Conservative and Liberal: A Multilayered Definition

"You have faith, I have evidence"

This is a common rhetorical strategy of materialists and atheists against christians. It has been so widely used that the faulty premises on which it is built have worked their way into the assumptions of even knowledgable people. Well read individuals will talk as though faith and reason are at odds. They will say, "Sure, I have no evidence, but everyone put's their faith in something". These statements are made sometimes as an attack against christian belief. Other times they are are stated by christians as a last ditch effort to defend their beliefs. However, both honest critics of the christian faith and christians themselves should relook at the relationship between evidence and faith.

Evidence is being contrasted to faith here. However, very often it is reason that is used in place of evidence. "You have faith, I have reason" is probably a more common way to phrase a similar attack. Similarly, christians will admit to a "tension" between "faith and reason", as though there is some sort of balance that needs struck between the two. However, evidence is a more interesting comparison for a few reasons. First, the word "reason" is quite vague. Reason could be a set of logical deductions given particular axioms. Alternatively, reason could just be a way to describe the consistency and forcefulness of an argument. Lastly, reason could mean "sufficient reason" to believe something to be true. This last version of the word reason is what is often being contrasted to faith, and "evidence" is more to the point and avoids ambiguity.

To define faith, let us first turn to the Bible. In deed, if we are to address an argument made by atheists against christians, or improve christians self understanding of such an important concept of their religion, the Bible must be where we turn first to define the term. Hebrews 11:1 says, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for." This verse is clearly providing a definition of faith. The definition is split into two things that are related in a particular way. The two things that make up faith is assurance and hope. The relationship is that the assurance provides sufficient, or even abundant, reason for the hope.

Assurance here is sufficiently synonymous in this context for evidence. When you see a car go fast, you have evidence that the car is fast. You have assurance that the car is fast. Hope is simply something you want to happen. Faith is neither plain evidence, nor just any hope, it is strictly the combination of the two. You may have evidence for something that you could care less about. That is not faith because even though you have evidence, it is not evidence for something in which you are hoping. You might have hope for something but have no evidence for it. This is merely hope, not faith.

Now some will say here that sure, the Bible might provide this definition for faith, however, it is clearly out of step with the every day usage of the word. However, is this indeed the case? If you listened to a discussion or debate between a christian and an atheist you might come away with that impression. However, if you listen to yourself, or the normative usage of the word, you will come away seeing that the Biblical definition actually more closely matches the modern normative usage.

A common phrase or concept is to say that a person has "faith in their spouse". Now, when a person says this, are they saying that they hope their spouse is loyal, but truly they have no good evidence to support this hope? Of course not. When someone says they have faith in their spouse they are clearly intending to indicate that they have abundant evidence that their spouse is loyal.

A person might say, "I will cross this bridge because I have faith in it." When they say that, are they intending to say that they could care less as to whether the bridge holds or falls? Or that they have no good evidence on what it will do? Of course not, they intend to say that they have seen the bridge hold traffic every day for years and years. The foundations are solid, we have a city government that repairs our infrastructure, and so I have good reason to cross this bridge with full assurance that my hope that this bridge holds will be true. Faith is evidence of things hoped for.

Examples could be multiplied. If someone says "I have faith in you", they are most certainly not saying to you "You know, I have no reason to believe you will succeed, but I am blindly hoping that you do". Of course they actually mean "I have every reason to believe you will succeed". Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. So you can see that whether we turn to the Bible or to normative usage, the word faith has been misdefined by those who wish to subtly undo the christian faith. Sadly, too many christians have picked up on this redefining of the word and use this misunderstanding in their own conversation.

"You have faith, I have evidence"

Well, faith is the evidence of hope, so I sure hope that you have faith as well! And if I have faith, then that means by definition I have sufficient evidence, in my own understanding, to support my hope.

"There is a tension between faith and evidence"

Like there is a tension between melody and rhythm. A good song needs both. Without evidence faith is just hope. Without hope, evidence is just Nihilism.

Now the point here is not to say that everyone will agree that the evidence being provided for the hope is sufficient. A christian will say that they have faith in Christ. They are certainly not saying that Christ has given no good evidence for the hope he promises, but I am blinding hoping it all works out like he says. What they actually mean of course is that Christ has provided abundant evidence, more than sufficient reason, for placing our hope in him. He has lifted us out of a life of sin, provided his word to guide us, lived a perfect life, died a perfect death, and has been resurrected for our justification. His perfection, his love, his life provide abundant reason for us to hope in him. An atheist will of course say that they do not find this evidence being provided as very compelling. However, this is the point. It is incorrect to say that faith in Christ, or faith in anything for that matter, is definitionally belief without evidence. That is a misguided, and very likely malicious statement.

So the point is not that everyone everywhere will accept the evidence being provided for the hope, but that evidence is indeed being provided, and that by definition, faith cannot exist without both evidence and hope. faith is not belief without evidence, as some would suggest, but evidence in things hoped for.

Now, I would like to finish by looking at some statements made in modern normative usage that would seem to challenge this notion of faith being evidence of things hoped for. Has the every day usage of the word changed? Is this not what people mean when they talk about faith? Let us take some examples.

"You need to live by faith"

What do people mean when they say this? Do they mean that you need to live by means of belief without evidence? Do they mean that you need to construct your life on a set of beliefs that you have no evidence for? Do they mean you need to build up your life by having faith in a bridge? Do they mean that you need to live your life built upon faith in your spouse? In fact, none of these meanings are intended. What is of course meant is that you need to build your life upon faith in Christ. And so we come back to our previous discussion. What do people mean when they say they have faith in Christ? Do they mean that they hope in the promises of Christ even though Christ has provided no good reason for this hope? Of course not! They actually mean that Christ has given overflowing and abundant reason to hope in Him and His promises, and they are going to build their life on this great and assured hope.

"I take it on faith"

This statement does seem to smell of that incorrect understanding of faith being belief without evidence. Someone might say, "Why do you believe that?" And the reply might be, "I take it on faith." This to me is not a biblical way of speaking about faith. Assuming the belief under question is some tenet of the christian faith, it seems to denigrate the works and words of God. Now, this statement could be intended to mean that the person believes something because they have assurance of things hoped for, which is the proper definition. However, more likely than not this statement is synonymous with, "You know, I don't really know why, so I guess I believe it just because." This is clearly not a God honoring view of the person and work of Christ. Christ has of course provided great reason to hope in Him.

Finally, faith is sometimes made synonymous with presuppositions, or, those things that must be believed in order to then proceed to understand anything at all. For example, nearly all of us presuppose that there is an external world beyond myself that my senses of sight, hearing, smell, and so forth reference. While I am sympathetic to the importance and role of presuppositions and making them explicit, I do not think that presuppositions themselves are synonymous with faith. Rather, shared presuppositions would make the evidence of hope agreeable between two people, and non overlapping presuppositions would make the provided evidence uncompelling between two people. If one person is a true and bare materialist, they will be uncompelled by an argument that rests on sin, judgement, and holiness. Presuppositions to some degree determine the weight a person givens to evidence, but presuppositions are by no means synonymous with faith. Not biblically, and not in normative usage.

And so, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

Evolution is a process whereby there is a species of individuals that exist through time in generations, with each new generation capable of new and different features that are selected by an environment, which causes the proceeding generation to be different from the previous one. If the creativity of the new and different features is unlimited, and the selective pressures change sufficiently, then the change in the species that the process of evolution can produce is itself unlimited, given enough time.

Evolution is not merely change. It involves, as described above, a species (or collection) of individuals, that exist in generations, where each new generation has new features, that are selected by an environment. Evolution is often discussed in the realm of biology, and it is the most commonly accepted theory among biologists accounting for the origin of diversity of the species. Often evolution is invoked when simply change over time is actually intended, and the phenomenon in question lacks one of the key components of evolution, mentioned previously.

Evolution of an animal species would involve an animal species such as a certain type of moth, the individual moths, the generations of moths, the various features that the moth is capable of expressing such as color or wingspan, an environment such as the English countryside and a selection such as certain moths being eaten because their dark color exposes them to predators. In this scenario, evolution can describe the change in the moth species from a dark color to a light color after the introduction of a factory that leaves a white film over the newly industrialized English countryside.

Evolution can exist in other phenomenon as well when the basic requirements of evolution are met, such as technology, and, more specifically, particular technological devices that large numbers of people use on a daily basis that are capable of significantly and directly impacting the schedules, thought processes, and daily life of people. We will call this subset of technology Personally Integrated Devices (PIDs), or just devices for ease of speech.

In order to apply the tools of evolution to devices we need to understand the characteristics of a particular piece of technology that makes it a PID. Then we can view these devices through the lens of evolutionary theory and see if it provides any insight into human behavior and the technologically infused world of certain modern societies.

A Personally Integrated Device is anything that is not a part of the human body and not another biological species, that exists in generations where each new generation the potential for new features, that is used by a large amount of people within a society and is used often enough to affect that persons life, their decisions, and the way they perceive the world. Two things that might fit this description are viruses and clothing. Viruses exist on a hard to categorize line between living and nonliving material, and so they might fit into the "not another biological species" category and would thereby be ruled out of being a PID. If not, they are certainly not human, they exist in generations, each generation can have new features, some are involved in a large number of people within a society, and obviously affect the lives of those people. However, because it is not clear that they are "used" by people, and for other reasons, we will not include them in the definition of a PID.

Clothing, and other common tools and materials used by people, might fit the previously given description of a PID. Clothes are not apart of the human body, they exist in generations since new clothing needs made and often with new features (styles), used by essentially everyone, and clothing effects the lives of people, their decisions, and the way they view the world. Clothing effects everything from morning routines to partner selection.

Other things that fit this description are TVs, desktop computers, laptops, phones, tablets, and other similar devices. These devices certainly fit the description of a PID, and have a particularly new and pronounced effect on the lives of people, their decisions, and their view of the world. It is these in particular that we will focus on, using the term device to discuss these particular PIDs (keeping in mind that other things such as clothing might fit the description of a PID).

Now to apply the concept of evolution to these devices. Obviously devices are individuals (the particular device that a particular person has) of a species (phones in general) and each new generation is capable of new and different features (touch screen that can fit into your pocket, for example). However, is there an environment that selects which features the next generation of devices has?

The device environment is not the human environment, even though spatially these devices almost always exist together with the humans that own them. The device environment is the desires of people that either choose to use the device a lot and ignore the device and eventually discard it or otherwise cease using it. In order for evolution to be applied to devices the features of the device must be capable of effecting the choice of the person to either use the device more or discard the device. Since it is clearly the case that when people use these devices their choice of whether to continue to use the device or discard it is significantly impacted by their actual use of the device itself. This point needs clarified and stressed. A person who has never used a smart phone laughs at the idea that they one day would say that they can't live without it. Their use of the smart phone itself changes their choice as to the importance of the smart phone. In this way, the smart phone is competing in the environment of that persons desires and behaviors, and is selected (that is, survives) if it can change that persons behaviors to include the use and protection of the device.

When viewed through this lens, we can see an active evolution occurring among devices, where the survival strategies being employed involve the manipulation of the desires and behaviors of the people themselves.

The creative engine behind the features of devices used to be the creativity of engineers. However, devices can now creatively adapt through machine learning. This machine learning is centralized in a geographically separate place, however the resulting effect is new features being acquired by the device that is physically present with the person.

This survival strategy of devices has ensured the survivability of the species by becoming so important to the human being that, in often said words, "I couldn't live without my smart phone."

Is this relationship parasitical? This question can be answered philosophically by looking at the ideal of what a person should strive for or empirically by looking at how societies involved in this relationship behave. However it can also be answered personally. When you go to sleep on a Sunday evening thinking about your week to come, do you think in that moment that it would be ideal for you to spend 10 hours on twitter in the coming week? The philosophical and empirical answers are just as obvious.

Sometimes this parasitical infection by the device reaches levels with noticeable and sometimes sever symptoms. A person might be incapable of holding a conversation without stimulus from their phone, might be jittery when sitting without their phone, feel depression or anxiety when they for some reason cannot use their phone, are spending hours a day scrolling through apps, and may have other symptoms. We will call this severe case of the parasitical infection Technological Mental Disease (TMD).

TMD should be researched as a medically diagnosable disease. Its affects should be studied individually and societally. Prevention mechanisms should be put into place to prevent it.