Faith and Knowledge — Two Ways We Understand the World

Human beings try to make sense of the world in two main ways: through what we can know and through what we cannot know.

1. Facts and Beliefs

Things that can be tested, verified, and supported by evidence are called facts.
Ideas we form about things we cannot clearly know or prove are called beliefs.

Facts stand on evidence.
Beliefs stand on the minds of the people who hold them.

If the people who believe a certain idea disappear, the belief itself also disappears.
In this sense, belief is like a temporary support used when clear knowledge is not available. As knowledge grows, the need for belief becomes smaller.

2. The Danger of Giving Belief Too Much Power

When we treat beliefs as final truth, we often block ourselves from discovering new knowledge.
Belief should not stop us from asking questions. Instead, it should help us move toward better understanding.

3. Science and Religion

Science deals only with things that can be known, tested, or verified.
Religion, however, reaches into what cannot be known or proven in the same way.
Therefore, religions naturally contain many beliefs. These cannot be labeled “true” or “false” in the scientific sense because they are not facts.

Just because many people believe something, it does not become a fact.

4. Types of Beliefs

Beliefs can be grouped into three kinds:

• Helpful beliefs – those that uplift individuals and society. These can be accepted.
• Harmful beliefs – those that cause suffering or prevent growth. These should be rejected.
• Harmless beliefs – those that make little difference whether one believes them or not. These may simply be ignored.

5. Doctrines in Religious Traditions

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each have fixed sets of beliefs called doctrines.
Followers of these religions are expected to accept and believe them.
Such permanent beliefs do not function as steps toward knowledge; more often, they limit free thinking and keep the mind closed.

6. The Role of Theology

Our present worldview is shaped by centuries of evolving beliefs.
Theology studies how these beliefs arose, how they changed, and how they influence human life.
Its main focus is the set of beliefs humans have formed about God and the divine.