Paul Klemperer 1/16/05

The so-called evangelicals have made “faith” a buzzword in American politics, pretty much since Reagan grabbed the presidential podium in 1980. Responding to this politically organized demographic, public figures have rattled on about faith in various ways, usually with questionable motives. More sound-byte-friendly catch phrases have trickled down from the right-wing think tanks since then, things like “faith-based initiatives, family values, values voters, culture of life” and so on. Fine, whatever. Do your thing. Keep the faith, baby. But we all know there is more to faith than that.

There’s more to faith than religion. Faith is a basic human characteristic. We have faith in many things. Religion is a social construction. Even the most fanatical religious zealot will tell you that God doesn’t reside in the church, or in the New Testament, or in a minister’s words. God is more encompassing, more universal. We commonly express this idea by saying “God is everywhere” or “God is in the heart.” Formal religions all agree that the path to God, however that universal energy is named, is through faith. You have to have faith in Jesus, or Allah, or Buddha, or Yahweh. So faith precedes any particular belief. Of course each religion has a doctrine about false faith, to reassure its members that their faith is the right one. The idea of false faith just reflects the basic human need for faith. Whether your faith is right or wrong isn’t really the issue (though religious fanatics claim that it is precisely the issue). The issue is that we need faith in order to survive and remain healthy.

But there is more to faith than religious belief. People who don’t subscribe to a specific religion (spiritualists), or believe that we can never know (agnostics), or don’t believe in any deity (atheists), are assumed not to have faith. But faith is a human characteristic. We all have faith, just in different things. Faith is synonymous with loyalty, trust, confidence.

Faith is the belief in something that cannot be proved empirically. We have faith in others, in ourselves, in the future, in the truth. When we lose our faith, the world seems to fall apart. A crisis of faith can literally make you ill, because faith is such a fundamental part of our normal functioning existence. If you disbelieve everything, question everything (even your own senses), at the least you will not function well, and at the extreme your body may shut down. Those without faith have nothing to live for. Almost all of us have had moments like that, experienced as extreme depression, panic, exhaustion, numbness. But those moments usually pass, as our innate faith in life returns. The philosopher who questions everything still has faith in the mind’s ability to ask those questions, and still has faith that those questions are worth asking. For the rest of us it may best be summed up in those familiar wise words: “Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.”

What about science, reason, logic? It is common these days for religious practitioners to say that science is just another religion. This is at the heart of the fundamentalist attack on evolutionary theory. The argument is this: Evolutionary theory has gaps and inconsistencies. Therefore it is unproved. Therefore to accept it is an act of faith. Therefore other beliefs that require faith are equally valid. Making science just another religion levels the playing field.

Of course there is faulty logic going on here. Yes, you can have faith in science, but what that really means is that while you may not understand the empirical evidence of science, you believe it to be true. You have faith in the process of science, the process of testing hypotheses through repeatable experiments, and building a theory made up of those tested hypotheses. You have faith in the experts who do understand the empirical evidence. In our complex world, full of information overload and highly technical fields of expertise, it is impossible for any one person to empirically know everything. So we depend on experts in various fields to represent the truth to us. We have faith in them, faith in their knowledge and abilities.

Is it misguided to have faith in experts? A brief glance at human history tells us yes (in a loud and hurt voice). Human failings litter the pages of history. It is easier to have faith in Murphy’s Law than in anything else (“If something can go wrong, it will go wrong”). Still, you can have faith in science even if you don’t trust those frail and fallible humans doing the science.

The fact that humans don’t trust each other may be our great strength. We all know how selfish, mendacious and defensive we can be, in all fields of human endeavor. We actually need each other, to keep ourselves honest. It’s often easier to lie to yourself than to someone else. And so we have constructed elaborate and rigorous ways to check up on each other, to keep each other honest. It’s a messy, clumsy system but to the extent it works, it renews our faith.

But faith is also about more metaphysical things. We have faith in the future, faith in the possibilities of things. We believe in our dreams. We have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow when we go to bed tonight. This kind of faith is comforting, general, fundamental. It is like the background radiation of the universe. It doesn’t require more of us than just to go on living. Which, sometimes, is all we can muster.

There is a different kind of faith we experience, based in our human connection to each other. It is a more charismatic, volatile, emotionally charged experience. It can inspire us to do great things and very stupid things. We all have this charismatic faith within us, but we express it in different ways and to different degrees. It can be a beautiful and healthy thing or an ugly and destructive thing. It keeps life interesting.

People who have a strong faith exude a certain charisma. They may be clinically insane, may have no empirical proof to back up their faith, and yet the power of their faith draws other people to them. It is comforting to be told the truth, even if that truth is a lie. Charismatic people draw you in because there is no doubt, no ambiguity in their minds. You share the dream of the charismatic believer. When you believe in your own dream, you become charismatic, and inspire people to believe in you and in themselves. Is it right, is it wrong? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But we can all agree that it is very human.

There are many kinds of believers, and many kinds of dreamers. When I look at the barrage of images coming at us through television and other media, I see a common thread within the chaos. The preacher, the talkshow host, the movie star, the rock star, the rapper, the gaudy fashion model… they are all models of faith. They believe in their words, their act, their image, their music, their hairstyle. That sounds pretty trivial, but the underlying fact is that these people have faith in what they are doing. They put themselves out there, doing outlandish and often ridiculous things, but they have a certain charisma because they believe in themselves. And they draw us in because of that charisma.

We may hate the rock star and be jealous of the fashion model. We may be irritated by the talkshow host’s self-confident banter and the preacher’s judgmental self-righteousness. But we accept them as representing some sort of truth, some sort of vision. They are all expressions of the human spirit, and they all connect in some way with our inner drives and dreams. You can dislike someone and yet admire their confidence, their faith in themselves. If they can act the fool, why can’t you? If they can pursue their dreams, why can’t you? Have a little faith in yourself.