Faith as doxastic venture

A ‘doxastic venture’ model of faith – according to which having faith involves believing beyond what is rationally justifiable – can be defended only on condition that such venturesome believing is both possible and ethically acceptable. I show how a development of the position argued by William James in ‘The will to believe ’ can succeed in meeting these conditions. A Jamesian defence of doxastic venture is, however, open to the objection that decision theory teaches us that there can be no circumstances in which ‘the evidence does not decide’, so a fortiori no occasion to permit belief on a ‘passional ’ basis. I argue that this objection does not apply to certain ‘framework principles’ such as those presupposed by the framework of theistic belief and practice, and that there are good grounds for preferring a doxastic venture model of faith over a more austere alternative (advocated by Richard Swinburne) according to which reasonable faith cannot be more than the commitment to act on the assumption, with any (non-negligible) degree of confidence, that God exists and is to be trusted. What is faith? And can it be justifiable to ‘have faith’, in the sense in which Christians ‘have faith’? In this paper I shall consider the prospects for defending a ‘doxastic venture’ model of faith. There are, of course, various conceptions of faith. The conception with which I am here concerned can be specified initially as meeting two desiderata. First, under the intended conception, someone who has Christian faith is to be understood as exercising, with respect to Christianity, a capacity which could be exercised differently – with respect to the beliefs and practices of a different religion, or, maybe, with respect to beliefs and practices not normally regarded as ‘religious’ at all. Kierkegaard’s definition of faith as ‘an objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation process of the most passionate inwardness’ is a definition that meets this first desideratum. My second desideratum is also Kierkegaardian: under the intended conception, faith essentially involves active risk or venture – as is popularly said, a ‘ leap of faith’. The doxastic venture model is a model of faith under the intended conception. According to this model, faith involves beliefs which are held ‘by faith’, in the sense