The Movie:
In the following scene we see one of the most iconic cinematic depictions of the “leap of faith.” Indiana Jones, on a quest to find the Holy Grail in order to save his dying father, must make his way through three challenges to reach the cup. After passing the first two, he comes upon a seemingly-bottomless chasm. He sees no bridge, no rope, nothing to help him cross the pit. All he has is an inscription copied down in his father’s diary that says, “Only in the leap from the Lion’s Head will he prove his worth.” Realizing that his father doesn’t have much time left, the typically-skeptical Indy suddenly realizes what he is facing—“It’s a leap of faith.” Summoning all his courage, Indy puts out his foot into open space and steps forward…
And lands on an invisible bridge! Well, not so much invisible as painted to look exactly like the rocks on the other side of the chasm. But still! Wow! Great moment!
What we see in this clip is a pretty accurate depiction of what we think of when we say “leap of faith”—a person faces a situation in which all of the evidence points them in one direction (for Indy, that direction was down into a bottomless pit). However, rather than act in a rational way that is consistent with the evidence, the person in question decides to make a “leap of faith”—that is, they choose to act against all the evidence, resting instead on the strength of their belief. A leap of faith is when someone acts against or without reason for the sake of their beliefs alone. Indy had no reason to believe that he wouldn’t fall to his death when he stepped into the chasm, but he chose to believe in his father’s research and stepped into the abyss. This is the leap of faith.
This may all seem rather simple and obvious, but it’s actually quite important. The way we think about faith determines a lot of how we think about issues involving religion, science, politics, etc. The idea of the “leap of faith” reinforces this idea that religion and reason are opposite sides of the spectrum—that being religious, or having faith, means that you have to choose to believe something without (or against) any compelling evidence or reason. This is the idea that leads militant atheists to describe religion as a delusion, it leads liberal Christians to defer to scholarship on religious issues and conservatives to distrust higher education, and underpins the idea that religion is simply a matter of choice rather than a matter of truth.
The Theology:
The phrase “leap of faith” comes from Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote in the mid 1800’s. But even though “leap of faith” is probably the only thing you’ve ever heard that comes from him, the truth is that Kierkegaard never actually used the phrase. In fact, he would probably have hated it. What Kierkegaard talked about was something totally different: not a leap of faith, but a leap to faith. For SK, the leap is not an act of faith itself, but how you get to a position of faith.
What the heck does that mean? Well, let’s go back to Indiana Jones. So the idea of the “leap of faith” implies that Indy had faith because he acted even though all the evidence told him that he would plunge to his death if he stepped out. But that’s not what happened. For those of you who don’t remember (I won’t even entertain the idea that any of you haven’t seen the movie), Indy’s father, Henry Jones Jr., is the foremost expert in the world on the Grail legend. His diary contains the culmination of everything that is known about the Holy Grail and its hiding place—this is why Indy had to go to Berlin earlier in the movie to retrieve it from the Nazis. When he stood at the chasm, Indy wasn’t choosing between reason and faith; he was choosing between what he saw in front of him and all of the evidence compiled by the foremost expert on the subject. This wasn’t a choice between what the evidence told him and what he wanted to believe; it was a choice between what some of the evidence told him and what the other evidence told him.
This is what Kierkegaard talked about when he talked about the leap to faith. Indy was faced with two competing belief systems, both with their own evidence. On the one hand, Indy could disbelieve the Grail myth. If he chooses not to believe, then everything in that diary is a myth. Anyone who wrote about the Holy Grail was either mistaken or lying; either way, they cannot be trusted, certainly not over Indy’s own visual evidence from looking down into the pit. On the other hand, he could choose to believe in the Holy Grail. If he believes the story, then the balance of evidence is turned on its head. Suddenly the people who were mistaken or lying can be trusted—should be trusted, since their evidence has proven to be true every step of the way so far. And considering the sophistication of the other challenges, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Indy to conclude that there was some kind of illusion involved in the chasm—now all of a sudden the diary is more reliable than Indy’s eyes.
So the choice with which Indy is faced is between two different views, each with its own internally-consistent evidence—the view of Skepticism, and the view of Faith. When the Nazis shoot Indy’s father, Indy is forced to make his choice, between skepticism and belief. The evidence cannot help him, because there is evidence on both sides. Reason cannot help him, since both views are rational on their own terms. Even faith cannot help him, since the question is whether or not to have faith in the first place. This is the moment when Indy really makes the leap: when he chooses to believe in the Grail and enters the cave. When he makes the leap, he doesn’t make it by faith, because the view of Faith is the destination—he is leaping into the state of faith. This is what Kierkegaard meant when he talked about the “leap tofaith.”
So why do we care about any of this? Because, as I said before, how we think about faith matters. If we view it as something irrational, something we do in spite of what our reason tells us, then we will always be stuck with the idea that religion is illogical, even delusional. But faith doesn’t mean looking at all the evidence, then closing your eyes and plugging your ears and yelling “la la la, I can’t hear you!” at the top of your lungs. It means choosing one of two equally-rational belief-systems, one of two different ways of looking at the world, one of two different ways of living. To choose either one—the view of skepticism or the view of faith, or any view in between—is equally a leap. We don’t like this conclusion because we like our decisions to be simple, clear-cut and easy. But that isn’t how life works. Life is full of complex, difficult choices, choices that really matter. We can’t avoid the difficulties of life just by pretending that one option is rational and the other is not. In the end we all have to make our choice: whether to leap into faith and believe in God, or leap into skepticism, and believe in simply ourselves.
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