The Faith in Logic

Generally speaking, faith is a terrible idea. It is the total negation of logic, and therefore of any serious attempt to see reality. Faith does not inherently deserve respect, even if its results can occasionally be beneficial. Outside the social normalisation granted by the respectful word 'faith', belief without reasoning is known by the less reverential term 'delusion'.
Even with the temporary comfort that faith can provide, it is easy to see that in most cases its effects are rarely inspirational and unifying. More often than not, faith breeds subservience and division - The holy terror of Hell, and the bloodshed of religious conflict.
Faith fuels hatred, fear and repression, whether it be through fundamentalist religions, or through unquestioned ideological doctrine. Faith harms both the terrorised faithful and the persecuted faithless. Worst of all, faith turns potentially sceptical people into unthinking puppets, ready to be manipulated by whoever can claim to represent their own brand of God, morality or nationalism.


But the disapproval of the logical towards the faithful is in many ways an arrogant projection - One bred of the same combination of unquestioning and self-denial that is the hallmark of those they wish to set themselves apart from. Many who think of themselves as logical seem to hold their analysis short of realising that logic is itself entirely faith-based.
The idea that logic is a source of truth is entirely reliant on a few core assumptions ('axioms') to do with perception and cognition. Epistemology, the study of knowledge, calls these assumptions 'self evident truths', but that term is really just a convenient label for beliefs without justifications.
The reason why these truths have to be 'self evident' is that logic cannot muster any external evidence of its own validity. Provide a reason why logic leads to truth, and you are already operating within logic, and therefore employing a circular argument. And by logic's own rules, circular arguments cannot be employed to support anything.
'OK then,' you might counter, 'but we can at least say that logic is more likely to be a source of truth than faith. After all, logic has limitless evidence for its validity, because it always turns out to be correct.' This is all well and good, but the argument for logic now relies on three impossible to verify beliefs - beliefs in probability, accurate perception, and properly functioning cognition.
Like logic, probability provides no reasoning for itself other than the fact that it probably exists. But any talk of likelihood drives the argument into circular logic. This is little better than a Christian using biblical verses to justify his or her belief in the bible.
Accurate perception and cognition are required to accept the evidence in favour of logic. And like probability, these concepts are impossible to externally verify. The only things that we can use to confirm the idea that our senses are conveying reality to us are our senses. The only thing that gives us reason to believe that our cognition is accurate is our cognition. Again, the argument lapses into circularity, and we find that using evidence as proof for logic's validity only shifts the location of one's faith from one place to another.


The uneasy conclusion that one is forced too is that all opinion reached via logic is faith-based, and that logic is as much a faith as any religion. The only difference is that logic replaces holy books and High Theory with its own trinity - a trinity of the unprovable assumptions that perception is accurate, that cognition is reliable, and that probability exists.
Of course, all of this leads to some fundamental questions - If logic really is just another faith, then why should it be trusted? Should sceptics still rely on logic? Does it really have any superiority over other faiths?

Daniel Bozhkov, Darth Vader Tries to Clean the Black Sea with a Brita FIlter, 2000

The answer to all of these questions is 'yes'.
There are certain features which set logic apart from other faiths, that do give it a genuinely exceptional status. The most obvious of these unique qualities is logic's impeccable historical record. Logic stands alone among faiths in that it has never been wrong about anything, ever.
Logic is also unique in that instead of beginning in an awkward combination of faith and reasoning, and then haphazardly trying to reconcile the two, logic begins in total faith, but once this foundation is established, instantly moves into total reason. It is therefore inherently more consistent and reliable than any religion or ideology.
Quite aside from logic's superiority, there is the wider question of whether or not it matters, given that most of us could not escape the parts of us that are logical and faithful, even if we wanted to. It seems biologically hard-wired into us that we will all have at least some involuntary impulse to reason, despite any amount of faith piled on top of it. And it seems equally clear that we have plenty of faith built into us as well. In fact, without faith (excluding faith in logic), life would be literally meaningless, because meaning is itself faith-based, and functions predominantly outside of logic. Even if one managed to escape logic, the only foreseeable alternative would be madness, which is presumably a far less pleasant state of mind.

So how should we treat this logical faith? This faith-based logic?
A scholar whose name eludes me once wrote that mysticism is like the sun, in that it illuminates our reality, but cannot not be looked at with its own light. Perhaps this is a better metaphor for logic. It remains humanity's greatest and most powerful tool for seeing reality, but it is also impossible to turn upon itself and deliver anything but a blinding confusion.
Whatever the case is, logic is still my faith, and I wouldn't chose any other.


Now read this post again, and find the errors in my logic.