Factual knowledge is “knowing that.” Here language is in its element.
Practical knowledge is “knowing how.” Here knowing is half-mute. Telling only complements showing.
Moral knowledge is “knowing why.” Here knowing ought to be mute.
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Matters of faith are neither factual nor practical.
Faith is not belief that any particular fact is the case, nor is is confidence that someone (whether self or other) has the will or capability to succeed in any particular action.
Faith is a matter of “believing in” the value of…: emphasis on “in”.
Faith is immersive. If faith exists we are in it and it involves us entirely.
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Faith belongs to the “outer world”, in the same manner that a perspective belongs to a scene.
A perspective cannot be viewed from without, and it is not something we contemplate “within”.
(Faith is intentional in the phenomenological sense.)
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We can stop believing in some particular fact, but retain the sense that what the belief signified was important. Our faith survives disbelief.
We can lose confidence that we can succeed at some important task, but retain the sense that the task was important. Our faith survives loss of confidence.
We can preserve our beliefs and know for a fact that we will succeed in whatever we set out to do, but when we realize that none of it matters, faith has been lost.
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A kind of sublime faith sacrifices both belief and confidence, and lives without certainty in pursuit of impossible goals.
People who state their faith in terms of factual belief are — to put it very bluntly — not religious. Fundamentalists are political ideologues who use abuse religious language shibbolethically.
Fundamentalists are much more closely aligned (at least epistemologically) with scientific minds than with religious minds.
This is why fundamentalists and scientists love to debate one another. They differ only superficially. Their disagreements are commensurable. They understand one another perfectly well, and simply disagree. Of course, to them there could be no deeper disagreement, but this “could” constitutes their superficiality.
The only difference is that the scientists are faithful to fact, and the fundamentalists are faithful to something else entirely.