A child hears her mother say, “Lucerne is good for cattle.”

The child does not know what lucerne is. Can the child believe that lucerne is good for cattle? Well, no, but she can believe (unconditionally assent to) the statement, “That lucerne is good for cattle is true.”

Then, there is the question of implicit faith, e.g. I believe that the information contained in the Nautical Almanac is true, even though I have not read that useful volume for cover to cover.

Religious faith consists of such complex assents: “It is true that…” for all are agreed that the motive of faith is the veracity of God revealing.

Unfortunately for the god of the gaps, it has run out of hiding places.

darwinkilledgod dot blogspot dot com

“On another note, having relative degrees of confidence in things experienced, testified to, demonstrated, or hypothesized is not the same thing as (religious) “faith”.

Really? Why not?”

I am courious. So are you saying you have a “relative degree of confidence” on your belief in a deity (I assume you are a theist, correct me if your right)?

The claim that a divine mystery is not fully knowable is the claim that no matter how much is known there is still more that could be known. It does not follow from this at all that there are relevant truths that cannot be known.

So, divine mysteries are recursively enumerable?

There are people who believe that a full physical account of the universe is beyond the ability of any human being — we after all have very finite animal brains — to grasp…

I know, and it’s even possible that’s true. But even if it’s true, it’s only of philosophical interest. It has no practical consequences whatsoever.

Consider. How do you determine what things are ‘beyond the ability of any human being… to grasp’ and which aren’t? The only way to tell is by trying to understand it. If you succeed, then it was knowable.

The problem is, if you fail, you can’t conclude that it’s unknowable. It might be… but it also might be the case that you just didn’t happen to figure out something knowable, and you or someone else might have better luck on a subsequent attempt.

All you can ever say is, “we don’t understand that yet.” Think about all the things that have been confidently declared to be unknowable that have turned out to be perfectly explainable and comprehensible.

…saying that we cannot fully understand everything is not the same as saying we cannot understand anything, and confusing the two is a pretty serious sophism.

I honestly disagree.

A whole lot of answers to ‘the problem of evil’, for example, boil down to ‘God has a good reason for allowing evil, but it’s beyond us poor humans to grasp’. It’s very much like this classic cartoon: http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/gallery/math/math07.gif

“Not fully knowable” indicates a rudimentary understanding. It does not mean that the thing is unknowable; it means that it is known as a first grader knows how to read.

I think you’re confusing “not fully knowable” with “not fully known“.

…having relative degrees of confidence… is not the same thing as (religious) “faith”.

Really? Why not?

Well, it does depend on your definition somewhat. For example, C.S. Lewis said, “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.” To a first approximation, this resembles ‘confidence’ or ‘certitude’.

But that can’t be what McGrath is talking about. He says faith is “not limited to the somewhat meagre truths that reason can actually prove.”

So, McGrath is talking about stuff ‘beyond reason’. (Well, I did talk about ‘unknowable’ above…) Of course, I think he’s wrong about what exactly is beyond reason. For example, he cites ‘morality’, and I disagree rather strongly.

I take it you are mostly joking around, because your comments make no rational sense.

“Not fully knowable” is obviously different from “at least partially unknowable”, just as “not such that every element can be individually identified” is not the same as “such that some elements can never be individually identified,” just as “this series is not finite” is not the same as “this series has numbers that are not finite”. In fact, the connection is a close one: The claim that a divine mystery is not fully knowable is the claim that no matter how much is known there is still more that could be known. It does not follow from this at all that there are relevant truths that cannot be known.

Likewise, it would be a sign of stupidity for anyone really to believe that “believing in something beyond your ability to ever understand is the intellectual equivalent of dividing by zero. Once you accept that, you can ‘prove’ – or, at least, believe – anything.” There are people who believe that a full physical account of the universe is beyond the ability of any human being — we after all have very finite animal brains — to grasp even though they think there is good reason to think that such an account in principle exists. (For instance, mysterians about the mind-body problem like Colin McGinn; or nonreductive physicalists who are less optimistic than Nagel about our prospects of eventually solving such problems.) There is nothing about this position that commits them to “the intellectual equivalent of dividing by zero” or that implies that they “can ‘prove’ – or, at least believe – anything,” and anyone suggesting otherwise is obviously either joking or just throwing out non sequiturs. Whatever problems the position has, it is extraordinarily obvious that this is not one of them — saying that we cannot fully understand everything is not the same as saying we cannot understand anything, and confusing the two is a pretty serious sophism.

I think you’re confusing ‘unknowable’ with ‘not fully knowable’.

How is “not fully knowable” different from “at least partially unknowable”?

The sheep finds a lot of the behavior of the shepherd knowable. It’s still generally surprised when the knife comes down…