I read something written by (presumably) an atheist the other day. It read, "You don't choose to have faith. You either believe something or you don't."
This strikes me as literally weak-minded; as if the mind is purely passive.
When we are presented with some information, our mind does things with that information. We think about it. We weigh it against other information we have previously received. We then choose to accept the information as true or, else, we reject it as false (though perhaps choosing to remember the information since it often implies something about whence we obtained it).
For instance, suppose one knows almost nothing about cosmology, astronomy, or physics. Suppose then that he is presented with a striking proposition; the earth is a sphere. Because he walks on level ground and sees the sun rise and set beyond a straight horizon, this comes as a challenge to what he has already assumed about the world. Perhaps he hadn't decided to believe that the earth is flat, but merely took for granted that it was flat because it had always seemed obvious to him. Now that he is confronted with this alternative belief, however, he must make a choice. There is, for him, no definitive proof that the earth is either flat or spherical. He might hear arguments from those who believe it flat and from those who believe it spherical; both of which make sense to him, yet neither offering absolute certainty. A sailor says to him, “I see the mast before the ship,” while an astrologist says to him, “the stars spin above us in a circle.” He himself has charted neither sea nor stars, but only understands as much as he can reason from the explanations of others. The man does not accept the new theory as fact upon first hearing it. He scoffs at first. Then he wonders. Then he listens to the arguments. He weighs it against what he has learned and tries to imagine a universe different from what he had first imagined. He is no fool, but neither is he stubborn. He wants to know the truth about the world. But alas, there is no way to be sure. He makes a choice and deems himself a member of the newly educated few who now possess the extraordinary “knowledge” that the earth is a sphere (and a lot of good that will do him, too).
This is no easy choice, however. A few days pass and he finds himself listening to his neighbor complain about the heretics who claim that the world is an orb which revolves about the sun. “I am no heretic,” he thinks. He discards the belief which he so willingly accepted just days earlier. Given a few more days, he glances into a shop and sees a series of maps, all of which are divided into oval segments, as if peeled from an apple. “If such maps did not work, no sailor would return from sea. Of course the earth is a sphere,” he reformulates. Such a pattern might take place in his mind indefinitely. Most often, however, it is important to note that there might not be any additional information which sways his mind to a particular belief. It is usually only an impression or influence which causes him to decide that one proposition is better to believe than another. Most often, if he is thoughtful, the impression might come from his own meditation.
The fact that one is moved to believe a proposition true by virtue of his own meditation is most especially important when belief in the proposition would effectively influence his action in everyday life. The shape of the world, interestingly enough, does not usually affect how one conducts himself. If one were faced with the proposition, “there is gold in Yukon Territory,” however, he must do some nimble thinking before acting on that knowledge. Who gives him this information bears weight on his belief, plus the content and nature of the story he hears from the teller. If a ragged and poor man claims to have returned from a gold-infested Yukon Territory, one might not be ready to believe it. A government-appointed surveyor posting an official notice in the newspaper is more likely to be believed, however. So there is gold. How much gold? That one person found gold does not guarantee that everyone who ventures into the wilderness will find it. One who finds gold does not necessarily return home with every ounce. Thus goes the usual thought process until one comes to a decision. In this case, the decision is not a simple “true or false” judgment, as was the case concerning the shape of the earth. When one decides to believe not only that “there is gold in Yukon Territory” but also “I will find gold in Yukon Territory” and “I will bring home the gold that I find,” the decision is almost a moral one. The truth implies a course of action. In this case, though, there is no way to determine that the propositions are true unless action is taken. One must make the provisional choice to believe before the belief is verified. If one chooses to believe that he will come home with gold, he will leave his home town behind and travel into the wilderness. If he believes that he will likely die of starvation, hypothermia, disease, or wild animals before ever finding gold, or that, if he does find gold, he will likely die on the way back or fall prey to robbers, he will not leave home and travel into the wilderness.
It is often stated that belief is based not on certainty but on probability. In this case, however, there is no probability. The man who hears the news, “there is gold in Yukon Territory,” never met a man who traveled there. There are no statistics in the paper and his only impetus amounts to a mixture of greed, hope, courage, and imagination.
This is not meant to be a nuanced reworking of Pascal’s “wager”. Rather, both the first and second instances are meant to show that information and outside influence alone are not enough to move one to belief; subconscious or otherwise. Faith, or properly speaking, ‘religious belief’, is a choice which one makes consciously in response to the circumstances in which one finds himself. We are all presented with a very limited amount of information, most of which is obtained second-hand, while first-hand experience remains easily doubted (on account of the influence of modern philosophy). All of the information we receive is either inconsequential to the manner in which we live or it is speculative, presuming that a consequence will happen. To deny that the mind has the power to decided one proposition true and another false is to deny the existence of morality altogether: Our actions depend on our beliefs; yet our belief itself is an action. Information does nothing by itself. We decided what to do with it.
