Abstract
In this paper, I consider how the embodied approach can be applied to religious faith, and possibly other kinds of faith. I start with the reformed epistemologists’ idea that religious faith is similar to sense perception, and I argue that we can elaborate this idea by taking into account our capability perceptually to grasp what is not accessible by senses—the ‘presence in absence’ (Noë 2012) or, as I call it, perceptual faith. As perception necessarily involves not only a mental but also an embodied relation to its object; an embodied relation can be seen as a constitutive component of faith as well. According to phenomenological accounts of perception (Merleau-Ponty, Noë, Siewert), embodiment and enactment allow humans to transcend perspectival limitations and to perceive an object as it is beyond its appearances: constant despite changes of angle, light, and other conditions and whole even when only parts of it are visible. I argue that, in the same vein, embodied relations and particular normativity involved in perception-based faith allow humans to transcend the precariousness of our experience and to sustain a perception-like relation to religious objects, achieved in a ‘better look’ moments of religious experience. I conclude that an embodied account can provide new insights into the nature of religious faith and resolve some puzzles, such as how faith can be a virtue.
Highlights
In this paper, I consider how the embodied approach can be applied to religious faith, and possibly other kinds of faith
The paper proceeds as follows: to show how my model is related to existing ones, I start with a brief sketch of the most distinct accounts of faith that assimilate it to perception: Alston’s non-sensory perception, Plantinga’s sensus divinitatis and Hick’s faith based on interpretation
The solution proposed by reformed epistemologists is to base religious faith on the work of representational doxastic mechanisms, similar to those involved in perception, but designed to fit religious objects
Summary
I propose a novel model of religious faith, based on the embodied approach to perception. The paper proceeds as follows: to show how my model is related to existing ones, I start with a brief sketch of the most distinct accounts of faith that assimilate it to perception: Alston’s non-sensory perception, Plantinga’s sensus divinitatis and Hick’s faith based on interpretation. I argue that these accounts are based on a mind-only concept of perception that leaves the role of body and action in faith undertheorised. I present important findings in phenomenology of perception and argue that empirical data do not press us to introduce additional cognitive faculties in order to account for religious faith, but calls for introduction of body and action into it. A proper attention to the human body and its role in perception opens up a possibility of modelling faith in God based on ordinary perception. If my assumptions are correct, an embodied account proposes a possible important new perspective on faith
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