialists. And this is really no different from the way in which many religious people take on trust what was originally discovered by, or revealed to, the mystics at the root of their tradition.

So faith is, at worst, a necessary evil. We are finite beings, and neither in the rational nor the spiritual realm can we directly experience all that is to be experienced. So we take things on trust from others who have made the journey. And to the extent that the "specialists" can be trusted -- which is something that should constantly be questioned! -- trust is just the sensible thing to do.

It may look as if I'm arguing for a two-tier humanity here: the elite few who really "get it", and the rest who just stand on the sidelines and accept (or not) what the elite tell them. But it's not like that. The explorers (scientists or mystics) need to, and do, exercise faith just as much as the non-specialists.

When you're learning science or mathematics, you have to trust (have faith in) established dogma enough to put the time and effort into learning the subject yourself. If you only ever accept things that you can directly experience and understand, you will never be able to see enough of the big picture to make any progress. And even for established scientists, there is a role for the non-rational: for a "leap of faith" that a particular theory or set of experiments is worth pursuing, when the data isn't there to fully support such a view.

Likewise with the spiritual journey. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) tells us that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see". But that sounds like a pretty tall order to me. A translation I like better is that it's "the substantiating of what we hope for": a process of making something that's initially rather nebulous steadily more substantial. The more you practice, initially on the basis of a rather uncertain trust, the more real it all becomes. Likewise, Paul in many places emphasises the role of faith, in its subtle interplay with grace (Eph 2:8), as the very process through which we are saved.

But then the objection can be raised: how do I get started? Why should I have even a little bit of faith in something of which, initially, I have no experience at all? In fact, this is an issue not just at the beginning, but at all points in the journey where the way ahead is not clear. We can get becalmed by doubt almost anywhere, it seems, and there appears to be no way ahead, or just as bad, thousands of them.

In Meditations on the Tarot (p596) we are told:

Doubt is more than a psychological state of indecision; it is the soul's sojourn in the intermediary sphere between the two fields of attraction -- terrestrial and celestial -- from which there is no other means of escape than a pure and simple act of faith, issuing from the soul itself without heaven and earth taking any part in it...[a trial] where the following is at stake: either an act of faith, or despair and madness.

Sometimes, it seems, we're left without any "data", in the form of either heavenly intuitions or earthly sensing, and we just have to decide: it's better to pray and make a wild guess, or leap, than to stay stuck.

And at that point I had better stop, because whether you are at such a point, and if so, which way you should jump, is for you to discern, not for me to guess, wildly or otherwise.