Faith, Belief and Fictionalism

Abstract

Is propositional religious faith constituted by belief? Recent debate hasfocussed on whether faith may be constituted by a positive non-doxastic cognitivestate, which can stand in place of belief. This article sets out and defends thedoxastic theory. We consider and reject three arguments commonly used infavour of non-doxastic theories of faith: (1) the argument from religious doubt;(2) the use of ‘faith’ in linguistic utterances; and (3) the possibility of pragmaticfaith. We argue that belief is required to maintain a distinction between genuinefaith, pretend faith, and fictionalist faith.