FAITH!

Faith is an important word/concept with many meanings, definitions, and uses. I understand faith as a product of human thought and analysis. And such, the concept of faith is applied in one way or another to pretty much everything that humans do. ?My train of thought on this concept was prompted as I was skimming through a 921-page Memoir written by Robert M. Ingle dated January 1, 1987. ?Bob Ingle was the Director of Research for the Florida Board of Conservation Marine Laboratory during my employment there from 1961 to 1969. I was the Senior Fisheries Biologist during the later years of my tenure. The Florida Board of Conservation became part of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission shortly after my resignation. These were formative and environmentally developmental decades for Florida and Bob had the difficult and trying position of guiding the State into the frustrating years of the population explosion in Florida. His memoir was not published and was restricted to a few typewritten copies. It should have been more widely published. I would liken Bob’s writing style to that of Samuel L. Clemons, better known as Mark Twain, but without the fiction. Bob aptly described these years of Florida’s rapid growth and development of aquatic technology and science during these years. As I skimmed through the many pages, I ran across a discussion of faith and how faith was a major factor in the development of Florida’s aquatic resources. Bob had referred to St. Augustine’s (354-430 C.E.) famous definition of faith, amazingly astute for his time...

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; And the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”

And there it is. As good a definition of faith as it is possible to create.

And that got me thinking…

But of course, there are complications. In my mind, there are two types of faith. There is faith based on knowledge of reality, and faith based entirely on supernatural beliefs.

First, some examples of faith based on knowledge and reality would be:

1. Well, I know this is your car, and you’re very familiar with what it can do and what it can’t do, so even though the dial says that the gas tank is near empty, I have faith that we can go the 50 miles to the next gas station without getting stranded on the highway. This describes human faith based on knowledge of real physical structures and the confidence that human technology will perform as it should.

2. Well, you have always been honest and kept your word to me, so I have faith that even though you are moving to a new home in Africa, you will still pay me back this 5,000-dollar loan as soon as you get a job. This describes human faith based on knowledge of, and dependence on, established human behavior occurring as it should.

??An offshoot of faith dependent on reality is a faith that something will happen that has a variable natural, not controllable base but is still dependent on human activity. Such as a faith that the rains will come, as they always have, and save and nurture the crops we planted that need the rains. This describes the knowledge-based faith that we have that is fully dependent on human activity, the planting of the crops; but includes dependence and a faith that rain and nature will, as they always have for many years, provide the basis for a profitable crop.

?Without these two basic types of faith, and they are often tied together, in the activity and intent of human beings that manipulate real objects, real people, real structures, and real rain; civilization could not exist. The recognition and dependence on faith based on knowledge of reality is the cornerstone of human progress and survival. Faith based on knowledge has a vagueness scale from full confidence at the top, “the bus always stops here” to the bottom, “Impossible, I ?just can’t believe it…”. ?A high score for the truth and reality of faith-based factors is important for all the endeavors of humanity.

Secondly, there is faith based on supernatural beliefs, for the most part, religious faith. This is the faith to “see what we believe”, and it is born through an intense desire to obtain proof of the supernatural based on obvious evidence of reality. Thus, proving the supernatural existence of a being, object, or event, is usually always religious. This is most successful when there is a great desire to prove the reality of a supernatural base to an already accepted religious faith. As long as religion exists, this will be a point of great contention and conflict

A typical version of such reality-based but apparently supernatural events is a statue of a religious figure such as the Virgin Mary shedding tears of blood. In one case, analysis of the tears revealed that the substance of the tears was olive oil mixed with perfume, an anointment fluid used in Christian rites such as baptism. There are many such situations where real physical, proof of supernatural existence is said to exist, some with real physical causation have been found, and others where physical cause cannot be proven or disproven. Still, in most situations where reality is forced upon a supernatural belief, the “reality” is to “see what we believe”.

In the broad structure of human civilization, there was, and is, a great deal of faith based on “what we do not see”. This is faith in the future occurrence of events that have no basis in reality and are not even remotely possible in the structure of the reality in which we live. It is often the basis for creating human fiction, and also human religion. ?This is a common form of faith mostly found in the description and operation of religion, both organized and personal. Religious belief and practice and human fiction is based on the creation of supernatural beings, supernatural worlds, and supernatural events. Fortunately, for many of us, the supernatural is now recognized as fiction, and the “faith to believe what we do not see” is recognized as fiction and entertainment, not religious law. For many of us, our imagination does not form the structures of our beliefs, but religious imagination is still present in our laws and societies. The trend over the last century is toward reality, but still, religion has the grip of an iron hand over most of the world, at least when and where it can enhance political control of the populace, and provide “the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” It is up to the power of the creation of religious belief, to “see what we believe” and provide the necessary trust in the fables of religion in human culture to maintain the cash flow into the coffers of religion.

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Martin Moe