How are faith and knowledge related – how is faith in the dharmic tradition differnt from faith in Christianity?

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ok so in western theology faith you just have faith no explanations are needed that’s true yes so how do knowledge and faith relate with each other in the bhakti path in fact I am going from here to New Zealand and I am having a two part seminar on this topic itself so I will mention three quick points in faith is definitely required and in fact the bhagavad gita says shraddhava nabhate jnanam that it is in 4.39 he says that it is the faithful who gain knowledge now what does this mean if we see in the sequence which you mentioned shraddha so there are two words which can be correlated with faith one is shraddha and the other is nishtha now prabhupada translates shraddha at many places almost like favourable curiosity or in I think in 1 to 12 in the bhagavatam shraddha in that verse prabhupada translates shraddha as the seriously inquisitive so initial faith is just that maybe something exists beyond all this I am looking at this world, I am seeing this world but maybe there is something more to life so just that openness that curiosity and not just a passive curiosity, a serious curiosity I want to know if there is something more and that is actually we can correlate this shraddha with athato brahma jijnasa so often faith is seen especially in western theology and again we don’t want to reduce western theology because christianity is also very complicated christianity also has many philosophical brilliant exponents also but still it is often pointed at faith if you have faith then no more questions you just accept it but if you see the vedic conception is faith means an openness an inquisitiveness about spiritual reality so shraddha and brahma jijnasa are almost similar it is not that I am accepting whatever scripture describes out there but I am just accepting the possibility that something might be there beyond what we see in this world and with that inquisitiveness if I want to know how do I know? shraddhavan labhate jnanam it is only if I believe that something exists something may exist not even something exists, I am open to the possibility then I will explore it so there was a famous atheist who said theology is just a waste of government money because it is all dedicated to the study of a subject that does not exist now this is just arrogance how can anyone know for sure that god does not exist nobody can know that so the first point is in our tradition we talk about faith it is more of curiosity and inquisitiveness, is there something more and then by that we gain some knowledge this book describes this, this book describes this this book describes this then after that so first level of faith is inquisitiveness second level of faith is practice the process to see whether what is described is true and this brings us to the difference between reasonable faith and blind faith so the faith described in scripture is reasonable because it is reasonable faith has two characteristics it is sensible and verifiable it is like when we go to a doctor and say if I have stomach pain and the doctor says we have to cut off your leg, he says what that does not make sense the doctor says oh you have got acidity take these pills for the next three days you will be better that makes sense so when we see in the Bhagavad Gita or the Bhagavatam what is being spoken is sensible although Krishna is God who is speaking nowhere in the Bhagavad Gita does Krishna say to Arjuna I am God therefore accept what I am saying Krishna gives reasoned arguments one of my friends told me that he is planning to write a book on the ten commandments of the Bhagavad Gita so I told him please don’t write a book like that because the whole Bhagavad Gita’s mood is not of commandments it is a mood of choices and consequences if you do this, this will happen now deliberate and decide what you want to do so the point I am making is the Bhagavad Gita outlines a process and follow this process and there is a reason so it is sensible it is like a doctor says you are having stomach pain because of the acidity so the Bhagavad Gita answers questions in a reasonable way you cannot necessarily say people may argue that it is not conclusive we cannot have conclusive knowledge about anything we are finite beings but it is reasonable at least it is worth exploring the first aspect of reasonable is that before doing something it makes sense and second aspect of reasonable faith is it is verifiable that means what is predicted happens so now what happens this whole progression is also very you could say again reasonable that first thing that will happen is that the unwanted desires in our heart will start decreasing now we may say I have been practicing bhakti and still anarthas are there in my heart yes they are there but if we compare to maybe 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago 30 years ago, 40 years ago definitely they are lesser so the verifiability is not necessarily at our level in terms of we will be able to see god but the verifiability is that the unwanted desires will go down and that itself is a very powerful transformation so if somebody has an acute disease then the result might not be that of the treatment may not be that their disease gets completely cured but at least some symptoms subside some pain goes at least this is working so in that sense there is verifiability and almost anybody who practices bhakti yoga, chants Hare Krishna, tries to remember Krishna they see a subsiding in their worldly desires so that is verifiable, so sensible and verifiable that is the second understanding of faith and so we shraddha we go to bhajana kriya and we experience anartha nivritti and then the faith that gradually develops is nishtha nishtha is not just faith, if you want to separate it in English, we could call it as conviction so it is realized faith Vishwanath Jagannath Thakur in the Madhuri Kadamini gives a difference between the two he says shraddha is like a banana tree any elephant can come or any person can come and shake it but nishtha is like a banyan tree a banyan tree is almost impossible to shake it so why is it impossible to shake? because not necessarily one has seen Krishna that is rochi, bhava, asakti, prema is further ahead but because one has experienced the results at least I have experienced subsiding of my anarthas so it is like suppose we take treatment from some doctor and the doctor say and the doctor’s treatment works for us and after that somebody comes and says this doctor is a quack this doctor is bogus and you can say the doctor is bogus but the treatment is successful so that means the doctor is not exactly malified or bogus so that conviction is what we will gradually get as we practice bhakti so because there is a reasonable explanation and there is a tangible process and there is a predicted trajectory for transformation therefore it is reasonable faith and how does knowledge and faith correlate? knowledge basically provides us a pathway along which we will be moving and to the extent we have knowledge to the extent we can see the process working now some people might just have Vishwa Jagadguru says Swabhavaki Shraddha Swabhavaki means natural faith so that basically means it comes from piety from a previous life but for some people it is a Ballen Uthpadita Shraddha that means some forceful preaching done by someone creates some faith but either way if the person starts practicing bhajana kriya, starts practicing bhakti transformation will start happening so for us faith in that sense is more a matter of intelligent choice it’s not we don’t consider that faith and reason or faith and knowledge are opposed rather it is it’s symbiotic with some faith we acquire knowledge with knowledge we follow a process by which the faith deepens with that faith again that knowledge we get further clarity and in that way both move forward together and they culminate in love for Krishna