Faith between Science and Religion

Ali Reza Kermani

Abstract

The research on the truth of religious faith and how it is formed is one of the topics that have drawn the attention of thinkers for a long time. In recent decades, this topic has received a special interest by scientism philosophers. Some of these philosophers, who presumed that man was nothing but a materialist being –along with his characteristics, such as faith and awareness– have tried to find natural explanations of religious faith. In this paper, I will explain this from two dimensions: a neurobiological explanation and a socio-psychological explanation. I will then analyse and criticise these explanations. I have argued that they are not compatible with scientific standards. Finally, I give a religious-oriented explanation of the reality of faith and how it is formed. In this explanation, faith is classified into true faith and false faith, whether or not the thing believed in is real. It is emphasised on that any kind of explanation of truth and how faith is formed would be incomplete when this classification is not taken into consideration.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)