Faith and Figuring-It-Out

There are, among other ways of dividing things out, two ways to think about how we give reasons for our beliefs, or decide that they are true. The first is the figure-it-out method, and the second is the wait-and-see method.

The figure-it-out method is used for things that one can know just by thinking about them, by their definition or by some sort of intuition. For instance, you can figure out that no bachelors are married, or that 2 and 3 make 5, or that cruelty is wrong, without ever having to get out of bed. Furthermore, you never need to go back and check that the figure-it-out method is still giving you the right answer; 2 and 3 are going to go on making 5, and you don’t need to go back and double-check the latest findings before you start arguing with anyone who says differently (although if you’re me, you may occasionally add them and get 8 by accident). You can be what may be termed ‘dogmatic’ about these things; you can start an argument knowing that no one is ever going to change your mind about 2 and 3 and 5 without being irrational.

The wait-and-see method, as one might guess from the name, is quite different. It is used for things you have to actually go and check out in order to know about them. For instance, if I wanted to figure out whether any bachelors are named Jonathan, or if integrals are generally difficult to do, or if price gauging is cruel, I shall have to go out and see about it. Furthermore, these things might change depending on decisions, circumstances, or things I hadn’t realized before. Perhaps integrals were much more difficult generally before computers were programmed to do them for us. Under the wait-and-see method, I have to keep checking, because I can’t be quite sure of my answer; it depends on a lot of factors that I might not have accounted for. I can’t be dogmatic about things; I need to be open to additional evidence. I can be sure I’m wrong, but never sure if I’m right.

Most philosophers are very fond of the figure-it-out method, partly because philosophy deals with more abstract things, and partly (I suspect) because we are very fond of staying in bed. Most scientists, on the other hand, are absolutely infatuated with the wait-and-see method – so much so that they decided to rename it after themselves as the ‘scientific method,’ as if nobody else ever used it in ordinary life. This has led to a lot of trouble in recent years, because some of the scientists have decided that the wait-and-see method is the only way to go.

Some philosophers, even, have taken this up, and decided that all the things we think we’ve figured out really depend on some sort of science that we have to use the wait-and-see method to determine – which of course means we can never be sure about them. For instance, the idea that cruelty is wrong may just be a result of genetics and conditioning, and sooner or later, if we wait-and-see, we’ll find a gene or hormone that tells us why we think that way. Which of course means that cruelty isn’t ‘really’ wrong in an objective sense at all; it’s no different from the male promiscuity gene we’re also waiting to see.

In my opinion, this way of thinking puts the cart before the horse. A little examination will reveal that, in order to wait-and-see, you already have to have figured out a good many things by the figure-it-out method. For instance, you have to rely on the fact that if you have three tests supporting A, and three-hundred tests supporting B, the rules of probability say that B is more likely true. You have to rely on the fact that your senses can give you accurate information. You have to rely on the fact that your brain can make logical judgments, over and above cause-and-effect relations that have no connection with truth and reality. You have to rely on the fact that the world will keep operating in the way it always has, so that if you did today’s tests ten years from now, in the exact same way, you would get the same result.

And of course, on top of this, a good deal of science is actually done by the figure-it-out method. We can’t take a ruler and measure how far we are from the stars, or send a camera into space to zoom out and make sure we really orbit the sun, or design tests that form universes to see what happened at the beginning of ours. Of course, there is a good bit of wait-and-see involved here, and so we can’t be sure about any of these things, but they certainly involve a great deal of abstract theory, for a discipline that prides itself on always presenting hard facts and evidence for things.

Now, I’m all for the wait-and-see method in its proper domain. And the scientists are certainly right that this is the right method for most normal science, for chemistry and biology if not always for astronomy and quantum physics. And it’s true that in science, we don’t have absolute answers (including, I might note, on the existence or non-existence of a God). But let’s not go throwing out the figure-it-out method just yet; it undergirds the wait-and-see method and always has. Research depends on assumption; logic depends on intuition. We can’t think unless we take a good bit of the world – including the usefulness of thought itself – on faith.

Because this is part of what is called faith – the figure-it-out method of being certain of some things, even if you can’t go out and prove them physically. We need to have proper humility in our thought; sometimes we can’t know for sure; we just need to wait and see. But please, let’s not say that faith is the absence of rationality. Rationality is built on faith – and it is no less reasonable for so being.