Abstract
What is the relationship between faith and evidence? It is often claimed that faith requires going beyond evidence. In this paper, I reject this claim by showing how the moral demands to have faith warrant a person in maintaining faith in the face of counter-evidence, and by showing how the moral demands to have faith, and the moral constraints of evidentialism, are in clear tension with going beyond evidence. In arguing for these views, I develop a taxonomy of different ways of irrationally going beyond evidence and contrast this with rational ways of going against evidence. I then defend instances of having a moral demand to have faith, explore how this stands in tension with going beyond and against evidence, and develop an argument for the claim that faith involves a disposition to go against, but not beyond evidence.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 117-142 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Mar 2020 |
Keywords
- faith
- belief
- action
- going beyond evidence
- moral demands