Can Fictionalists Have Faith?

This article has been published in a revised form in Religioius Studies, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412517000063. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © 2016 Cambridge University Press.According to non-doxastic theories of propositional faith, belief that p is not necessary for faith that p. Rather, propositional faith merely requires a 'positive cognitive attitude'. This broad condition, however, can be satisfied by several pragmatic approaches to a domain, including fictionalism. This article shows precisely how fictionalists can have faith given non-doxastic theory, and explains why this is problematic. It then explores one means of separating the two theories, in virtue of the fact that the truth of the propositions in a discourse is of little consequence for fictionalists, whereas their truth matters deeply for the faithful. Although promising, this approach incurs several theoretical costs, hence providing a compelling reason to favour a purely doxastic account of faith.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The Moral and Evidential Requirements of Faith

© 2019 European Journal for Philosophy of Religion.What is the relationship between faith and evidence? It is often claimed that faith requires going beyond evidence. In this paper, I reject this claim by showing how the moral demands to have faith warrant a person in maintaining faith in the face of counter-evidence, and by showing how the moral demands to have faith, and the moral constraints of evidentialism, are in clear tension with going beyond evidence. In arguing for these views, I develop a taxonomy of different ways of irrationally going beyond evidence and contrast this with rational ways of going against evidence. I then defend instances of having a moral demand to have faith, explore how this stands in tension with going beyond and against evidence, and develop an argument for the claim that faith involves a disposition to go against, but not beyond evidence.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The Nature and Rationality of Faith

A popular objection to theistic commitment involves the idea that faith is irrational.  Specifically, some seem to put forth something like the following argument: (P1) Everyone (or almost everyone) who has faith is epistemically irrational, (P2) All theistic believers have faith, thus (C) All (or most) theistic believers are epistemically irrational.  In this paper, I argue that this line of reasoning fails. I do so by considering a number of candidates for what faith might be.  I argue that, for each candidate, either (P1) is false or (P2) is false.  Then, I make two positive suggestions for how faith can be epistemically rational but nonetheless have a unique relationship to evidence: one, that Jamesian self-justifying attitudes describe a distinctive kind of faith in oneself and others, and two, that faith is not solely based on empirical evidence

Know How and Acts of Faith

My topic in this paper is the nature of faith. Much of the discussion concerning the nature of faith proceeds by focussing on the relationship between faith and belief. In this paper, I explore a different approach. I suggest that we approach the question of what faith involves by focussing on the relationship between faith and action. When we have faith, we generally manifest it in how we act; we perform acts of faith: we share our secrets, rely on other’s judgment, refrain from going through our partner’s emails, let our children prepare for an important exam without our interference. Religious faith, too is manifested in acts of faith: attending worship, singing the liturgy, fasting, embarking on a pilgrimage. I argue that approaching faith by way of acts of faith, reveals that faith is a complex mental state whose elements go beyond doxastic states towards particular propositions. It also involves conative states and – perhaps more surprisingly – know how. This has consequences for the epistemology of faith: the role of testimony and experts, the importance of practices, and what we should make of Pascal’s advice for how to acquire faith

Testimony, Faith and Humility

© Cambridge University Press 2020.It is sometimes claimed that faith is a virtue. To what extent faith is a virtue depends on what faith is. One construal of faith, which has been popular in both recent and historical work on faith, is that faith is a matter of taking oneself to have been spoken to by God and of trusting this purported divine testimony. In this article, I argue that when faith is understood in this way, for faith to be virtuous then it must be accompanied by intellectual humility. I defend this view by showing how someone ought to respond to purported divine testimony if her faith is to be intellectually humble, and how, if it fails in this respect, it will instead be accompanied by the vices of either servility or arrogance.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Messages to European Muslims

I have never felt so shocked nor so ashamed as I felt while listening to the world media about the bloody London Bridge attack claiming to be carried out in the name of Allah. I cannot accept it because this is not my faith. This is not the Allah I believe in. My Allah is not a hater! My Allah is not violent! My faith is not the knife! After the civil attack in London and Manchester, Dr. Mustafa Cerić, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Bosnia-Herzegovina, sent An Appeal to the European Muslims: Let Us Have a Common Word with Our Neighbors. There is no recipe for success, but there is a recipe for failure. The recipe for failure is violence in the name of Allah. My faith is not terror. My Allah is Loving and Merciful! My faith is common sense and a warm word. But how am I going to explain it to my neighbors in Europe? After the Manchester and London attacks, they have no will to listen to me anymore. They don\u27t buy my faith\u27s stories of love; they don\u27t care about my faith\u27s beautiful narratives. They are no longer interested in the stories of my faith. They want to know what I have done to stop the bloody violence in the name of Allah in the streets of Europe. I have done a lot, but it seems it is not enough