Faith is a feature, not a bug

The discussions revolving around the divine often boils down to a critical component that is faith with the argument-against being that faith in its function demands an unquestioning allegiance while providing too little in terms of evidence and logical verifiability.

However, with some intellectual honesty, it is straightforward to see that the concept of faith is a strength in the quest for self inquiry and not a weakness.

It is a well known fact that there are experiences outside the comprehension of our natural apparatus.

A human eye can see only a certain range of light’s wavelength. In absence of that limitation, perhaps one could gauge if their child is having a high fever just by looking at the emanating infrared light instead of having to test for the heat being generated via a thermometer.

When it comes to the auditory apparatus, likely no man or woman outside of a mental asylum has claimed to have heard what the ants talk about.

In relation to honeybees, we know that once their younglings come of age ready to fetch pollen, they receive instructions from scout bees by seeing them shake their bodies. However, of all the common methods used to transfer knowledge between humans, we don’t hear of one that involves encoding it in vigorous vibrations of the trainer.

A person’s capacity to understand things is a currency that affords how deeply and fully they experience the world.

Rejecting an unprecedented phenomenon due to absence of a readily available explanation is an overrated excuse to limit oneself.

What must also be stated clearly is that to the furthest extent possible, faith must not replace logic.

But one may ask that if faith is so important then why not begin with it. This compels us to bridge the two extremes of logic and faith, available to us for engaging with anything experiential.

Logic is afforded to us by the inner apparatus to navigate the world. Abandoning it totally means to accept a phenomenon at face value without probing into it and therefore not caring about one’s own role in that phenomenon.

This at best is a position of laziness. A poor excuse for shirking responsibility of gauging outside impact on oneself and one’s impact on the outside.

On the other hand, seeing the inner apparatus not just as necessary but also as always sufficient is a sign of pomposity.

It is to say that one is worthy of nothing less than a special treatment by the creation and that there is nothing above one’s paygrade.

In the quest for self-inquiry, logical reasoning is a form of honesty, but honesty is incomplete without humility. And that is what faith represents.

Thank you for reading.