First, we believe most things on the basis of evidence and authority far less formal than the reproducible experiment. To a greater or lesser degree, we trust the mapmaker, the encyclopedist, the chronicler, the journalist. The very philosophical support of science is itself not subject to the protocols of scientific verification. Truth claims do not require the satisfaction of such protocols to be alleged, although they may not be adjudicated beyond a reasonable doubt.
Second, faith is less a matter of belief than of attitude. We are all dependent on the universe, fragile and subject to chance. The person of faith trusts that the universe is of such a nature that it will all work out in the end, with appropriate effort, that we are not, as a species, doomed to care for things in a universe essentially indifferent or even hostile to our concerns........ |
