Acts of Faith Are, Strictly Speaking, Irrational

There are lots of things I would do differently were I *certain* that God--under the Christian description--exists. Or at least I would if I were rational and my higher-order desires were regnant. It is not, I think, rationally appropriate for very many people to be *certain* that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists (in the sequel I'll drop the proviso, but it should be understood as being in force). The caveat is reserved for persons with especial religious experiences. The rest of us are subject to ambiguous evidence. Where in that vague middle ground the appropriate rational confidence lies depends on one's particular perspective--to what evidence they are privy and to what principles of evidence they subscribe. My own range of confidence varies for the most part between 40% and 90% (like Olympic judges, I have omitted the extrema--the times when either proposition seems perfectly evident to me).

Now what of these lots of things I said I'd be doing if I were certain that God existed? Should I be doing them? The properly pastoral answer seems to be "yes"? I am called to perfect holiness and obedience to the Gospel. This seems to be in conflict with a standard conception of rationality--one which I endorse. According to (a very abbreviated version of) this conception of rationality an act is rational only if it maximizes expected utility. The latter is calculated very simply as the product of my degree of expectation and the desirability of the outcome. Sometimes this is called "instrumental rationality" or "economic rationality", but I don't think those are very flattering terms. One worry that needs to be dispelled is that this kind of rationality would lead to extreme caution or kill spontaneity. That's simply a fallacy: one might find spontaneity quite desirable and thus spontaneous behavior would be quite rational. In fact thinking rationally is as likely to lead one to greater fun as less: people often avoid fun behavior because of the small risk of serious but not devastating danger. "Let's ride our bikes down that hill." "No. It's too dangerous." "The probability is quite low that you'll, say, break your hand off, and that wouldn't be as bad as a life devoid of fun, so the rational thing to do is to take the plunge." QED

But I digress. Let us take it as an axiom of Christian Discipleship that I ought to strive to do what I truly believe I would do were I certain that God exists and free from irrational or sinful barriers. I think the latter description represents a kind of regulative ideal (though it may need some tightening up upon scrutiny). But, strictly speaking, such actions will be irrational given that I'm *not* certain that God exists. There seem to be four general types of response to this line of thought: 1. Embrace it; 2. Reject the standard notion of rationality; 3. Find a flaw in the reasoning; 4. Find a way "around" the conclusion.

I'm hesitant to embrace the conclusion, yet I can find no flaw in the reasoning, so that leaves me two choices. It is a very pious-sounding strategy to advert to a "deeper" rationality or go postmodern as our friends in the "Reformed" tradition have such a wont to do these days, but I don't think that's fruitful. In fact, as long as this "deeper" notion of rationality doesn't entail the standard notion, then it will still imply that acts of faith are irrational in the ordinary sense and that's just to embrace the conclusion. Wrapping the problem in some larger cloak of mystery does not make the problem go away.

My own attempted evasion does, however, sound enough like the pious strategy that I could probably get by with foisting it upon people as a version of it. It is generally acknowledged that there are times when long-run or all-thing-considered rationality requires short-run apparent irrationality. I'm currently working on adapting a case from Fred Feldman's _Doing the Best You Can_ to articulate the response I have in mind. I'll post it as soon as I get it worked out.