Happy Anniversary Of The Creation Of The World

It's Arev Rosh Hashonah and we've got 14 people coming to the house tomorrow, so I might be a little scarce. Here's a typically pompous and overly earnest comment from BrothersJudd to tide you over:

Oh, where to start...

In the beginning...

People of faith believe that there are two paths to knowledge: through perception and through faith. I know that there is a computer on my desk. I know that G-d exists. Materialists believe that the only path to true knowledge is through perception, and that the existence of my computer is a fact because I directly perceive it, while G-d's existence is not a fact because faith is not a legitimate path to knowledge. To people of faith, this attempt to give to perception a privileged position unattainable by faith is startling. It is as if a deaf man insisted that sound did not exist because he could not see it, or a blind man insisted that color did not exist because he could not smell it.

In practice, of course, no one insists that only those things that are directly perceived can be known. If enough people say that they have gone to Yellowstone and have seen hot water shooting out of the ground every hour or so, we accept that as a fact, despite not having perceived it, or anything like it, ourselves. The blind and the deaf accept that sight and hearing exist, because so many others tell them so, and much that they do perceive is otherwise inexplicable.

And yet the materialist, living amidst billions who claim to have perceived Truth through faith, living next to the sometimes quite concrete testimony of dead billions more, and living with the otherwise inexplicable mystery of the Beginning of material existence, insist that only their senses count and that if they cannot perceive access faith, it cannot exist. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Yet, that is not entirely their fault.

Once a fact is known -- that G-d exists, or that He created the Earth, or that fossils have been found of animals that do not currently exist -- all we have with which to deal with that fact is our reason. Here is the tricky part even for those who accept faith as a means of cognition: what role does faith play in the manipulation of facts, regardless of how they are known. The answers to this question are all over the lot. Some believe the Bible to be the inerrent Word of G-d, accepting six days, Eve from Adam's rib, a great flood and the loaves and the fishes as a report of what would have been directly perceived, if they had been present to witness events. Others see G-d as starter, setting the race in motion but otherwise uninvolved. The majority take the most difficult route to justify, as we pick and choose between faith and perception. If a blind man heard such disparate reports of a sunset, he too might doubt sight, although he would be equally wrong.

Here we sit, then, with each side by now too wedded to its conclusions to allow for constructive reasoned discourse. Is there a path out of the morass? Probably not, but I'm willing to give it a (necessarily solipsistic) try.

There are certain things that both faith and reason tell me. I exist. Existence had a beginning. Reason can tell me nothing about conditions prior to the beginning of existence. My faith, perception, knowledge and reasoning are limited and imperfect.

What, then, can I conclude from these truths. First, that I can conclude nothing with certainty. The fact of my existence is the only certain fact available to me. Second, that both faith and reason push me to conclude (by which I can only mean "act as if") all the rest of you are sentient beings such as I am (though logic, of course, pushes the other way). Third, that both faith and reason push us to conclude (see above) that the physical world exists as we perceive it (though logic, again, pushes the other way). Fourth, that we can know is only a vague shadow of true existence; that all knowledge is but a metaphor that helps us navigate the unseen depths.

Each of us carries in our brain a model of the world. When we drive somewhere, or give directions, we are navigating our own model of the world. When we act in a particular way in order to cause another to respond as desired, we are navigating our own model of the world. When we add 2 to 2, we are navigating our own model of the world. When we plan for the future, we are navigating our own model of the world. When we worship or research, we are navigating our own model of the world. Every decision we make, every action we take, is made or taken -- not in the real world -- but in our model world. New knowledge comes only when the reality and our model diverge, at which point the model should change, but often doesn't.

Each of us has a model, and each model diverges from every other model to a greater or lesser extent. Models tend to be more alike within families, tribes or nations than between those groups. Some are more rigid than others, some more supple. But each model perceives reality though a slightly different lens. Different models can thus give us different insights into the nature of reality.

Perception and reason are inherently limited and flawed. They can see only part of the truth, and thus faith need not justify itself to reason. But, humans being humans, faith and knowledge are also limited. Each can give only part of the picture or, rather, a different picture of true existence. The one great advantage of faith, though, is that is requies acceptance that Truth exists outside of reality. To use Godel's model, faith is the statement that knows that it cannot be proved. Reason is "2+2=4", which believes itself to be true beyond proof. Reason denies its own model.

This is the rock on which the materialist falters. The materialist demands that only those things that can be perceived exist, but reason does not go so far. Reason also insists that atoms, say, existed before they could be perceived. The materialist must, therefore accept that those things exist that are capable of being perceived under the proper conditions, regardless of whether they are actually perceived. In other words, the materialist must punt on existence, substituting his model for perception -- exactly the crime of which he accuses the faithful.

Posted by: David Cohen at March 4, 2005 12:12 PM