RE: What is the difference between faith and gullibility?
September 19, 2012 at 7:04 am
(This post was last modified: September 19, 2012 at 7:08 am by genkaus.)
(September 19, 2012 at 6:09 am)CliveStaples Wrote: Hmm. A person is said to be "gullible" if they are "overly" credulous, relative to some standard of what constitutes 'reasonable' credulity given some set of criteria. I think you could distinguish faith from gullibility on these grounds, depending on what you understand "faith" to mean. Let's say that r is the "proper" amount of credulity that X should ascribe to some proposition p, and let k be a "gullibility" constant such that X is gullible with respect to p <=> X ascribes p some credulity greater than r+k.
So, according to this hypothetical standard, X should ascribe p a credulity of r; and if X ascribes p a credulity greater than r+k, then X is gullible. What if X ascribes p a credulity in the interval (r, r+k)? Then X isn't gullible, but X is going "beyond" the evidence for p, so to speak; whether or not this constitutes "faith" depends on what you understand "faith" to mean.
I think your question is unanswerable until you define your terms more clearly.
The constant k in this case is 0.
Reasonable credulity, by definition, is credulity based on reason - on evidence. Therefore, based on reason and evidence, X should ascribe p a credulity of r and no more than that. Adding any more credulity than reason permits makes X gullible. Thus, k is zero.
Further faith, by definition, means adding credulity without reason or in contradiction to reason. Therefore any amount of faith would add a variable credulity of f to what reason already permits ®. Thus the total gullibility becomes r+f and since the interval (r, r+k) has been reduced to (r, r), the total credulity falls above the prescribed limit for gullibility. Further, the amount of faith (f) is equal to unreasonable credulity (gullibility) added.
Thus faith = gullibility.
Hence proven.
