Journey into Insight Chapter 3

There is no such thing as proof in the absolute or universal sense. There is only evidence. This is recognised in nearly every legal system, where verdicts are based on the concept of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. If totally irrefutable proof were demanded, no-one would ever be found guilty of crime. Rigorous proof may be possible in the environment of formal logic and mathematics, but not in the real world of science, law, society or even personal experience.

Objectively speaking, evidence may vary in strength and reliability, be material or argumentative, come direct from personal experience or the words of another person. However, by its very nature, it is always open to question. In our present state of relative human ignorance, all of our observations and experiences will always support a variety of explanations and conclusions.

Persuasion

Evidence and proof are concepts built around our desires to persuade people to believe something to be true. However, what is sufficient to persuade one person, is not necessarily enough for another. Proof is a very personal thing.

A large number of people may see a given event and nearly all will believe that it actually happened. Despite this, others may claim that it could have been mass hallucination, or offer some other plausible explanation.

People differ in their sensitivities; one may perceive the presence of something and another may not. What is perceived may be fact or illusion.

One may try to communicate a personal experience, but there is no way that the experience itself can be transferred directly from one person to another.

One person may have a more highly developed intellect that can accept or refute a refined argument while another may not even understand it.

The most irrefutably logical argument may fail to convince, if its assumptions are unacceptable to the listener.

People who have an aversion to an idea, will demand much stronger evidence to persuade them against their inclinations. Indeed, attractions, aversions and vested interests can be so strong that evidence which is sufficient to convince nearly every other ‘reasonable’ person, may still leave their contrary beliefs unshaken.

For some people, no evidence is acceptable unless it is scientific. Yet scientists have learnt to draw their conclusions, not with bold certainty, but with some degree of probability. Every theory is held only tentatively, and there is a long list of once ‘proven’ scientific statements which have now been discredited.

Agnosticism and Atheism

If proving anything conclusively is generally impossible, then no matter how firm one’s own convictions might be, another person who holds an agnostic view must be respected for his honesty and genuine doubts. Atheism, on the other hand, conveys a degree of strong negative conviction. In some of its more extreme forms, where it dismisses the idea of a personal God altogether it has severe problems of its own. Unless we arrogantly assert that the human species has achieved the ultimate pinnacle of conscious existence, we must remain open to the possibility of other beings somewhere in the universe who may have attained a higher level than us. If that can be, then why not God?

The Crisis of Faith

Often people find themselves no longer believing in the religion they once accepted and even fervently practised during their formative years. While many simply ‘drift away’, a crisis of faith is a more traumatic loss of one’s conviction where there remains a conscious need to believe in something, but serious doubt has fallen on what they once assumed to be true. It may have become a casualty of the scientific part of our intellect which tends to ensure that we hold convictions only until they are brought into question by new evidence or the emergence of an apparently more plausible theory. Perhaps this is the way the mind must function to promote development. Faith cannot operate contrary to good reasoning, and it would be obtuse to declare that we will always believe something even if there were seemingly conclusive evidence against it.

The crisis of faith could be the inevitable outcome of emotional dependence on a rigid simplistic unexamined system of beliefs that becomes untenable, or clinging to feelings of certainty that are not justified. On the other hand, it may be the result of taking our own doubts too seriously and jumping to premature conclusions in the opposite direction. We should never make final judgements about intangible ideas for new evidence can always emerge requiring us to modify those we hold or even revive discarded ones.

There can also be unique personal reasons for a crisis of faith. Regardless of what the truth may be as an independent reality, each individual’s ability to tune into it remains an essential link in its recognition and belief. This ability is influenced by sensitivity that may change rather like our varying capacities to draw pleasure from events in our environment. Sometimes faith finds itself in a void like a radio losing the signal from a station. The problem may be more with the receiver than with the signal. Extreme scepticism and cynicism may have developed through patterns of personal experience, or the tendency to question and analyse may have overtaken our ability to re-unify.

We need to accept that whatever the truth may be in any issue, there might not be adequate tangible evidence to support it, or it could be surrounded by conflicting information. It is rather like a partner declaring their love for us: Even when they are perfectly sincere, there can be many reasons why we might remain uncertain. That is where faith becomes complementary: Having found the evidence inconclusive, we take the risk and trust the sources we are inclined towards. Real faith is neither blind nor automatic. While it may be supported by intuition, it is essentially a conscious decision to set aside our remaining doubts and behave as if something is true. In any case, faith should never be confused with the feelings of certainty, conviction or comfortable acceptance.

Possibilities

We cannot expect the truth to jump out at us and overwhelm us. It does not actively compete or shout above the noise of its surroundings. We need to search for it and have the humility to be open to the possibilities. In matters of importance it is wise to examine critically whatever we observe, but very foolish to think that lack of convincing evidence ever disproves anything. Understanding this is important, for faith, meaning and hope can never penetrate beyond the closed mind. In any case, history has shown that most assumed limits were destined to be proven wrong.

Proof and Belief

The existence of God or the authenticity of the Scriptures are things no person can prove to any other. All that any person, including the author, can convey is that with his own attractions and aversions, perceptiveness, experience and abilities, the evidence he has encountered is strong enough to persuade him to take that additional step towards personal conviction.

If faith has a real meaning here, then it is the bridge between the evidence, which can never be totally and absolutely conclusive, and the state of believing it. Faith and evidence are complementary, and all areas of present human knowledge are a combination of both. In our awareness of God, there is a higher component of faith. When it comes to understanding natural processes, observation is more dominant, but even here, the most basic theories used to explain them are also not ‘known’, only believed.

Faith gives us the confidence to act despite our imperfect knowledge. Whether we recognise it or not, there is a component of faith in every decision we make and every action we take. If we were to require absolute certainty and complete understanding in every relevant detail, we would never act at all.

We will consider some further practical applications of faith in the next chapter.

Chapter 3

Evidence and Proof

Persuasion

Agnosticism and Atheism

The Crisis of Faith

Possibilities

Proof and Belief