The Epistemological Implicates of Faith

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The Believer's Attitude toward other kinds of knowledge

The appropriate attitude of the believer is the attitude of not looking with suspicion or distruct or fear at the progress of scientific inquiry and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. And it has reason to be much more excited about the development of science. For him every scientific advance is in one way or another a revelation of God. For him any question which comes from scientific advance is an evidence more for his belief.

The Certainty of Faith

The coming of Christian martyrs who died for their faith peacefully and joyfully are the strongest evidence for the certainty of this faith. By any scientific or psychological reasons you could not explain about the peacefull and joyfull deaths of them. It is not just a "tranquilizer" or a "happy pill" for them. It is also not the effect of escape-mechanism. In a better way, we can see that a believer has to learn to distinguish between them and the well-grounded faith in their lives to live with that faith inside. Morever this certainty is called by some writers "subjective", as distinguised from the "objective" certainty of science. The kind of certainty of science is very different from the kind of certainty of faith but they ought to be complementary to each other.

Neither modesty nor arrogance

The claim to the kind of knowledge of God is designated religious faith is in itself neither arrogant nor modest. Whatever may be thought of the view when a theist says honestly, "I think there is probably a God, but I may of course be wrong", demands every kind of respect, for it is eminently compatible, to say the least, with the most profound humility of which any man is capable.

Conclusion

To end this paper, I want to affirm a kind of knowledge of God which is very different from other kinds of knowledge which are found in scientific fields. But this does not mean it is less valuable than the latter. This means we need a different way to verify. It is also different from the mystic experiences. For the believer, it has its own solid ground which premeates the believer's whole life and the certainty of this faith comes from his daily-life experiences, the example of martyrs. It becomes the moves for the believer to put his whole life on even it lacks the poignant intensity of mystical experience. So I hope that through this discussion all of us are aware of a different kind of knowledge which is very near to us but not easy to regconize it. And if you are an theist, I wish you will strengthen your belief day by day because without that you will lose the sight of this knowledge and one day in the future it will be easy for you to lose your belief which helps you overcome the difficulties and challenges in your life.