Post Number:#107 
December 19th, 2011, 11:09 pm
Is “faith” synonymous with “self-delusion”?
To my mind, the answer is obvious at once that the two words are not synonymous. Nonetheless, I do think that there is something of philosophical interest that the OP points to, and perhaps the question does require some analysis to make my point and to make clear what there is of interest in the OP.
There are two senses of the word “synonymy”. The first is the strict logical sense, in that both words can be freely substituted in sentences without affecting the truth value and the sense that most competent language speakers will freely and symmetrically interchange them in most cases because the two sentences would mean the same thing. I will call them logical synonymy and ordinary synonymy respectively. I realize that I some people may object to the condition of symmetry that I impose and I agree that it may be too stringent as a common definition. Nonetheless, I don’t see how we can avoid getting bogged down in issues of vagueness without it.
I think it is clear that the sense of the word “self-delusion” that can be considered synonymous, prima fascia, with the word “faith, can only be that a person willfully believes a false proposition, and in this case is synonymous, both ordinarily and logically with “self deception.” A person who willfully creates a delusion in himself, in the pathological sense, is a little hard to imagine, and, if it is possible, would not resemble faith. I submit that a person who is self deceived, if it is possible, can be described as self-deluded, but a deluded person, in the pathological sense, would not be described as self-deceived. It is possible that someone could try and claim that faith is delusional, but he would not be able to establish this by simply appealing to the meanings of words. Many delusional people have elaborate reasons for their delusional beliefs and as such do not have faith in their delusions. Many people with faith, if not most people with faith, are clearly not delusional. Still, there may be a case for faith being a form a self deception. But first let’s look at the word “faith.” “Faith” can mean simply confidence in something. So, if the OP is correct, the two following sentences would mean the same thing:
1. Jerry had faith that his child would do well in school.
2. Jerry was deceiving himself that his child would do well in school.
It is quite clear that the previous sentences do not mean the same thing or could be interchanged in different contexts.
So, logically and ordinarily the words “faith” and “self-deception” are not synonymous.
I strongly suspect that the person who first asked this question was inspired by the paper by Rey titled, Meta-atheism… In that paper Rey argued that a person who professed a belief in god, with some qualifications, was in fact self-deceived. I would argue that, in this case, the question distorts Rey’s suspicion, in that professing a belief in god when compared to the individual’s actions suggested that the person did not in fact, believe what was professed. This, I think, is a different case than professing to have faith in a proposition that is demonstrably false.
A person who disregards evidence and willfully believes the opposite will continue to behave as if the professed proposition is true. Rey’s observation is that people who profess to believe in god do not act as if they do. Are these cases different or merely two sides of the same coin? I suspect that, for the purpose we are considering, they are two different cases, and it would be helpful if we concentrated on the specific case of someone professing a belief that does not influence their behavior. If the cases turn out to be different then so much the better, but, even if they are two sides of the same coin, concentrating on the side that most closely resembles what we are interested in should help to keep the discussion on point.
It is for this reason that I find the examples of a woman disregarding the infidelity of her husband and the patient denying the cancer to be inappropriate. Both are behaving consistently with the truth of their professed belief. A religious person, on the other hand, professes a belief in god and yet behaves inconsistently with that belief.
Religious belief in the west is more akin to a woman taking good prenatal care then bearing a child while continuing to profess her virginity. Ironically, Christians seem to be more successful at emulating the Madonna rather than Christ.
