1. Religious faith and emotion
TOK Field Day Lent 2019
Michael Lacewing

2. The foundations of faith
Sensory experience and rational argument are not enough on their own to establish religious faith.
Almost no one comes to believe in God this way.
The claims of faith are not established by scientific investigation.
The (proper) foundation of religious faith is an emotional response to existence itself and the nature of human life.
An emotion is an evaluative response. Reason cannot discover values without relying on emotions.

3. On emotions Many people wrongly assume emotions are Just feelings
Subjective
Without grounds

4. Emotions are not ‘just feelings’
Emotions are ‘about’ something
Compare an itch to feeling angry - the anger is directed towards someone and is about something.
Emotions embody a view of some object, and a response to the object seen that way.

5. Emotions are not (always) subjective
We do have different emotional responses, but many of our responses are biased in some way
This is no different from reasoning - many people’s reasoning is biased – yet we don’t say that reasoning itself is subjective
Can emotions ever be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?
Yes: when someone you love dies, it is appropriate to grieve; when you achieve a goal you have worked hard for, it is appropriate to feel happy; and so on.
You don’t have to, but it is justified.

6. Emotions have ‘grounds’
An emotion is a response to the value that something has in relation to the interests and well-being of the person having the emotion.
Fear: danger; anger: offence; joy: achievement
How the situation is, or is thought of, provides a reason for the emotion
Because emotions can be justified, they have ‘grounds’. We have reasons to feel one thing rather than another.
We can meaningfully ask ‘why’ someone feels something, and consider whether their response is appropriate to their reason

7. The emotional grounds of religious faith
Do we have reasons to feel a particular way about existence and human life?
Faith experiences existence in the light of God
Goodness
Meaning
Gratitude
Do these experiences – that life is good and meaningful, our gratitude for being alive – make any sense without God?
Just as fear alerts us to danger, do these emotional experiences ‘alert’ us to God?

8. Evaluating faith
I have argued that in thinking about religious faith, we cannot (only) look at questions of ‘evidence’ based on reasoning to reach a conclusion. Faith is not like scientific belief.
Instead, we need to think about the emotional response to life that is the foundation of faith. Is this emotional response justified? And does it support religious faith, e.g. by revealing God, or can it stand separate from faith?

9. Gratitude
Gratitude is typically thought to be directed towards a person to whom one is grateful. Hence the theist may be grateful to God for their existence, experienced as a gift.
But can the atheist or agnostic feel something similar without being irrational? Can there be gratitude for existence but not to anyone?
(My answer is here: /existential-gratitude.pdf)