“The Preponderance of Faith”

“The Preponderance of Faith”

Perhaps you've heard the statement "preponderance of the evidence."  The point of the following is that without 100% proof, there is a gap that is only filled by faith.  Thus, from the cold empiricist to the existentialist, faith is to be found in any and all systems of knowledge.

George H. Smith[1] in his book, Atheism: The Case Against God and writing of The Skepticism of Faith argues that skepticism in the study of the origins of knowledge will eventually lend aid and comfort to religious claims and turn against the atheist.  Quite a claim for a libertarian atheist.

The point is this.  For the one who is skeptical of the theist and who asserts that his claims of reality cannot be proven in total, then he is simply observing what is true of any and all roads to reality.  Both sides of the atheism-theism question to some degree must rely, not on the facts but upon his belief.  To rely upon one’s belief is to put trust in that belief—that is put faith in that belief.

Just to be clear, since atheism cannot be reliably proven, then such requires some degree of belief beyond what proof that may exist for the claim.  Therefore one can conclude that atheism requires faith.  So while the atheist points to the theist and joyfully demands proof, what he fails to see is that his own position is equally fragile.  Fragile because it cannot be completely and totally substantiated.

This holds true for the Rationalist, as there are matters that cannot be discerned through one’s thinking no matter how much intellectual prowess one might posses.  As well it holds true for the Empiricist for there are matters that cannot be scientifically proven nor explained no matter how much science is applied to the question.

Whether it be Naturalism, Idealism, Materialism, Existentialism, or any of a number of other “isms” it is as it is in theism.  There simply is no iron clad, 100% verifiable way in which to prove the veracity of any of the aforementioned systems and any others that you might care to include in the discussion. 

The simple point is that without some degree of trust/faith, one cannot legitimately embrace any truth system.  So then, how does one comes to believe in this idea or that notion?  In its simple form, it is a matter of one’s choice.   What then do you choose to believe?

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[1] Author, editor, and contributor to numerous publications is an atheist and libertarian thinker.