Faith is the implicit trust one has in a person, thing, or idea, often without requiring or asking for proof. The naïve scientist imagines that there is no element of faith in science, and the naïve religionist retorts by saying that scientists too work on the basis of faith. Both are vaguely right in so far as the word faith is used without clarification in their contentions. In this context, it is useful to consider three types of faith.
First, consider the following examples: We accept on faith who our father is. When we are young, we take our teacher’s word for granted and trust she has right knowledge of what she is teaching. We drink fruit juice or milk from the carton we bought at the supermarket, trusting that no one had added drops of cyanide in it. We board a plane, trusting the pilot’s skill and sobriety. Indeed it is impossible to go through life without accepting certain matters to be true without getting first-hand confirmation about them. We may describe this type of faith as quotidian or of type A. This is essentially what we call trust. Trust could be misplaced, but we often feel that the probability of this is extremely small. In this sense, quotidian faith is an assumption that is not rationally or empirically fully justified, but whose probability of being correct is so high that we are willing to take the risk in the trust. In many instances, we simply don’t have a choice.
Next consider the following beliefs: The workings of the world are, or will eventually be, intelligible to the human mind, i.e. every phenomenon in the physical world can and will be explained in rational and coherent terms. Nothing happens all by itself, i.e. every observed event has a cause. What has been observed to occur again and again for enormously large number of times will occur again: for example, the sun will rise tomorrow. None of these statements can be proved on logical grounds to be unassailable. Yet, the scientific enterprise accepts all these as true. These too fall under the category of faith. We may call these as examples commonsensical faith, or of type B. Commonsensical faith serves as a basis for the scientific enterprise. It is taken to be true because it seems most reasonable even to an unprobing mind, and it has served us very well in the scientific quest.
Now consider the following beliefs: The Vedas have existed all through eternity. Moses received the Ten Commandments directly from God. Christ, the Son of God, came to save all humankind. Mohammed received God’s word from Gabriel and is the only Prophet of the Almighty. This type C faith may be called religious faith because it becomes relevant in the religious context. Such faith in the undemonstrated validity of a proposition is explicit in the teachings and doctrines of traditional religions. Such unquestioning trust is not something that one is ready to, or might, abandon if there are indications that it might be wrong, as is the case with type A faith. Nor is this accepted because it conforms to common sense or is very useful in understanding something, as with type B. Type C faith is related to cultural upbringing, historical traditions, and most of all, it is often associated with the spiritual dimension of an individual. Religious faith is necessary to be a sincere member and practitioner of any organized religion. This type of faith is the spontaneous, voluntary and cheerful acceptance of what one may or may not be able to prove.
Spurts of Thought 