Faith & Revelation (How do you know? -- Part 2)

This post is a continuation of How do you know? (Part 1). In Part 1, I discussed the methods by which we collect information and how we process that information. We know through our senses and reasoning is the means by which we process this information.
Part II considers considers Revelation as a means to information and  faith as a means of processing information.

There are two aspects about knowing that the western theists believe about how we can beyond the ways of knowing I discussed in the previous essay: How do you know? Part 1.

The first way is that of revelation. Purportedly, God or gods or angels or djinns or what have you reveal knowledge directly to our brains. I say directly to the brain because most will admit that they do not hear God with their ears nor see him with their eyes nor smell, taste, or touch him. So God's communication comes directly to the brain, bypassing all sensory perception.

What should we make of this? How do we determine that any thing like this is actually occurring or has occurred? If something cannot be measured either directly by our senses nor by an extension of our senses such as a microphone or microscope, does it exist? Well, certainly there could be aliens out there in the universe and the fact that we don't know of them doesn't mean that they don't exist. However, in principle we could measure them. The problem with supernatural revelation is that we are to imagine there is an effect that we cannot detect due to a cause we cannot detect.

We know that physical effects are due to physical causes. If something acts as a cause, we can detect it. This awkward idea makes a supernatural being essentially physical if we imagine that it can change things in the physical world.

Do people have experiences that can be interpreted as spiritual? Certainly they do interpret them that way. But really I don't deny that they have experiences. What those experiences really are, however, is another question.

The first principle in interpreting data is Occam's razor. This principle is that give two equally plausible explanations, the simpler one is preferred. I'm not exactly sure what Douglas Adams meant, but I think this quote applies: Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? If evolution, for example, is sufficient to explain the diversity of life, then God in the God+Evolution equation is unnecessary.

To use our induction, anything we have ever seen happen has happened due to physical causes. Every physical event has been preceded by another physical event all the way back to the beginning of the universe. If we don't know the cause of the universe, a physical state of affairs seems infinitely more probable than a metaphysical one.

So if we have an explanation that stems from what we observe, then one that stems from that which we cannot observe even in principle can be dispensed with.

The relates to the question of revelation because we have an idea about these experiences that is observable. Actually there are two separate things that we know. If you, like me, sometimes deal with emotionally troubled people, you know that people are very capable of working themselves into an emotional state. If you've visited churches that emphasize the emotional, you've watched people work themselves into a euphoria. If you've visited the same type of church for longer than one Sunday, it is likely you've seen the same people do the same things week after week.

We also know very well that drugs can induce these feelings. And, too, we know that scientists have induced these feelings by applying focused magnetic fields around the brain. If there were a supernatural being communicating with a person, not only should we see areas of the brain stimulated but we ought to be able to detect what it is that is stimulating it.

So we know some of the causes, though perhaps not all, of such experiences. What we do not know is that there is any “spiritual” cause at all. (Indeed, we do not know that there is something called a spirit!) So why imagine something other than a physical cause? I can't think of any other reason beside wishful thinking. Again, there could be something spiritual, but why believe it without evidence? Or why believe something in addition to the physical if the physical is sufficient? I'm sure it would be argued that for some of these questions, the physical isn't sufficient. Nevertheless, without evidence of something else holding to it as dogma seems worse than the uncertainty of not knowing.

The discussion of revelation corresponds to the discussion of the senses in Part 1 of this essay. Reasoning's counterpoint for this essay is faith. Some would assert faith is a way of analyzing the world around us.

Let's suppose that some piece of information is directly communicated to your brain. Now you wish to articulate this to a friend. The very act of articulating the information, saying what it is, involves reasoning. Where is faith in this? Anywhere where faith is used to consider and evaluate data, it is indistinguishable from reason. Under those conditions, it is reason. Having another name for it is redundant. So what can faith be if it is distinct from reason? I can think of no other definition for it than wishful thinking.

This essay has been difficult to write. It is hard to say anything other than “if there is nothing there, why do you believe in it.” Or, “You can't measure it, so it isn't there.” (I should note that in philosophical discussions, it is generally agreed that it isn't just that we can't measure it now, but that we cannot measure the metaphysical even in principle.)

In short, there seems no reason to believe in the supernatural other than wanting to. I don't know that this a problem as long as one admits that that is the case.