Fool's Poker: Reasoning about Faith

Imagine playing poker against an opponent who, at his whim, could enact a "special rule" that made any card of his choosing wild at any time. Or imagine if by invoking a "separate category of poker knowledge," your opponent could alter the hands' rankings whenever it suited him, so that, without warning, his pair of twos, for example, could beat your four aces.

No one would agree to play against such rules, certainly not with real money. Yet in the realm of the intellect, where in the long run the stakes are much higher, this chump's version of philosophical poker is played far more frequently than one might suspect. Moreover, neither side seems to fully grasp the deviant nature of the contest.

An advocate of reason who tries to reason with a defender of faith is playing Fool's Poker. Mr. Reason could have a logically thought-out argument that he articulately presents, a solid four-ace poker hand of the intellect, but it would mean nothing to Mr. Faith. He would simply invoke his "special rule," claiming his faith to be a "separate category of knowledge" that outranks logic and, presto, his cards win, at least in his mind. Why? Because, to him, faith trumps reason.

Man's mind, says Mr. Religious Faith, is fine for dealing with "little" things like working or driving or going to school, but when it comes to life's great issues, this sin-tarnished mind, he insists, is suspect at best, impotent at worst. Man's mind, says Mr. Secular Faith, is fine for dealing with this unreal world of "forms and illusions," but when it comes to grasping "real reality," this deluded mind, he proclaims, is impotent at best, nonexistent at worst.

Though they may have family squabbles, the Faith Twins, by treating reason as a second-class citizen of the mind, have equally rejected the only means by which they might distinguish truth from error.

Before continuing, let us define our terms. Faith, to paraphrase philosopher Leonard Peikoff, designates blind acceptance of a belief held in the absence of, or contrary to, actual evidence or proof.¹ Reason is "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses."² Or to put it simpler, faith is belief without proof and reason is the means of acquiring proof.

If your car won't start and you pray about it, you are exhibiting faith. If you call a mechanic, you are applying reason. If you do both, you are straddling a fence. The world is full of fence-straddlers, people with one foot in faith and the other in reason. It is a teetering, uncomfortable position to be sure, but apparently is a tolerable compromise in the mind of Mr. Faith. When he fails at something, he accepts blame for having too little faith. And when he succeeds, he renders faith the accolades for reason's work. How many times have you seen, for instance, a hard-training NBA player who sinks a wining basket and then during a locker room interview, chalks his skill up to faith? Or a boxing champion who, after months of grueling workouts and several rounds of pummeling his opponent, looks into a camera and breathlessly thanks God for the knockout?! Or a savvy entrepreneur who struggles to the top of his field by mercilessly outperforming his competitors, yet always credits religious faith?

In polite company one is certainly not obligated to expose such inconsistencies. In such situations it's probably best to just let people think they can have it both ways. But if truth is important, then so is learning how to arrive at it—and how to avoid error. And that is what this essay will further examine.

Suppose, for instance, that someone tells you that he has discovered something superior to reason, which he calls, let us say, "zaith." "Interesting," you say, "Tell me all about this 'zaith.'" He then starts gesticulating wildly and making inarticulate sounds and grunting noises. After a minute of this, he stops and asks what you think about his new knowledge-gaining system. Of course you tell him you don't understand what he did. "I suppose not," he responds, "If you were trying to understand, that means you were engaging your faculty of reason. Stop using reason, stop leaning on your own understanding, and just have zaith."

Certainly anyone who repudiates reason that blatantly deserves to be ignored outright (or escorted to the nearest mental ward). So to keep this example alive, suppose that neither of you recognizes that even something so rudimentary as language, requires the application and implicit acceptance of reason. So imagine that he describes in actual words why he thinks his system works better than reason. Once he finishes his spiel, what do you do? Well, first, would you not evaluate what he said to see if it makes logical sense? But, then, how do you evaluate something? To evaluate is to judge. And to judge you need some standard of reference. The only legitimate standard is: reality. And what is man's means of grasping reality? Reason. Oh, and let us not forget about the "see if it makes logical sense" issue. What is "logical sense"? Logic, by definition, is the method of applying—you guessed it—reason.

Instead of trying to "judge" and "evaluate" and "logically examine" his assertions, suppose you elect to use less "judgmental" language. So, thinking you can get away without judging if only you don't use the term, you decide to simply try to discover whether or not his claims about zaith are true. Fair enough, but then what does it mean for something to be true? To be true, a proposition must correspond with: the facts of reality; if it doesn't, then it must be false. And the only way you can determine whether or not his claims correspond with reality is to reference the facts that you know. Any way you slice it, this is all part of the reasoning process.

But suppose you are a bit off your game and do not realize that you are already wading knee-deep in reason. Wanting to give zaith the benefit of doubt, you say to yourself, "My mind certainly doesn't contain all knowledge in the universe. And what he says doesn’t appear to contradict any facts that I'm aware of. So perhaps he's on to something. Perhaps zaith is indeed better than reason." What, then, is your next step? What do you if something might make sense and might be true, but yet you are not completely convinced? Well, at that point, you would demand he provide you with proof. But wait a minute! What is proof? Proof is the sum total of a logical chain of thought derived from the evidence of the applicable facts of reality. So we're right back at "facts" and "reality" and "evidence" and "logic," all of which are inescapable elements of the reasoning process.

But what if he tries to fool you into believing a lie? All the more reason to use reason! How else would you detect what's true or false¾ by using your feelings?

But even if the "evidence" he provides is false (i.e., is some kind of trick), the fact that you seek proof and that he purports to render it, indicates that both of you tacitly accept that the concepts "proof" and "reason" are valid. Not to recognize this is to engage in an error Ayn Rand called "the fallacy of the stolen concept."³ For instance, if a man were to tell you to drive to the library to find a book that proves cars cannot be driven, he has mentally "stolen" and is depending upon the very concept he is asking you to discredit. Likewise, one who demands proof of reason's validity, steals the concept "reason" the moment he utters the word "proof." Moreover, since proof is predicated on reason, the latter can neither be proved nor disproved. Reason is the father of proof, not the other way around.

Most faith advocates concede that reason is required for understanding, say, science or business or math. But faith, they insist, is a separate category of knowledge worthy of special consideration. Faith, they allege, reveals "higher truths" that are inaccessible to man through logical reasoning. If you ask Mr. Faith how he knows these "higher truths" are indeed higher and true, he will tell you he "just feels it." Or perhaps he will describe his faith as a "little voice" that broadcasts instructions to his soul, his consciousness. Or he will declare he believes in faith with all his heart. If Mr. Reason points out that neither inner feelings nor little voices nor heart-felt convictions constitute proof, Mr. Faith will insist that belief without proof is morally preferable to belief substantiated by proof. Thus he attributes virtue to faith, but not to facts; he finds morality in believing, but not in proving¾ in accepting, but not in authenticating.

However, I doubt Mr. Faith would fly with a pilot who tells him that whenever a little inner voice instructs him to disregard his flight training and rely on faith, he obeys the little voice. And I doubt that Mr. Faith would be willing to be operated on by a surgeon who ran no tests yet declares he "just feels" that Mr. Faith needs a kidney removed. And I doubt that Mr. Faith would enjoy living in a country whose ruler wields power by way of divining "higher truths" from a purportedly special category of knowledge inaccessible to reason.

In fact, let's walk for a moment in our opponent's shoes, just to see how he likes it when faith is on the other foot. Imagine you are in a discussion with Mr. Faith and no matter what he says, you fire back with a terse, "What you said implies that God is a cherry-red sports car with wheels made of fish!" He likely will demand to know how you can logically justify your claim that his words had such outlandish implications. And you can reply, "Oh, so you want me to use logical reasoning and actually prove my claims are true, but you want to simply cite faith as sufficient justification for your claims. You want me to stay planted in the hallowed halls of Reason when I speak, while you're free to run wild in Faith-land. Well either we both use reason or we don't. But if we don't, then there are no rules, logic is out the window, and anybody can blurt out anything."

In short, there are no shortcuts to knowledge, and reason is the only road that will take you there. So never waste too much time gaming with anyone who refuses to play by the rules of logic.