People with a religion are not the only ones who live by faith. Once we understand what faith really is, it is clear that all humans live by faith.
Faith, being sure of the things we hope for.
By this definition I say everyone has faith. Here I am not talking about faith in God necessarily, just faith in general. Let me explain. In our day to day lives we carry out numerous tasks in which we take for granted the outcome we hope for even though there is no prior guarantee of that outcome. Long experience has taught us that doing a certain task in a particular way results in a desirable outcome. We have followed that path and obtained the desired outcome so many times that the prospect of a different outcome does not even come up. I say we are living by faith. We may describe that confidence with other words besides faith but I think this is really what faith looks like — absolute confidence that does not doubt the end because it has found the means unquestionably dependable.
A Rollover
Maybe this story will help make my point. My family and I owned a 2007 Toyota Sienna. It was a reliable people mover in which we drove almost 100K miles. I never questioned if it would get me to my destination safely. After driving it for nine years, I rolled it over while driving on a winding country road I had driven on several hundred times, in all kinds of weather. On that day, while taking my kids to school, the van did not respond in the usual way around a turn. In a bid to correct the abnormal behavior I over corrected, fishtailed and rolled us over. Fortunately no one was hurt. I had had great confidence in the van and my confidence was not misplaced. It had proved trustworthy for nine year and almost one hundred thousand miles. On this fateful day however, I was reminded that the hoped for outcome is not guaranteed. This roll over could have happened any other time in the 9 years we owned the van. Yet everyday, I got in it and drove with the full confidence that I would get back home safely.
I did not have any guarantee at the beginning of each drive that it would be uneventful. I simply took the fact for granted.
The fact that I got what I hoped for every day prior to the rollover is not the point. I did not have any guarantee at the beginning of each drive that it would be uneventful. I simply took the fact for granted. I lived by faith. Come to think of it, I have the same confidence in the countless things I do every day, some of them completely benign, some of them inherently dangerous. I take a good outcome for granted. Sure, I take steps like planning ahead to increase the chances of a good outcome. Ultimately I am sure of the thing I hope for with no actual prior guarantees. My absolute confidence in the outcome does not waver because I have found the means dependable. I am living by faith. I suspect I’m not alone in this state. I think we all live by faith.
The Science of it
Even as I assert that everyone has faith and lives by faith I see an objection. I am a scientist by training and because science is based on very concrete, testable principles with repeatable outcomes it seems the outcome can be guaranteed at the outset. Therefore faith does not seem to come into the question at all. If a ball is dropped from a given height it will fall in a predictable direction at a predictable rate of acceleration and hit the ground at a known velocity. No matter how often the process is repeated, provided the conditions remain the same, the outcome will be the same. Therefore the confidence with which the outcome of this event can be predicted has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with science and the inherent properties of nature.
Crazy
What would you call a person who, after dropping a ball 100 times from a given height and getting the same outcome every time, without changing anything, dropped the ball for the hundred and first time and expected a different outcome. Everyone would call that person crazy. I think, if I’m honest, that this is how I have thought of faith. I thought that faith involved expecting or hoping for something different to happen without changing anything. I thought that it required a person to be certain of this new outcome, for no reason except that it is what he wanted. I know now that I have misunderstood faith. That misunderstanding has been reinforced by long experience of listening to or watching others who have also misunderstood faith.
Faith
What we call science is simply our faith in the constancy of nature.
If faith is having absolute confidence in the outcome because the means has been found reliable, then of all people, scientists have true faith. A scientist who desires to make a ball accelerate to the ground and to hit the floor at a certain velocity, if he places the ball at the correct height and is assured of the outcome he desires before he releases the ball, is demonstrating faith in the constancy and dependability of the laws of nature. To do anything else would suggest that he does not in fact trust nature to behave reliably or does not believe in the laws of nature at all. What we call science is simply our faith in the constancy of nature. This confidence is what made it possible for someone to believe that man could fly before it had ever happened and provided the drive that made the hope a reality. The scientist is not alone in this kind of faith. We all do it when we climb a mountain, plan months ahead for a vacation, save money for college or retirement, make investments, get married or have kids. We subconsciously place our confidence in something which, over the course of human history or our own lives, has proven reasonably reliable. We trust that those things will be as reliable for us now as they have been for us or others in the past. We are living by faith.
So I stand by my original statement, all humans live by faith. In fact come to think about it, it would be an intolerable life if we could not have confidence in something; if we had to wonder about the certainty of every single choice we made. It seems we live by faith because there really is no other way to live. The difference between people is not whether they have some sort of confidence or not but rather where they place their confidence.
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