Faith

"By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds."

-- Abdu'l Baha

This was one of the quotes which, as C put it, "rocked my world" when I first heard it. Too often do we talk about faith as something opposed to knowledge and science, as something involving blind trust in something one can never prove, and as the pastime of irrational, illogical people. This quote, on the other hand, presents a very different concept of faith, my understanding of which I will try and elaborate on here.

The way I have, over time, come to understand faith, is as a very scientific process of discovery, which is what I believe the first part of the quote alludes to when it talks about conscious knowledge - faith is not just the knowledge one has, but that part of knowledge that one is conscious, aware of. Now how does one go about acquiring this knowledge? It is through a process based on the scientific method of experimentation and hypothesis testing. There is one key difference though - all of science today is based on studying some object external to you using certain physical instruments. Even psychologists who study the human brain or surgeons who study the human body study some human being other than themselves, or some part of themselves that is treated as an object. Therefore there is always a separation between the subject and the object of experimentation, however subtle. In addition, the instruments of experimentation are usually physical, tangible objects that produce physical, tangible results. An exception to this is of course a field like, say, psychoanalysis or anthropological research, where the instruments of experimentation are often more intangible tools. But these too usually involve an external object that is being studied. Both the objectification of that which is being studied, and the physical nature of instruments mean that all these experiments that we conduct on the world have what we like to call objective results - results that do not depend on our opinions/beliefs, but rather results that can be reproduced by anyone who had access to the same object and the same instruments. This notion of verifiability is a key requirement today to be considered legitimate science.

A scientific approach to metaphysical questions, on the other hand, is intrinsically different in that it breaks both of the above norms - the object of study is not something extrinsic to us (or even some part of us that we can study as something extrinsic to our "self"), but rather our own soul - or whatever it is in us that we refer to when we say "I". In addition, the instruments of experimentation are not physical objects, but rather, our actions in this world. We make a hypothesis about the spiritual nature of the world/ourself, act on the basis of that hypothesis, and then make measurements by looking at the consequences of those actions. If the consequences align with the original hypothesis, one puts a certain measure of faith in it. This process of course does not stop with one such instance - one constantly keeps up this process of experimentation and validation, and over time, one builds up a reasonable level of faith in one's hypothesis.

Lets take a concrete example of this. Suppose someone comes to me one day and says I should pray everyday, for that has spiritual influence on the world and my soul. If I accepted him at face value and just did what he suggested, that would surely be blind faith. But instead, lets say I take what he says as a working hypothesis. Then I act on the basis of that, sincerely, and with an open mind, not being attached to my own views on the matter. So I pray sincerely everyday for a while, and then observe the effect this has on my soul, my state of mind, my actions in the world, and my effect on the people around me. If I find that there is a distinct positive change in all these over time, I will, through this scientific process, end up concluding that prayer does indeed have some spiritual effect. Of course, I don't immediately stop at this point and then blindly accept this as a truth proven beyond question. I have greater faith in it, and so act with increased vigor - but still keep my mind open to being proven wrong if there is enough compelling evidence to show that I was mistaken the first time around. As the evidence in favor of the hypothesis mounts, however, so does my faith in its truth value. This is an asymptotic process.

(Note that all this depends on one being completely open-minded, without prejudice, and without preconcieved notions of the results of the experiment - in other words, we need to cleanse the instrument of our soul so we can have confidence in the final consequences being the result of the action itself and not our own failings/biases. The following two quotes from Abdu'l Baha emphasize exactly this point.

"The perfect love needs an unselfish instrument, absolutely freed from fetters of every kind."

"The most important thing is to polish the mirrors of hearts in order that they may become illumined and receptive of the divine light. One heart may possess the capacity of the polished mirror; another be covered and obscured by the dust and dross of this world. Although the same Sun is shining upon both, in the mirror which is polished, pure and sanctified you may behold the Sun in all its fullness, glory and power revealing its majesty and effulgence, but in the mirror which is rusted and obscured there is no capacity for reflection although so far as the Sun itself is concerned it is shining thereon and is neither lessened nor deprived."

Therefore the building up of faith in a spiritual reality should ideally come about as a result of this development of conscious knowledge that is based on this process of scientific experimentation on the soul. And the experimental process involves our deeds, the actions we use to test our hypothesis about the spiritual world - and this brings in the second part of the quote, the practice of good deeds. Faith, therefore is knowledge that one is aware of, and which is built up through the exercise of one's free will to commit good deeds.

Another (and I believe equally valid) interpretation of the second part of the quote is also that faith cannot exist in thought alone - one can only be said to have true faith when one acts and performs good deeds on the basis of that faith. It is not enough for me to say that I believe in God and the spiritual nature of the human soul - I need to act on the basis of that belief, serve humanity, do good deeds - and only then can I be said to have faith. Therefore conscious knowledge, and action on the basis of that knowledge together comprise true faith.

One most striking aspect of this process, of course, is its subjective nature. If I say that prayer has spiritual effect on my soul, is there any way to objectively verify this? This inherent subjectivity is often used as a reason to rubbish any kind of spiritual statement as being scientifically unsound due to its non-verifiability from a completely objective standpoint. But is this really true? Or does this arise from the fundamental impossibility of recreating the exact conditions of experimentation to verify these statements? All scientific experimenters will agree that objective verifiability only makes sense when the conditions of experimentation are exactly the same - so if someone claims that he conducted an experiment where he measured the boiling point of water to be 100 degrees, I would need to recreate the same conditions (ensure I'm heating pure water, for example, and not contaminated water) to get the same result. If i boiled water with salt in it instead of pure water and determined that the boiling point was 105 degrees, I cannot conclude that the first claim was wrong. If we now apply this same analogy to scientific experimentation on the self, one immediately realizes that one can never recreate the same conditions of the soul in another human being, for each person is a complex combination of myriad thoughts, experiences, circumstances etc. And so one should in fact expect that a scientific experiment conducted by one person on his soul would not be exactly reproducible by another. This is no way means that the original experiment and conclusions are wrong.

Does this then lead to complete relativism, a complete lack of objectivity? In a static sense it might seem so, but dynamically I don't think so. Though initially it might seem like our experimental process is doomed to failure because there is no way to distinguish between true consequences of any action, and consequences because of our lack of understanding/sincerity/openness, over time as our understanding develops, so will our ability to discern truth. Therefore with time, as we hone the instrument of our soul and polish our mirrors within, we will be able to better reflect the light of knowledge that shines on us all. And this will eventually lead us, asymptotically, towards understanding, objectively, the true nature of reality and all that underlies it.