 I heard this phrase innumerable times growing up. You've just got to have faith. Usually, I heard it after a heated debate about some religious idea. Faith is a central part of many religious traditions, and it certainly was in my own evangelical upraising. But I have a problem with faith, to be honest. In the conversations I've had throughout the years, I've noticed that many people use faith as an excuse for intellectual laziness. Several years ago, I discovered something which profoundly affected my worldview. I discovered the methodological error of faith. So I rejected it, and my world immediately became much more clear and exciting. I felt mentally liberated and empowered at the same time, and I would like for other people to feel the same thing. So before I start, don't get me wrong. This is not an article claiming that all religious conclusions are false. I'm saying that the methodology of faith has a catastrophic flaw and is an unreliable method for discovering the truth, and I'll illustrate how. So to combat the inevitable claims that I'll be using, quote, the wrong definition of faith, let me be clear. If your definition of faith is something that's rational, then this article doesn't apply to you. I'm using faith to mean something very explicit. Belief with the absence of proper reasons. Or, as it's commonly used in society, belief, despite reasons to the contrary. It's putting some ideas beyond the edges of rational analysis. In nearly all the conversations I've had with religious folks, the famous leap of faith is essential to their worldview. Their argument goes something like this. Reason is fundamentally limited. It only gets you so far. There is a point at which some ideas have to be accepted on faith. At the end of the day, they say you've got to believe in something. Therefore, leaps of faith are ultimately inescapable. In Protestant Christianity, for example, humans are all sinners and there's only one way to get forgiveness from God. Sola fide. That's Latin for by faith alone. Belief, trust, is a central concept in Protestant theology. So given my problems with faith, I would probably be considered a heretic, but I leave it to the reader to evaluate the trustworthiness of faith for themselves. So faith is an epistemological claim. It's a method for arriving at conclusions. It says following this procedure will result in accurate beliefs. And as with all epistemological claims, the truth remains centrally important. The Christian doesn't simply say Jesus rose from the dead. He says it is true that Jesus rose from the dead. So again, my issue is not with religious conclusions. I mean, it might be true that Jesus rose from the dead. But my issue is entirely with the methodology for arriving at those conclusions. Faith is a methodological error which is best revealed by simple examination. First, we must understand the dangers of methodological errors in general. My favorite example is the dartboard. Imagine that somebody had the following method for arriving at their beliefs. They write out a bunch of propositions on small pieces of paper, and then they pin those pieces of paper to a dartboard. Then they throw a dart, and wherever the dart lands, that's the beliefs the person holds. Now is it possible that those beliefs are accurate? Yes, of course it's possible. But is it a reliable trustworthy method for discovering truth? Probably not. For the following reason, the possibility for error is too great. The same method undertaken by different people would result in different conclusions. My darts will not land where your darts land. We have the same method and yet mutually exclusive conclusions. That's a big methodological error. As far as I can tell, faith is the same caliber of error. Consider this question. Do you make sense of something before you believe it? Or do you believe something and then make sense of it later? Faith answers the latter. Belief comes first, then the rational analysis follows. The Christian Trinity is a great example of this. God is supposed to be in three parts. Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father isn't the Son. The Son isn't the Spirit, and the Spirit isn't the Father. They're all God, but they're mutually exclusive in their own ways. How is this possible? Well the traditional answer is to say, we believe it's true as a matter of faith, even if it doesn't make sense to our reason. Sometimes they say it remains a fundamental and inexplicable mystery, not to be resolved by a mere human mind. Of course lots of different denominations of Christianity answer the question in different ways, and some undoubtedly reject the idea of an irrational Trinity. But it's precisely the orthodox answer that I have an issue with. Belief, because faith is an unnecessary and unreliable method, as we will see shortly. Let's say we agree with the method of faith. We choose to believe, and then we'll rationalize afterwards. I'm convinced that one question will devastate our entire project. What beliefs should you have faith in? Think about it for a minute. Let's say you ask a Christian pastor, and he says, oh well put your faith in Jesus Christ. And then you kindly respond, but why Jesus Christ in particular? How could the consistent practitioners of faith respond? Now if he gives any reason whatsoever, he's suddenly abandoned the methodology of faith by saying, oh well you should believe in Jesus because he was a historical figure who said these things, or he performed miracles, or he loves you and died for you. That's essentially saying, for such and such a reason, you should believe in X. But that's not faith, that's philosophy. That's belief due to an appeal to reason and persuasion. So if the pastor is to be really consistent in his appeal to faith, he must respond, believe in Jesus for no reason at all. Now that's the only response allowed by the methodology of faith. Any other answer literally places reason above faith. So we immediately run into a problem. What happens when the kid in Malaysia asks his pastor the same question? He'll hear this answer, believe in Muhammad. And then when the Christian and the Muslim meet, they'll have the same reasons for their beliefs, i.e. non-reasons or faith, and yet they'll have mutually exclusive conclusions. They are also prevented from ever resolving their disagreements as they cannot ultimately appeal to the use of reason. When push comes to shove, if their beliefs are actually grounded in faith, then no amount of persuasion could ever convince them otherwise. And yet each is convinced that the other is wrong. We could further illustrate this error by rephrasing what a non-reason looks like. Belief in Jesus because of faith is identical to the sentence believe in Jesus because horse battery staple or believe in Jesus because of dabble-dooby-hini-haga. Now these are all non-reasons and they are also nonsensical. Of course this error is not exclusive to the Christian and the Muslim, it also affects the Jew and the Hindu and the Mormon and the dogmatic atheist who believes his ideas are true because science. The methodological error of faith permeates all cultures and all ideas and here's the ultimate result. Having faith means essentially believe whatever you heard first and in most circumstances that means believing whatever your broader geographical community believes by happenstance of birth. Had the Christian been born in Saudi Arabia, he would undoubtedly be a Muslim. Had the Muslim been born in Alabama, he would undoubtedly be a Christian. The methodological error is identical. Practicing faith means that your beliefs will mimic those of your surrounding community and this is the reason why the vast majority of people end up holding beliefs that their parents hold who just so happen to hold the same beliefs of their neighbors. Now this should disturb the practitioners of faith. It certainly did me when I began to question my own methodology and conclusions. Imagine somebody explicitly stated the following. Whatever I hear first, I will believe is true. Wouldn't you cringe? It's just like the Darkboard example. I mean, it's possible that they'll come up with correct conclusions but it seems awfully dubious. But as soon as we acknowledge that reason comes first, we're catapulted into a new problem. How to discern good reasons from bad? We could technically say I believe Jesus is God because my shoes are brown. I mean, that's a reason to believe but it isn't a good one. So what makes a good reason? And immediately we've entered into the inescapable world of philosophy. There isn't an easy answer. You have to start from square one. You have to doubt all of your previously held beliefs that you held due to a methodological error. You have to construct your worldview from scratch. It's a daunting task but it's absolutely necessary if you value the truth. Fortunately, there is an immovable foundation on which you can build your beliefs. Logical necessity. There's no faith required for reasons that you can completely understand. When you understand the inescapability of logic, you can answer questions like, oh, aren't you just putting your faith in your rational faculties? Aren't you just blindly trusting logic? Well, no. No unreasonable leaps of faith are ever necessary in a rational worldview. Faith is a philosophical claim which tries to avoid philosophy. If it's a reliable method for arriving at conclusions, then many things follow. But rather than carefully inspecting it, I suspect that most religious people that I've met want to give a special loophole for faith. Faith is also dangerous as people believing up all sorts of terrible and inaccurate things. When you abandon reason, the argument that, God told me that you're supposed to kill Johnny, gains a whole lot more plausibility. Faith is also commonplace and many cultures have glorified it as something that's honorable and noble. Now, in the future, I intend to write a separate piece about how faith is not honorable. It's just a mental error, no different than throwing a dart at a dartboard to come up with your worldview. I speak from experience. Intellectual liberation awaits upon the rejection of faith. When you understand that there's a zero percent allowance for belief first and then make sense of things, your world opens up, things become clear, the world makes sense, and there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Truth really is discoverable by rational analysis. But don't take my word for it, examine for yourself. As an interesting note, Catholics reject the doctrine of sola fide. They have their own saying, fides et ratio, or faith and reason. This is a better motto for sure, but I just don't see the necessity for any fetus whatsoever. If my methodology were Latinized, it would be this. Sola ratio by reason alone. So please understand, this isn't a criticism of any conclusions. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe in Jesus. I'm saying you shouldn't believe in anything without reason. Jesus might have performed miracles and been raised from the dead, but if you believe so, it must be 100% based on your own rational analysis. Faith in the accuracy of the Bible or any other holy book is not a satisfactory substitute for rational analysis. You absolutely must have an understanding of philosophy, logic, and a grasp of proper skepticism. There's no alternative. If you value truth, belief, because belief just doesn't cut it. To read this article or to learn about my books, check out stevedashpatterson.com.