Faith is defined in many different ways, but the most prominent definition is of complete trust or confidence. In terminology that is less religious, it would be a belief, or something that you intuit or come to the conclusion of – being true, a belief that is held as certain, or of extremely high probability. Faith is a risk we take, which I should, before continuing, state that I am completely against, at least in terms of absolute certainty. For reference to this topic – see essay “Benefits of Fallibilism”. In Buddhism, as well as monotheistic religions, there is a high value on faith, but I think that word is highly misleading. If we take the naïve definition that faith is merely the belief in the face of a lack of evidence, we really aren’t differentiating the term faith from belief, and, if this definition does hold to be descriptive of the term, it merely is stating something which, in practicality, doesn’t exist. In other words, you cannot believe in something without some rationale, without some form of experiential knowledge. In order to place absolute confidence or trust in something or someone, or God, or a higher power, you must necessarily pass through a succession of belief probability enhancements. We do not come to absolute trust or certainty without passing through stages of evidential proof in reference to the belief, which, must be rational. This doesn’t mean that the thing we place certainty in, in the end, is actually true, more so, it appears to be something we can be certain of. The mere appearance of having undeniable infallibility does not mean in actuality that it is so, whether that be in reference to an idea, scientific evidence, supernatural entity, or any other truth claim we can make. While I argue that it is more beneficial, in terms of alignment with the truth, and for openness to personal knowledge growth, to remain always fallible in our truth claims, there is a potential benefit to placing faith and confidence in others, which, we can temper by not adhering to absolute certainty, yet still reap the benefits of an evidential and rational approach to faith, which, we do so, despite the many claims against faith as it being “based on a lack of evidence”, which is merely a non-starter. Trust based on the absence of evidence, in something, necessarily means the conceptualization of “something”, which, whether we like it or not, requires the subject to have an ideal version of what that something is, and a reason why it is more likely to be true than its antithesis. Whether its emotional based, habituated teaching, or culturally defined, the mere conceptualization requires some sort of value judgment, and this is evidence as to why we believe something to be so, or why we believe something is worthy of placing our trust or confidence in.

 The more data we acquire in respect to a certain teacher, training, or concept, the more likely we are able to discriminate the long term effects of adherence to such teachings through the instrumental use of faith. Seeing character traits embodied by the adherents of certain principles, enables us to see what the results of believing in a similar manner may promote in ourselves. If there are character traits, or abilities, or skills, that are exemplified by the teacher, that are of a nature of being something we wish to acquire for ourselves, or improve in ourselves, then the data acquired in reference to the teacher or adherents in containing these traits can inform us as to if we would like to pursue similar pathways of training or adherence so we too can attain similar results. This goes for beliefs, values, skills, in addition to character traits. In general, the more information and content the teaching has that is in line with our current value structures, the better informed we are to desire to pursue a similar pathway towards our own personal attainment of such characteristics. If we can intuit that adherence to such teachings would be beneficial to us than the placement of confidence in the practice, which would be faith, or confidence in the teachings ability to result in similar effects, would be warrant-able in relation to the content of the evidence we have to its manifestation in said desired traits.

There is a use for this, and in the Buddhist tradition, faith is important. Placing faith in a certain teacher, or teaching, or practice, is essentially saying at least one the following: “I will believe that this is true, that this is good, that adherence to this would be beneficial and useful to me, that confidence and trust placed upon the teaching, or teacher, will result in an improvement in the quality of my experience, my wellbeing, and reduction of suffering.” For a beginning practitioner of Buddhism, who wishes to experience what the religion has to offer, based on some idealistic view of the resultant of practice, or on some intuition that its teachings are an effective way of navigating life, or solely for the experience of what it would mean to be a practicing Buddhists, it would be beneficial to place a limited confidence or trust in the dharma, or teachings of the Buddha. Just like any other thing we place confidence in, or wish to embody (for whatever purpose, whether academic, experiential, or even egotistical), I argue, we should first vigorously examine the landscape of potential teachers, religions, and content, which we wish to embody, before making the choice, as confidence or emergence into a framework will alter experience, in one way or another, and we need to make sure that the domain is something we have a valid rational explanation for attempting to experience, before we continue down the rabbit hole. We should never be certain of somethings beneficiality, but as we grow in knowledge through any specific training, we should constantly reexamine the path we are on, not only to recalibrate our lives with new information, but to decide if continued belief in such practices are truly what we value, or are the most optimal in reference to our current range of perspectives. For someone who has directly intuited the more optimal representation in novel truth claims, in reference to previously held truth claims, it no longer is faith which carries the belief, but it is experiential knowledge, but for him who hasn’t yet intuited these things, it takes an active pursuit of the truth to attempt to indulge in novel teachings form different perspectives, which doesn’t require faith, but could potentially be, in order to experience (whether in practicality or in the form of knowledge) a more optimal method of navigating life or of defining an aspect of reality.

We will continue with the Buddhist practice as an example, as it is something I believe to be beneficial and useful for most people to engage in, at least at some point in their lives. At first someone may just believe that it is true, based on a rational belief, or thought, in its coherence to the reality one has already experienced, but after practicing mindfulness, and exploring the claims in firsthand experience, you can come to experientially realize the truth or effectiveness in revealing aspects of our nature to ourselves. In this way you can move from simply believing something is probably true, to a degree, to knowing that you have experienced it and know it is true, in the practical result of its carrying out. For example, moral shame and moral dread being the foundation for morality. Once we have recognized that we experience the horrible feeling of shame after an unwholesome thought, or spoken word, or action, this feeling can lead us to wish to not make the mistake again. In future situations, where the inclination may naturally present itself to repeat the offence that manifested moral shame in the past, we now feel a moral dread towards its repetition, and henceforth are convinced by the memory of negative emotion produced prior, to not repeat the action. Thus a sense of moral shame and moral dread can lead us to moral improvement, and we can experientially understand the purpose and perspective given by the Buddha’s teaching. Whether or not we think it is the most optimal way of representing such phenomena, depends on our knowledge up to the point of the realization, but that we can experientially understand it as a way, to better or less optimal degrees, is clearly present to us. This ability to experientially realize the usefulness in conceptualizing moral prerogatives in this way, moves from a mere rational conclusion, to one that takes the form of a certain type of practical truth, in that, in practicality, it has presented itself as truly being in reference to phenomena which we experience.

In a similar way, the four noble truths, we’re taught, are all within us. At first we may contain the logically coherent belief, or reason applied to information which we don’t have absolute faith in (certainty, or complete trust), yet, based on a rational contemplation, as it appears conceptually to be in line with an abstract view of the content of our experience, we can see the utility and accurate alignment with our prior experience. This belief or rationally held coherent explanation for psychological suffering, its root, and its cessation, and path to its cessation, appears as useful knowledge, but it isn’t until we experientially recognize it as manifesting itself in our lives, that we come to the true knowledge of its coinciding as a framework which truly applies to our lives, and we come to a place where we can practically employ it in a useful manner. The more data we have in support of such conceptualizations of psychological suffering, the more we realize the application of Buddhist principles in the reduction of suffering, the stronger the belief becomes. That being said, and it may be contrary to the fundamentalist Buddhist traditions teachings, absolute certainty, or complete faith, in my view, should be avoided at all costs. Even the experiential knowledge of the true practicality in certain knowledge, doesn’t make it infallible, it simply points to it being an accurate way of conceptualizing and acting in the world from one point of view, it doesn’t move it into the domain of the best possible way of Being, or mode of Being, which we should conceptualize as a goal worth striving for but ultimately never attainable. I believe this way of thinking about practical, experiential, and objective truths, is ultimate the most beneficial way to not close ourselves off to the possibility of better answers, or modes of being, which we may eventually uncover.

A liberating experience is one in which you have direct insight into the truth of reality, we can become liberated from ignorance, in certain domains, through the faith in certain teachings, transferred into either experiential knowledge, or disregarded as contrary to the subjective experiential evidence we contain in our conceptualizations of reality. What we must safeguard is attempting to spin a teaching to be in alignment with a perspective of reality, as we can do so with almost any teaching. In this way the intellect can be both our friend and our enemy, as we are able to rationalize views to coincide with the image of reality we may have. The greater the intellect someone possesses, the greater rational, and logical proofs one is able to make for the existence of a perspective to align with reality, therefore, we should be very careful as to the content of our language in representing knowledge of reality, as almost any description can be, whether metaphorically of scientifically, interpreted to align with reality through the use of language. We must do our best to safeguard our conceptualizations of reality from confirmation bias, and seek to discover what actually aligns with reality, rather than what we can bend and view from a skewed place to align with it.

In the western world most people have a scientific grasp on what the Buddha meant by dependent origination, or the law of sufficient reason as acclaimed by Schopenhauer, basically that everything has a reason, that everything is the way it is now due to past causes. In the modern age most people understand this naturally, as we have indoctrinated the youth with knowledge of science, physics and so forth. But what most people don’t connect is that this law doesn’t only apply to phenomena outside of ourselves, but as Buddha said, all conditioned phenomena, i.e. everything. This includes ourselves, our psyche, our thoughts, speech and actions. For a long time, I was a proponent of free will as the cornerstone of my philosophy, but occasionally I would experience cognitive dissonance when trying to make sense of a reality that includes both free will and dependent origination. Free will is intimately tied up with a sense of ego, or self, on a way that we have pride of our accomplishments, and disparage others for their shortcomings. We feel good about the things we do, because we believe that who we are, as a permanent controlling self, did them. So stripping away the self, this ego, this pride, is extremely hard, and appears to go against our subjective experience of life. This is where the dissonance sets in. You understand outside of yourself, objectively, that all the world came from prior causes, yet subjectively, you believe your consciousness and “decisions” do not follow the same law. This believing in a false self, that is somehow in control, yet understanding that everything is due to prior causes, is a contradiction and causes confusion. Now most humans live believing they have freewill, and are happy doing so. But for someone seeking the truth, it matters not how the truth will affect you emotionally, or what modification to your subjective experience may take place as a resultant of the truth, or what pride you have in your ego. What matters is the truth itself, and moving closer to it. Liberation comes when you understand that this self, this ego, this pride, does not exist, that it is merely a manifestation of a narrative which may prove useful or beneficial evolutionarily, or even societally in the capitalist world we live in, but as far as being conducive to wellbeing, and the reduction of suffering, I argue, that it is not the optimal path. What you are liberated from, is a false view, or ignorance, and what you are liberated by, is a higher resolution image of reality as it actually is. It doesn’t mean that you now have hold of the most accurate conceptualization of reality, but rather, you have removed one false view of reality, in this way, we can become liberated, or free from, ignorance, in steps, as we move towards more and more accurate depictions of reality through knowledge.

The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is useful in revealing certain aspects of our experience that would otherwise go unrecognized. In consciously directing our awareness towards the content of consciousness itself, within the present moment, we care realize the truth claims which the Buddha made in reference to non-self, impermanent nature, and the ever pervading unsatisfactoriness inherent in our Being. If you think you are in control or that reality is fully deterministic, only one of which is true, the belief you have is only due to prior causes. It wasn’t until I experienced directly the arising and fading away of mental phenomena, with causes outside of my conscious control, that I began to see free will as a mind fabricated illusion, which, we can see, developed for good purposes. The view of the self as permanent and subsisting through time as a source from which experience comes from, isn’t the best way to view our experience, once we realize the constant change of experience manifesting itself into conscious awareness, prior to conscious decision for it too. Even the conscious thought of attempting to direct the next thought, merely arises itself from a subconscious place. This content of consciousness which we can become aware of, commonly called “mindfulness practice”, presents us with content that is arising and fading away, constantly changing, and is not itself directed by “us” as an agent. These descriptions of experience which we realize, are exactly what the Buddha proclaimed as being fundamental within our experience, thus, if we were to place confidence in the Buddha, or have “faith” in him, before attempting to be mindful, we would be lucky in regard to these teachings, that the claims actually aligned with our experience.

If one happens to place faith in a certain teaching, the risk lies in the actual utility of the teaching as being in alignment with reality as it is. We can clearly miss the mark, and do so quite reliably, anytime we place faith or confidence in anything outside ourselves, we make that risk. But in the case that the risk proves to be beneficial, and the confidence well placed, it’s possible for the strong belief of confidence or trust can move to actual experiential realization, internal understanding, and thus to knowledge. I argue faith in certain Buddhist teachings can offer this pathway, as I have experientially realized the truthfulness involved in the beneficial and usefulness in seeing things from the Buddhist point of view, at least in regards to dependent origination, non-self, determinism, and morality. But could I recommend to someone to place confidence or trust in a certain system? Not necessarily in a system, or a religion, or in anything supernatural, but in the case where I believe I may have some beneficial knowledge that could aide someone, I would definitely be able to confidently vouch for the content of my own personal convictions, but it would only be in the case where I authentically believe it would provide a truly beneficial and useful advantage over the individual’s current conceptualization or wellbeing. This is generally why I don’t criticize advocates and apologists of the Christian faith. Many people view them as obnoxious in their attempts to alter someone’s life, belief system, and values, through active campaigning of their ideals. While I disagree with the truth claims they make in regard to supernatural phenomena, such as heaven and hell or “God” in the strictly Christian sense, I can tell their intentions are pure in attempting to lead and aide others towards a place they truly have faith in and believe would be beneficial for the other person. While I’m no proponent of Buddhist supernatural claims, I do, often, believe it could be beneficial for many people, at certain points in their lives, to at least take some time in exploring the ideas, as they could be useful to the individual.  Is this even faith at this point? Not necessarily. The point is, that placing faith in anything, can yield better or worse results than in other things. The opportunity cost is ultimately too high to place complete or absolute faith in anything, and the loss which we could experience in embodying a mode of certainty, in respect to any truth claim, is ultimately less optimal than maintaining a fallibilist point of view. If we have some reason and logic and work to apply conscious direction towards the content of which faith can be placed, then we can, potentially, grow through faith in that certain domain, as long as we, at all costs, do not move the definition of faith to complete certainty, and merely regard it in an optimistic sense of trust and confidence, and maintain a realistic world view of the potentiality for it not to turn out the way we hoped.