Building unshakeable faith: Part II of III
Why reason is a necessary but not sufficient condition for faith, and some scientific explorations that actually nourish my faith.
The importance of reason in building real faith.
If faith was built without any supporting evidence, it wouldn’t last very long. For example, here are some of the reasons I use to justify my faith:
Direct experience: ‘I have experienced the positive effects of mantra meditation in my physical and mental state and my surroundings.’
Valid testimony: ‘Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (which I respect because yoga has helped me in many ways for many years) mention surrender to God (ishwarpranidhan) as a way to achieve enlightened states of being.’
Affective appeal: ‘There are forces more powerful than me that have brought me where I am, and chance/luck is an inadequate explanation for the wondrous world I inhabit.’
Self-awareness/reflection: ‘I have a strong feeling that I am more than this body, and that I am meant for more than just material pursuits.’
If you were to challenge one of these pillars by presenting me with counterevidence (for example, by refuting my direct experience with new research that suggests that chanting any random repetitive syllables also gives the same effect), my faith would not crumble because the other pillars would help hold it up.
However, if I did not have some personal direct experience, or at least testimony from a valid source, I would be really hard pressed to justify my faith, not just to you, but also to myself.
If I did not have some personal direct experience, or at least testimony from a valid source, I would be really hard pressed to justify my faith, not just to you, but also to myself.
The limitations of human sensory and cognitive capabilities.
Because our sensory (and resultant cognitive) capacities are limited, it is unlikely that empirical evidence (i.e., knowledge based on direct sense experience/observation) alone can solve all the mysteries of the universe.
Some fascinating examples of the limitations of our sensory capabilities:
Limited perception of dimensions: We can only see up to three dimensions, but physicists posit at least 10 dimensions for string theory to be viable. We can’t even visualize what the other dimensions may look like. Here’s a fun analogy that made it (relatively) easy for me to understand this.
Limited colour perception: Most humans have trichromatic colour perception (meaning we can see 1 million colour variations), and some have tetrachromatic colour perception (meaning they can see 100 million colour variations). There are potentially many more colours beyond the ‘visible light spectrum’ (UV light for example)!
Limited auditory perception: There is a whole world of sounds we cannot hear, including whale songs and stress signals from plants. Here are 13.
A classic example of science moving beyond the limitations of our sense perceptions is the many developments in the field of theoretical physics. Which brings me to…
…Scientific explorations that nourish my faith.
I did not study science beyond high school, so my knowledge of theoretical physics is mostly based on pop-culture (hat tip to The Big Bang Theory on Netflix). But, ever since my boyfriend (now husband) shared his fascination for nebulae and supernovae with me, I’ve married my awe for the beauty of life on Earth with an awe for the wondrous universe I’m in.
Additionally, my husband is undecided (in his words) on “whether there is this one benevolent God up there.” So, we often like exploring alternate explanations to why we’re here—as a bonding activity (ironically) by attempting to challenge each other’s beliefs.
Here are a couple of cosmological (cosmology is a branch of theoretical physics dealing with the nature of the universe) theories that I enjoy juxtaposing with my faith—while fully aware that they neither prove nor disprove God.
“Fine-tuning” of the universe: The inhabitability of our universe depends on very precise values of various fundamental constants (gravity, mass of electron, etc.), and there is no clear explanation for why these constants have these precise values. The odds of this arrangement are proven to be astronomically low—our existence is highly improbable. This, physicists refer to as “fine-tuning” for life. So, what really happened? Did we just get incredibly lucky? Is there a cosmic designer? Physicists continue to struggle with explaining the surprising and extreme improbability of our existence, and the multiverse theory is one such attempt. But, from a logical point of view, our improbable existence is no evidence for a multiverse.
Potentially cyclic nature of the universe: There are quite a few peer-reviewed, published theories that perhaps the universe has no beginning or end; instead, it is cyclical. Nobel laureate Roger Penrose posits that “the whole history of the Universe… is one ‘aeon’ in a succession of aeons.” This is incredibly close to how the universe (and time) is explained in Vedic texts. These theories are a bit more controversial that the “fine-tuning” one (the BBC article linked above describes the scepticism, too), and I believe that is the case because of how humanly inconceivable the concept of “beginningless” really is.
And finally, the spanner in the works of it all: The Universe Is Expanding So Fast We Might Need New Physics to Explain It.
Reading explorations like these nourish my faith because they tell me how far we’ve come with science, and yet how little we truly know about our existence. I hope to see more dialogue between science and faith in answering these big questions. Here’s a quote from physicist Joseph Silk that resonated with me: “Drawing the line between philosophy and physics has never been easy. Perhaps it is time to stop trying. The interface is ripe for exploration.”
In the meanwhile, I hope you continue to nourish your faith through practices that give your life meaning. And recognize that logic and reason can only take you a certain length, beyond which requires a “leap of faith.”
P.S.: If you enjoyed reading the Scientific American article on fine-tuning and multiverses, I’d recommend reading just the conclusion of this paper from MIT. Additionally, here is an emerging counter argument to the “fine-tuning” theory.
Part 3 explores how the practice of Yoga can strengthen our cognitive and intuitive abilities and nourish our faith.