Philo and Faith

Introduction

I do not care to discuss the term faith as it is used in common parlance.  The New Testament concept is the one I care to analyze and capture.  However, I will be making an appeal to Philo’s conception of faith.   Given Philo’s importance for early Christianity, I think this is a natural appeal and not really in tension with my first desiderata of analyzing New Testament faith on its own terms—for instance, there are strong hints of influence, or at least hints of a common milieu,1 between Philo and the author of Hebrews in their respective discussions of the nature of faith.

The primary purpose of this writing is to probe whether New Testament faith extols a faith contrary to reason; whether, in the conception of the New Testament writers, it’s more noble, proper, or commendable to believe contrary to the evidence.  This question will become more useful if we make a distinction and ask it again in light of the distinction.  

The Distinction: Defeated Warrant vs Lessened Warrant

A belief with contrary evidence may be defeated by that contrary evidence or, alternatively, have merely less justification due to that contrary evidence.  A defeated belief is one that is no longer rational to hold.  A lessened belief is one that is still rational to hold, but less compelling and taking a hit to its warrant.  For ease of illustration, we can think of these differences along probability lines.2

Defeated Warrant (DW):  A belief that has lost its justification, falling below a 50% probability credence.

Lessened Warrant (LW):  A belief that has a reduced justification in light of new evidence, but still possessing greater than a 50% probability credence.

The contention of this paper is that NT faith may suffer from LW but not DW.  This contention needs to be substantiated.

Application to Scripture

Turning to Scripture, let’s apply the above distinction to Paul’s account of Abraham’s faith:  

Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

(Rom. 4:19)

Abraham, “in the face of contrary evidence,”3 maintained his belief in God’s promise that he would have a child.  So we have an evidential drop, a drop of warrant, and Paul commends Abraham for maintaining his belief in the face of this drop.  Was this drop of the DW or LW persuasion?  Take Abraham’s epistemic situation.  He had witnessed miraculous confirmations of the promise, the miraculous and predicted destruction of two cities, and had met God personally on multiple occasions.  Moreover, as is assumed through the Scriptural account, God provides us with an immediate epistemic warrant for both beliefs about God and for beliefs from God through the sensus divinitatis and testimonia of the Holy Spirit.  I think this epistemic environment more than justifies Abraham’s faith in God’s promise.  Moreover, I think that the contrary evidence of Abraham and Sarah’s biology are unlikely to overrule these streams of justification.  So it seems clear, or at least plausible, that Abraham is suffering from mere LW and not DW.  

I think particular focus needs to be placed on the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  For the confirmation of the Christian religion, believers rely primarily on this internal witness that God provides through the activity of the Holy Spirit.  Alvin Plantinga has provided a robust defense along Externalist lines of how this activity could provide an agent with warrant sufficient for knowledge, which, under times of trial like Abraham’s impotent body in the face of the promise, would place Abraham’s belief under at most LW and not under DW.

I think that’s right.  But if we stopped here in our analysis of this and similar passages I think we’d be overlooking their central purpose.  It’s at this point that I want to appeal to Philo.  According to Philo, the struggle of faith isn’t so much an evidential struggle as it is a struggle between prioritizing that which is invisible over that which is visible.  This struggle, for Philo, reveals that the believer is placing his trust in the invisible God, and not taking earthly visible reality as ultimate or determinative for the believer’s situation.  Evidential matters do enter into the question for Philo, but only in a tangential way.  These sort of tests of faith are primarily vehicles that reveal where the believer ultimately puts their trust, revealing that upon which they truly rely.  They rely on God and not the world.  They take God as ultimately determinative for  their destiny and situation and not worldly circumstance.4

These considerations should lead to us to revise LW to better reflect the kind of LW that New Testament faith occasionally suffers:

Lessened Visible Warrant (LVW):  Though LVW is an evidential drop, that is, a state-of-affairs that seems to suggest that God either isn’t good or isn’t providing, it’s the sort of drop that relies on taking situational creaturely powers as ultimate over us.  These specific types of LW are temptations to idolatry, despair, or distraction based on what’s visible to our eyes.  

LVW are, to some extent, occasional occurrences for the Christian.  LVW serves a revelatory purpose in that it reveals the faith of the sufferers.  For if they had faith in the world they would despair.  But they did not despair, which reveals that they had faith in God.  LVW can also produce character, strengthen faith, and show the world for the false idol that it is.  It demonstrates exactly where the believer places their hope, who they worship.  We can see this sort of use of LVW in 2 Cor. 1:9: “Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead."

LVW can, of course, also serve a negative role in that it can highlight the double-mindedness of half-committed believers, believers who take worldly situations to be determinative and ultimate; i.e., Peter stepping out of the boat onto the water and Jesus’s response: “Why did you doubt?”.5  Peter was only half-relying upon the invisible God and was overcome by his immediate visible situation, being tempted to despair as he sank.

Hebrews XI

The goal of this section is to analyze Hebrews XI in light of the Philonic interpretative grid just provided.  Here’s the relevant passage: 

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

This passage clearly stresses the importance of invisible realities to the life of faith.  This fits well with what we just established on the Philonic take.  Some translations render “assurance” as “conviction.”  I think both words fit well in that they display a deep valuing and dependence on non-worldly realities—we can also see this theme a few verses back, in 10:34:  “You . . . accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession.”  The latter part of the passage, that “what is seen was not made out of what was visible” also, I think, contains an implicit disparagement of visible reality in that it highlights the dependency of the visible world on the deeper reality of the invisible spiritual world.

There are some commentators that take this passage to primarily describe faith as an organ, in that it is the means by which we know spiritual realities.  I think that’s right, but I also think that the Philonic conception helps us to see in just what manner faith functions as such an instrument; which is via faith’s non-dependency on the world, in that it seeks out God and higher, nobler goals.  It is through this character of faith that it functions as the means by which we know the spiritual world.

God’s Hiddenness

The problem of God’s hiddenness may seem distant from our current discussion, but pausing to reflect on it will reveal some important connections.  Recall what exactly the problem is—that God, even though he provided us with evidence for his existence, could have provided us with even more evidence.  God could have written “God exists” in the clouds every day.  He could make an appearance on the daily news to announce his existence.  But he doesn’t.  I don’t think this is an undefeatable problem; but it is one that requires a response.  And I think the response is going to be along the lines of seeing the value of LVW; God’s non-obviousness can produce a concerted effort to find him, an effort that may be valuable, that shows the tenacity of a person’s denial of the ultimacy of the world, seeking out a true and lasting value.  God’s non-obviousness can produce character or draw us together.  And so on.  LVW have a similar purpose.  

The problem of God’s hiddenness seems like it’s going to elicit a defense of something very close to LVWs, so it seems that Christians are already committed to the value and need of LVWs even prior to this account.6

The Cognitive Element of Faith

We’ve been talking about the virtuosity of belief-that, or cognitive faith.  That cognitive faith could be virtuous or not has seemed odd to many philosophers.  So we need to examine the depths here to get a better grasp of this.  Some definitions that will prove helpful: 

Belief-in (BI):  An act of valuing 

Belief-that (BT): An act of acknowledging 

To be clear:  Belief-that isn’t virtuous or noble according to Christianity.  BT unaccompanied by BI is known in Christianity as mere historical faith and is possessed by even the demons.  

Yet, in our discussion of Abraham, it seems that his belief-that God would give him an heir in the face of contrary evidence is the feature that Paul is extolling.  So how do we reconcile this?  Here’s a suggestion:  BT can inherit a virtuous character if it is the product of a more fundamental BI.  So BT has a sort of second-order virtuousness in certain situations, and I think Abraham’s BT is an example of this. 

I’m not sure that’s right.  I think the account given in the last paragraph can apply to the virtuousness of Abraham’s faith in the specific promises made to him, but I’m not thinking that the account should be generalized.  For it is a doctrinal matter for Christians that God has given immediate epistemic knowledge of himself to all agents.  So all agents possess BT.  But some are resistive of the BT that they possess—unbelievers and demons.  What BI can do in these cases is render the BT non-resistive.  So it’s non-resistive BT that can be virtuous in this more general case.

Of course, we’re conflating the spheres of Abraham’s reliance on God for those specific promises with the sphere of a generalized salvific faith.  There may be issues lurking in this conflation. I’m sure there are.  But Paul himself seems to conflate them for illustrative purposes, so I’ll leave it be for now.

Is the Cognitive Element Necessary?

Given this sort of limitation on the importance of BT that we’ve been stressing, the question may arise whether faith requires or needs BT at all. Consider whether it’s possible to be a Hope-Theist:

Hope-Theist: Someone who positively disbelieves in the truth of Christianity but yet hopes that it is true.

A Hope-Theist would be an agent with BI but lacking BT.  As stated in the last paragraph, BT is universal among agents given the way that God has designed the world.  Our epistemic build leads us to an automatic belief-that God exists and the general outlines of the way in which he governs the world.  This shows that BT is necessary as a matter of fact, that is, that all agents possess BT, so a Hope-Theist is not possible, as BI (which would be roughly the same as “hoping” for Christianity) erases resistive rejection of BT.  But perhaps we’re after something a bit deeper as to why BT and BI should go together, so perhaps we need to go deeper than merely that it is the case that BT and BI go together to why they should go together.

One promising avenue as stated by Philo: “It is a grievous thing to merely hope for good things without also knowing that those good things will come about.”  This provides at least some evidence that God would provide us with BT if we possessed BI. It is good for us to know that our hopes will come about, and we should, and naturally do, seek to increase our warrant for the belief that they will come about.  Even Abraham, the paradigm example of faith, exhibited this nature:  “But Abram replied, ‘Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?’”.  Those who hope for something will naturally look for confirmation that their hopes will take place, and there is nothing wrong with this attitude.  And given the indelible traces of God’s existence in the created order, it seems that they will reach justified conclusions as a result of observing and reasoning about the created order.

Recall the Hope-Theist.  He may go through the motions, attending Church, singing hymns, and so on.  But if he doesn’t believe that Christianity could at least possibly be true, that it has at least some moderate possibility, then his behavior is a case of make-believe, of merely playing along.  He may think it’s beautiful or neat, but he can’t take it seriously in his inner recess.  So at least a marginal BT seems required to avoid the make-believe charge.

The last paragraph does open up the possibility of someone who, though they may not be said to believe in Christianity, that is, does not assign a probability credence greater than 50% to Christianity, may nevertheless hold open a slimmer chance for its truth.  They may decide, out of the eminence of Christian values and its manner, and in light of their desperate lot in life on the one hand, that committing to Christianity and holding onto the small probability that it is true is worth doing.  This person does not positively believe or disbelief in Christianity in the sense of BT, but holds to it in BI.  I think this person is a real possibility and may legitimately be called a Christian.   

It is, moreover, well within their rights to seek to increase the warrant that they have for Christian belief.  They can seek out arguments and confirmations for the promises of the religion, just as Abraham, the Father of Faith, did also. 

Doubting Thomas and the Big Chief

I want to consider wherein the wrongness of Thomas’ doubt consisted.  I want to do this by comparing his attitude to that of a prisoner in an analogy provided by Richard Swinburne:

A man in prison may be told that he will be rescued by ‘The Big Chief’ from the outer yard of the prison, if he can get there at night. On balance, the prisoner does not believe this rumour; he does not think there is any such Big Chief. But the rumour has some plausibility; and the prisoner has no other hope of escaping. He believes that it is far more probable that he will attain his goal of escaping by acting on the assumption that the ‘Big Chief’ exists than by acting on any other assumption. So he steals a file, files away the bars of his cell, and squeezes through the cell window to get into the outer yard of the prison. He is liable to be punished when all this is discovered, unless by then he has succeeded in escaping. The prisoner is not inappropriately described as putting his trust in the Big Chief.

Thomas should have had a similar attitude to this prisoner.  The problem with Thomas isn’t that he doubted but how much he doubted.  Thomas may have thought that he had insufficient evidence to affirm the resurrection; but he should have, out of a noble desire, not have resorted to strong and willful denial of the resurrection.  He should have instead, as the prisoner did the experiment, kept an open mind, preparing and hoping for the Big Chief, despite not having full belief in him.  There was, after all, evidence possessed by Thomas.  He had seen the prophetic fulfillments of Jesus, his various miracles, and of course the apostolic testimony to the resurrection.  He may have thought he had insufficient evidence, but this resulted from placing too high an evidential value on his present sensible situation.  Though he may have been incapable of definite belief at that point, he nevertheless should have fallen back to the position of the prisoner in the analogy, rather than strong and definite denial. This analogy draws out the character of the Hope-Theist.

A Calvin Quote

Let us also remember, that the condition of us all is the same with that of Abraham. All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God: He promises immortality; we are surrounded with mortality and corruption: he declares that he counts us just; we are covered with sins: He testifies that he is propitious and kind to us; outward judgments threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.

Notes

1.  See, for example, Kenneth Schenck’s paper Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews:  Ronald Williamson’s Study after Thirty Years.

2.  Throughout this paper I’m going to use “justification,” “warrant,” and “evidence” quite loosely and not really in view of their technical meanings.

3.  This statement stems from the eminent commentator Douglas Moo in his study notes for the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible.

4.  I think the substance of this Philonic position also underlies Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 5:7 that we “live by faith and not by sight.”

5.  Matt 14:31

6.  Just to be clear; just because God could have provided even stronger evidence for his existence does not negate the evidence that he has provided us.  You can have good and strong evidence for a proposition and yet have even stronger evidence that is still possible but absent.  If anything, that’s almost always the case.

Is Faith a Work?

This is going to be written lazily.

Some Reformed thinkers try to defend the idea that faith is not a work by saying that "it's a gift." The idea is that being a gift and being a work are exclusive options.

But that's not quite right.  All of our works are gifts. So something can be a work and a gift.

WLC and some Arminian ilk also try to hold that faith is not a work.  They defend this claim along different lines than that given above, given that they think faith is a synergistic product. WLC has said that Reformed thinkers tend to think of faith as a sort of virtuous deed, or act, or something that is worthy--and that this is why they hold that it must be produced by God, for otherwise it'd be an example of us working for our salvation.   WLC responds that faith is merely an acknowledgment, passive in its nature, not a work or virtue.  

Now as Christians we *must* hold to some sort of mutual exclusion between faith and works, as Paul's writings assert it repeatedly.  So what do I think? What's the best way to maintain Paul's dichotomy? 

I think WLC is *more* right.  Faith can be contrasted with works insofar as faith is a passive, internal recognition/acceptance.  Faith's passive nature allows for its contrast to works, and not its being a gift.  So the Reformed answer along those lines just seems wrong to me.

Still, I think WLC is wrong to think that faith isn't a commendable trait.  Now, I don't think he'd just outright say that "faith is not commendable."  But this is the struggle of the Arminian system; if you say faith is commendable and that it is not entirely a gift of God, then we have works-based salvation.  If you hold instead that faith is not commendable, you run counter to Christian common-sense.

That last paragraph may seem contradictory with what I said in the earlier paragraphs.  I again appealed to the givenness of faith as excluding it from being a work; something I rejected a moment ago.  To disentangle this, we need to see that there are two tiers to this:  First; all of works *and* our faith are gifts from God for the Calvinist.  If we, synergistically, offer something to our salvation then salvation isn't entirely from God.  That's the level on which I think the Arminian conception falters.  On the second level, in the believer himself, faith is passive and is contrasted with active works.  Faith is not a work in that sense, either.  I think the Arminians can properly maintain this second level, but not the first.  And I think that Paul appeals to both levels to safeguard the pure graciousness of salvation.  

I'm a Moderate Calvinist

As should be evident from previous posts, I’m a fairly moderate Calvinist.

I’m an Infralapsarian.
I make frequent use of a modified Middle Knowledge (better called Hypothetical Knowledge).
I defend a very robust form of divine permission, more robust than is typical for Calvinists.
I’m more in line with Bruce Ware and Terrance Tiessen than I am with Paul Helm.
I hold to mediate imputation of original sin (though not of Placeus’ flavor).

I’ve been thinking about adding an additional moderation to my Calvinism:  Rejecting Limited Atonement.  I think the verses for universal atonement are extremely strong--and their strongest statements occur in the Pauline literature.

I’d do this modification along Amyraldian lines.  But I think my particular views about free-choice enable the view to be more stable than that of the historical Amyraldians, just as I think they enable me to be a more stable Infralapsarian.  I've argued for the latter claim on this site.

God is Impassible - Meaning?

God is impassible. So say many of the creeds and confessions of Christendom.  But is this a Biblical doctrine or merely a relic of ancient speculative philosophy?

God's impassibility encompasses God's unchangeableness and his freedom from emotional impulses.  It's a function of his immutability and his aseity.  It's meant to extol his rationality, independence, and stability.  

Yet many modern Christian thinkers reject the doctrine.  They believe it at odds with the suffering and emotionally involved God of the New Testament.  If God suffers no emotion and is incapable of intrinsic relations to creatures, we seem to have a picture of God incompatible with the Bible's depiction.  It does seem, at first blush, that the doctrine of impassibility implies a Stoic sort of God, one that is untouched by the human plight--directly at odds with the depiction of Jesus in the New Testament.

But, as suggested by the philosopher Paul Helm, there's a way to hold together both the Bible's rich depiction of God as well as the doctrine of impassibility.  This is to hold to God's being eternally impassioned.  God is eternally and immutably *loving.*  He's eternally and immutably sympathetic.  He's eternally emotional and impassioned; but never capable of being overcome with moodiness or fits that depend upon circumstances.

I think something like this explains the incarnation of Jesus as a very real, concrete, emotional person while yet being God--because God matched his eternal passion to a perfect representation of that passion in Jesus.      

Against Presuppers, Again

(This is a companion piece, written in dialogue with presuppers, for my Presuppositionalism is Wrong)

Analysis of Neutrality:

Here are three possible and separate meanings for the concept of neutrality:

I. Neutral people, who are not for nor opposed to God.

II.  Neutral facts, or facts that do not point towards or pertain to God.

III. Neutral evidence, or evidence that does not, by itself, include a denial or affirmation of the existence of God.

As Calvinist, we clearly reject (I). As for (II), presuppers would reject it as well; “there are no neutral facts of this world that do not [. . .] pertain to God.” But I think I can accept this, and still hold to the possibility of neutrality in the sense of (III).  If neutrality in the sense of (III) exists, then I take it that presuppositionalism, as a unique and separate program, fails - for it depends on a rejection of type (III) neutrality to maintain its distinctiveness from other apologetic methodologies. 

For instance, I think that the design of the universe is evidence that God exists. Design implies complexity and purpose. But in pointing out the complexity and purpose of the universe, I am not automatically and directly pointing out God's existence. Instead, I’m saying that the complexity and purpose points beyond itself to the existence of God. We can separate out, mentally, the evidence that points to God’s existence from God’s existence itself. And if we can do this, then neutrality of type (III) exists and can be provided to the atheists *without* committing the Christian to assuming that God doesn’t or does exist in his argument. The complexity and purpose of the universe is a “neutral” ground in the sense of (III). Note that this reasoning allows me to affirm (II) without denying neutrality of type (III).

I think that these neutral facts of type (III) are evidential precisely because they do pertain to God, pointing towards his existence.  And I think that these facts can be accepted by the atheist, even granting his atheism, because they do not themselves include or deny the existence of God.  So if an atheist accepts these evidences, he thereby has evidential grounds for believing in God without thereby first assuming that God exists.  Even given his presupposition of atheism, he has evidence for God given these neutral facts that point to God.

If this sort of neutrality exists, then I can form arguments for God’s existence that do not contain his existence as a premise, that do not assume his existence.  I can form neutral arguments of type (III).  

On the Meaning of Ontic vs. Epistemic Starting Points:

Let me try to disambiguate what I mean by "epistemic" starting point:

By "epistemic" starting point I'm meaning to refer to a belief or experience of which the agent is *aware*, in their own mental life. This belief-awareness is what makes it epistemic rather than ontic.  By “starting point” I mean to refer to a belief or experience that confers justification to an agent’s beliefs in a basic way, that is, without depending on intervening beliefs or experiences.

Epistemic Starting Point:  An experience or belief, of which the agent is aware, that can confer justification on other beliefs, but itself doesn’t depend on other beliefs or experiences for its justification.  

An ontic starting point, on the other hand, is a state-of-reality that enables or explains some other facts about reality. There's no belief-awareness requirement for ontic starting points.

Ontic Starting Point:  A state-of-reality that is the first in a series of causal-explanations for some other facts about reality.  There is no awareness-requirement for ontic starting points.

Now, I grant that God is *both* an epistemic as well as ontic starting point as I've defined.  I do not grant that God is the sole epistemic starting point, (though he is the sole ontic starting point); I think that the other epistemic starting points can confer knowledge separately of an agent's awareness of God.

Now, I want to ask you: What do you mean when you say that God is the "epistemic precondition of knowledge"? Do you mean 'epistemic' as I've explained it? Or something else? Because if you mean it as I've explained it, I think you've obliterated the proximate starting points and reduced them all to one starting point, thereby denying the MSP Thesis, because you’re then requiring that agents be first aware of God’s existence prior to being able to know other items of knowledge.  And you've also got a difficult counterexample on your hand with the headache example; whereby it seems possible to know that one is experiencing a headache without knowing that God exists.

The Analysis of Knowledge:

So points below are a bit further afield from our current discussion, but I’m thinking they’re significant and wanted a place to put them down. Also the analysis is pretty deep and requires careful reading. So bear with me.  

We’re both going to reject that there are individuals who possess no justification for the belief in God’s existence.  We both accept, in some sense, that all humans possess the Sensus Divinitatis.  This fact clouds our ability to discuss whether agents must know first God in order to possess knowledge; because, presumably, you’re thinking that *everyone*, even the atheists and agnostics, know God, and this is how they also have other items of knowledge.

But my original W1 thought-experiment was meant to put forward a *true* agnostic (at least at the outset of their endeavor--they must come to belief in God through evidences), agents who do not possess immediate justification for the belief in God.  I don’t think these true agnostics exist, as I don’t think W1 is actual.  But I do think they’re possible, that is, that God could have created such agents who must come to believe in his existence on the basis of evidence alone.  Let’s call these agnostics “Poss-Agnostics,” agents who really do not have an immediate epistemic awareness of God’s existence.

Poss-Agnostic: An agent that does not have an immediate epistemic awareness of God’s existence.

Now, let’s bring in a theory of knowledge.  The traditional analysis of knowledge held that for an agent to possess knowledge they must possess a belief that is both justified and true.  So knowledge is justified, true, belief (JTB).   Justification comes in different flavors; probabilistic evidence, testimony, deduction, sense-experience.  Let’s say that I see that it’s 2:00 AM. Moreover, grant that my sensory-perception is reliable at producing true beliefs.  So I have justification for the belief that it’s 2:00 AM.  Moreover, I believe it.  Moreover, it’s actually *true* that it’s 2:00 AM.  If the JTB analysis is right, then I *know* that it’s 2:00 AM.  That’s it.  Nothing more is needed for me to be able to say that I know that it’s 2:00 AM.

What I *think* you're doing, though correct me if I’m wrong, is trying to add an additional requirement for knowledge; you’re trying to require, in order for knowledge to be obtained, that an agent also have an epistemic awareness of God.  Let’s call your analysis of knowledge JTB-G.  

I think part of the reason you may feel alright with adding the “-G” is due to the non-existence of Poss-Agnostics in our actual world.  Everyone does, in fact, have the “-G” due to the Sensus Divinitatis; that is, they have an awareness of God.  

But that’s a bad move, because our analysis of knowledge should be applicable across all possible worlds.  And the Poss-Agnostics do not possess an immediate awareness of God, so lack the “-G”, possessing, at the outset, merely JTB about those things they know.  Yet they do have knowledge.  So JTB-G is the wrong analysis of knowledge.  An immediate awareness of God’s existence is not required for knowledge.