Throughout his writings, William James makes the (irrefutable) observation that faith is an ordinary part of human cognitive function. No one operates in the world on the basis of complete information. Instead, human beings rely heavily upon present sense data, past experience, reason and "common sense," in order to make judgments about how to proceed with their daily lives. Acting on the basis of this amalgam of information and interpretation involves assumptions about the reliability of all of its elements--in a word, "faith." For James, faith is very much a practical matter.
To this point, there is nothing problematic about James's thinking in this regard: he accurately describes ordinary human cognition and its attendant behaviors. An accurate description of cognitive behavior, however, is not the same thing as an epistemological justification of any given proposition. But James may be said to send mixed messages to students of religion who seek to move beyond the description of faith-in-action to a justification of that faith per se. One can always justify a particular instance of faith as an ordinary human response to a given situation--as one possible response among many. But that is a very limited notion of justification. It does not entitle one to conclude that faith as such is necessarily justified--only that it is practical. And yet this is precisely what many readers of James's writings on the psychology of religion claim that his thinking has authorized them to conclude. Is such a claim warranted? The answer may depend on what portion of James's work one reads (e.g., The Will To Believe may support this claim).
It is for this reason that I am often chary about the use of William James in the academic study of religion. I call this subtle slip from description to justification the "William James Problem" and, I am afraid, it is not a problem that we will be rid of any time soon.
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