Where faith begins

At a certain point, faith begins. At that point, worldviews rise. What is that point? Does faith start where knowledge ends? This implicates that faith is not knowledge. But faith seems rather invisible knowledge. Does faith start where visible knowledge ends? Where falsification cannot be based on observations?

The struggle is the apparent contradiction: some knowledge can be (dis)proven, other knowledge seems beyond question true. But is this so? It implicates that some knowledge cannot be subject to doubt (maybe math?). Where doubt rises, faith enters the equation. But at what point doubt rises is subjective. Subjective doubt as measure means when someone believes in something that cannot be proven, but is certain about it, it is not faith. Intuïtively this doesn’t make sense.

Maybe this is the explanation for something like common sense: although we have no proof, we hold things for true, beyond doubt and not a result of faith. Maybe because our gut tells us so, or because many others tell the same story.

Our common sense is where we can find our most existential assumptions, like:

• Everything we sensory observe is real
• Excessive pain is not healthy
• Murder for our own pleasure is bad
• Math is real
• And so on

The Achilles heel is the question: ‘Are these assumptions someones faith?’. We have two extremes for an answer:

1. every assumption is complete faith since none of these can be proven
2. they are simply a deduction of reality, thus not subject to faith at all

Which is true?

The trouble rises when two people meet, who are respectively firm believers of answer 1 versus anwser 2.

Result is one person denying he is a believer, the second accuses the first to be a believer, and so on.

So, what is true?

First of all, faith as phenomenon seems an existential riddle. Second, we face a lot of options where faith might start. Third, we come to our truth about faith. Fourth, we decide our attitude towards the other who believes something else.

Any other conclusion would be groundbreaking; it trancends the given knowledge in history.