A Comment on a Quote by Bertrand Russell

by Tom Crawford

8/3/2007 (revised 10/11/2007)

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Bertrand Russell at one time made the following statement:

"We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions." -- Bertrand Russell

Russell conveniently redefined faith from his own viewpoint, and then takes his argument from there.  True we do not normally speak of faith when we deal with facts like “two and two are four or that the earth is round,” but that doesn't mean we don't exercise faith in those facts. Let me ask Bertrand a question, "Bert, suppose you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread for two dollars, and two cans of soup for two dollars. When you go to the cash register and get your purchase rung up, do you trust that two dollars plus two dollars is four dollars? Or do you expect that two dollars plus two dollars could be any amount between one dollar and one million dollars?"

As I stated in my previous posts, from both the Biblical and the Dictionary definitions, we exercise faith in facts like these every day, because they have been proven to be true and we are firmly convinced that they are. We put our trust in the above two facts whenever we add two and two or shoot a satellite into orbit.  You either trust that 2+2=4 and that the earth is round, or you don’t!  Russell really does not have the right to define faith in a way differently than either the dictionary or the Bible defines it, just to argue his point. In reality, all Russell really did was to define “blind faith.” True faith is not an emotion, it is putting your confidence in evidence or facts.   His quotation does nothing to discredit what the Biblical definition of faith is, and it gives absolutely no logical evidence on why I should give up my faith in God and become an atheist.

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