Is faith irrational?

“The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence, but of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct.” So says the Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. That means people are more, or less, confident in their religious preference (be it Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, or Seventh Day Adventist for that matter) depending on how that belief system fits into an existing mind-set. For example, if you grew up in a highly secularized family you would probably find Christ with his miracles more difficult to accept than Buddha who reportedly possessed superhuman powers but said of miracles, “I dislike, reject and despise them.” It would be more coherent with the story your mind  has constructed.
         The problem with this is that it makes belief a rational product. We believe because it seems to fit the larger story that has been put together piece by piece on the basis of coherence. All this seems to be an apple/orange problem. Something is rational if it does not offend what the mind assumes to be an acceptable pattern. If the car won’t start we will have to find some other way to go to the store. It makes sense. It is some how related to the real world as we experience it.
         Belief systems by definition (and here is the orange) lie out­side those narrow boundaries. Belief relates to that which offers no quick guarantee of authenticity. We don’t believe, what has always been obvious, we know it. But people do believe (most people, that is) that there is a superhuman being, some force, out there that somehow oversees what we call reality. There is nothing in our tangible world that supplies the necessary coherence that Dr. Kahneman calls for. I am not suggesting that belief is irrational, only that it should not be reduced to some artificial prerequisite that we manufacture. Many years ago a professor of theology, E. J. Carnell, defined faith as “the resting of the mind in the sufficiency of the evidence.” We arrive at a conclusion because the evidence leads us in that direction - although it never fully arrives. So coherence does have a place in belief, but is not the sole arbiter of what we should or should not believe.