STARTER: Something that can destroy our confidence is if we feel we don’t know the reasons for our faith. And plenty of atheists imagine there aren’t any! But apostle Peter tells his readers that they should ‘always be prepared to give… the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15). And time and again in Acts we find Paul ‘reasoning… explaining and proving'(17:2‑3), ‘reasoning and persuading’ (19:8). Biblical faith is built confidently on very solid reasons! But what (if any) have struck me most so far?
FIRST THOUGH – WHAT IS `FAITH`?
Precisely this is what (I find repeatedly) many people don’t realise, thinking that the word `faith` means something with no evidential basis in facts, rather than a life built on facts and acting on these facts: `How can any intelligent person tolerate living just on the basis of faith?’ Or at best: `It’s nice for those who “have faith”; I wouldn’t even mind it myself; but you can’t “work it up”, can you?’ (Has anyone said that to you, or have you thought it yourself?)
But this is not at all what biblical `faith` means. Biblically, faith is a life built on facts, a life of stepping out in actions based on those facts. (Read Hebrews 11 for lots of examples.) Actually, there is a sense in which no one lives by anything other than reasonable acts of faith. It is absurd to say we refuse, or are unable, to live by faith. If we’re going to be fussy, `absolute` proof never existed for anything, even our own existence. (Descartes tried to prove the latter with his famous `I think therefore I am’. But all that can be proven from `There are thoughts’ (not `I think’, which smuggles in the `I’ it is trying to prove), is precisely that and no more; `There are thoughts’, or, `Thinking is happening’. What, if anything, is doing the thinking – whether it has any lasting identity, whether it is an octopus dreaming it is human – is in no way `proven’. Is our “reality” any more than `an illusion caused by lack of alcohol’? Probably; but the point cannot be proven!) We all live, all the time, by reasonable acts of faith; faith is indispensable and cannot be ignored!
Here’s an example of what faith means. Every time I choose to catch a bus home I make a whole series of actions of faith based on reason. Faith, trust, in my memory of the link between that bus’s promised destination and where I live; faith, trust, in the driver’s intention to go where his company promised; faith in my perception that he probably isn’t drunk or mad; faith that the bus is properly maintained. I cannot prove these things absolutely, but there is enough real evidence to justify my steps of faith based on reason, my stepping onto the bus. When I pause at the corner shop to buy `fresh’ fruit, it is very much an act of faith in the shopkeeper who has it on their shelves. When I greet my wife, I am building confidently on faith in her – and thus faith in my judgment, faith indeed in my memories on which that judgment is based – that she is not secretly sleeping with the neighbour and plotting to poison me. Normal life depends on our willingness to take a thousand steps of faith each day: in our memory, our perceptions, our reason, and the judgment and good intentions of others (to say nothing of our dress sense and our deodorant!) Only a paranoid would refuse to eat breakfast because of the impossibility of proving beyond doubt that no burglar has poisoned his egg; but the possibility cannot rationally be ruled out entirely, and some level of faith is indispensable for breakfast.
There is no way of living except by faith: faith, not set against reason, but defined as stepping forward in a trust based on reasonably solid grounds, even though they may amount to less than absolute proof. And this, of course, is also good scientific method: to take an idea and then test it by its internal consistency and by how far, longterm, it integrates and matches the data we receive. In one sense such an approach (to life or science) always remains a gamble of faith. But some hypotheses about the world come to make far more sense than others; and these we live by. So Christian faith, writes Colin Brown, is a `hypothesis that… makes sense as we go along living it’. Jesus said something similar in John 7:17; and his challenge to his first disciples likewise fits the need of a postmodern culture: `Come and you will see.’
PATHS TOWARDS FAITH
God uses lots of ways – reasonable foundations for faith – to show different ones of us that He`s there. They can be like a bunch of keys – good to learn about (and teach), and to keep in mind, because any one of them may open the lock of our own heart, or the heart of a friend. Here are a few that He may use with different personality types. In our conversations we want to link in with, and further, what Jesus is already doing in a friend’s life; and it may perhaps be through one of these.
For some of us, it has been, or will be, personal experience of God’s presence, as demonstrated in miracles or remarkable answered prayer; things that have happened in our own lives, or that we learn have happened in the life of someone we know well enough to trust. For others, in contrast, it’s been experience of Christ helping someone we know to endure and even grow despite great suffering.
Then, for many it’s the Bible: feeling `spoken to’ as we read it or hear it preached, perhaps if we venture into church or are invited to a Bible study (see last week’s post) – feeling its profundity and relevance – `the words of eternal life’, as Jesus said. There’s also its unique ability to foretell the future some centuries ahead, particularly the details of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. (See, for example, the passages explored in ch.9 of McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict.)
Then for yet others, what we love most is what `turns the key’: we realise we have come to sense God through experiencing childbirth, or in great art, or in the wonder of the natural world…
Others simply see that most human beings have always believed in a supreme God, and most still do; and humility makes us wonder if they aren’t sensing something true where our own culture has grown deaf. In this moment in our culture, it is hard to `take God seriously’ when the media don’t; yet where does the majority opinion really lie? Don’t our North Atlantic fashions of materialistic thought seem myopic when set in a wider context of history or geography? The vast majority of the human race has always believed in a supernatural universe including a supreme God, so far as we can tell; and the majority certainly still does. `The main issue is agreed among all men of all nations’, said the Roman writer Cicero, `inasmuch as all have engraved in their minds an innate belief that the gods exist.’ Calvin concurred, fourteen hundred years later: `There is, as the eminent pagan says, no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God.’ It is not that easy to find atheists in, say, Iraq or Brazil or Nigeria. And it is striking that the Christian church in particular continues to grow globally today; indeed she has grown faster across the continents in the last century than in any previous one. Of course we westerners tend to think that, because we control the world’s media and educational systems, our de-supernaturalised worldview must be the whole truth. (Although, even in the North Atlantic region, surveys show that most people still `believe’ in God in some way, though obviously such surveys don’t involve much definition of `God’, nor distinguish a purely abstract belief or intuition from a lived-out faith.) But humility might urge us to note the near-universality of belief elsewhere, and wonder if the majority of humankind isn’t sensing something we have grown deaf to. Shall I then stake my life on the probability that they are right, or that they are wrong?
Then there’s the universe we live in. Where did it come from? As Sartre said, it is odd that there is something rather than nothing. And what about the physical laws?– for our universe is a curiously reasonable place. The pattern of laws and finely-balanced constants that make it possible for our cosmos to exist might well seem suggestive of a Law-maker; `The mind refuses to look at this universe being what it is without being designed’, as Darwin said late in life. Einstein remarked that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe was that it was comprehensible, and that he was glimpsing the handiwork of an `illimitable superior spirit’ in what he perceived of the universe. More recently, the debates over the `anthropic principle` have suggested that the ratios and constants of the fundamental forces in the universe – from the subatomic to the astronomical – are incredibly finely balanced. Indeed they seem balanced far too precisely to be the result of anything but intelligent design, since the margin of error was minimal (one part in a million in some cases) if a universe was to emerge that could contain intelligent life. `It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out’, summarizes theoretical physicist Paul Davies in God and the New Physics. `…The seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence for an element of cosmic design.’ Pp.52-53 of Moreland’s Scaling the Secular City summarize the evidence succinctly. And leading cosmologist Sir Frederick Hoyle (by no means a Christian) concurred: `I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed.’
Alongside this sense stand our intuitions of wonder: whether at the majesty of the galaxies, the glory and complexity of the natural world that has exploded (all by accident??) out from the Big Bang; or the beauty of a sunset, a mountain-range, a stallion, a panther, a human baby. As we gaze thankfully at our world, from the sparrow to the dolphin to the human eye, many of us find it hard to avoid starting thinking of it as, somehow, the work of a personal Creator.
Or yet again, things perhaps to explore with yet another personality-type: culturally and individually, we sense profound intuitions – intuitions of the reality of good and evil and of justice, the truth of love and beauty, the reality and value of the individual, the trustworthiness of reason. Yet our postmodern culture has found that all these vital intuitions are grown dangerously problematic and uncertain as they lost their grounding in God. (There are five posts on the results of the west’s loss of God in https://petelowmanresources.com/category/literature-and-culture/ exploring these in detail.) So then: were these intuitions idealistic sentimentalities, or apprehensions of genuine reality? Is there (we may ask) indeed no intrinsic value for the individual; no actual reality in `love` beyond lust and tactical alliance; and ultimately no ethics (no right and wrong, no objective basis for demanding or working for justice) beyond our personal preferences? Or maybe there is a God whose truth would makes sense of our profoundest hopes and intuitions – that people do intrinsically matter, that egoism, unfairness and cruelty are actually `wrong`, that love is actually real? In our more profound experiences of love, beauty or justice we touch, not God indeed, but objective realities that only make sense in terms of God. We’re trained into worldviews that negate these intuitions; yet still our hearts warn us that those atheistic worldviews are dehumanized, arid, inadequate. Maybe we should listen; maybe our hearts were trustworthy all along.
There are so many pointers that may well start to point very different personality-types towards the reality of God, and reflecting on which we can help our friends, and ourselves, along the journey. However, there are two further, absolutely core issues through which God reveals His reality. So our next two posts will focus on these: How do we explain Jesus? And, what about the historical evidence for His resurrection?
ABSORB TIME: Which of these should I give a little more thought to? (See second PS below if you need resources.) Which should I share and with whom?
TWO VERY IMPORTANT PSs:
First, about the “atheist’s prayer”. Let’s note: if we or our friends want to give real consideration to biblical-Christian faith, we must take seriously what it actually says. This includes recognizing that we don’t approach potential relationship with God from some ideal, objective starting-point. Rather, if biblical faith is true, then we start from a condition of deep alienation from God. `You know I can’t make it by myself’, sang Bob Dylan on Slow Train Coming, the first album of his `Christian’ phase, `I’m a little too blind to see’. Nobody could know the truth, Jesus declared, `unless the Father who sent me draws him’. Apostle Paul was equally blunt: ordinarily, he declared, we human beings are ‘blinded’, so that we are simply unable to perceive the realities of these issues; by nature we ‘cannot understand them’. There’s a fundamental problem with our presuppositions that goes deeper than the intellect; our hearts have a built-in prejudice, such that God’s enabling power is indispensable if we are to see clearly the real, objective facts. We `deliberately forget’ spiritual realities, says apostle Peter.
Now, this possibility is obviously hard on our pride. Unfortunately, we can’t rule it out: if God says He cannot be known by our unaided research, it might just be true. The biblical hypothesis we are considering presents us as needing direct, individual revelation from God if we are to know the truth. Now the new testament guarantees that the truly honest seeker will not be disappointed; Jesus’ teaching presents a God who comes out like a shepherd looking for us as we are wandering in the dark: ‘Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you’. But we know that establishing a meaningful relationship with anyone depends on our approaching them in a respectful and appropriate way. So it will be here. We are not now indulging in an intellectual game, or conducting a casual experiment in a test‑tube. Rather, we are exploring, opening ourselves to, the possibility that we have a Maker (even an Owner); a Father who we need to speak to us, to show us reality. If He exists, we approach Him as members of a rebelled race, who have chosen repeatedly to drive His presence to the periphery of our consciousness, to live as though He were unimportant. So as we come to Him asking unavoidably for `grace’, for His revelation of ultimate reality, we must be willing to face up (if He speaks) to His rights over us.
So then what? Importantly, it is not at all necessary to believe that God exists before starting to treat Him as God. There is a vital step that even the thoroughgoing agnostic or atheist should be encouraged to take (if there is no God, it is only a minute lost): ‘God, I do not know if You exist. I doubt it. Nor do I know if I can find out on my own. But I realize that, if You do, I may be entirely dependent on You showing Your truth to me. Therefore: if You show me Your truth and Your ways, I vow that I will give myself to You, and start to follow You wherever You lead.’ Such a prayer says merely, `God, if You are there, if You are all that Jesus taught, then I will follow You.’ But I find that it also offers us a striking step forward in self-knowledge. It’s fascinating how many of us find we feel profound reluctance to pray in these terms – and our reaction reveals our hearts; it helps us see whether our beliefs are controlled by deep-seated determination to preserve our independence. If that is so, there is not much point (yet) in looking at the evidence; we’re maintaining a position from which, even if God is real, we will probably never know, at least in this life. Rather, the question to consider will be just why we feel so anxious to preserve our exile from God’s presence. So this prayer is perhaps the only really appropriate way to attempt an approach to the Creator who may perhaps be there. If there is no God, we shall ultimately prove to have wasted a very little of our time in praying it: no great loss. If there is a God, we shall have opened the door for heaven to break in on our experience.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT AND VERY DIFFERENT PS: I find it odd that often I encounter atheists who say (forcefully) that there is no evidence for faith. It’s extraordinary, given that there are so many good and intellectually solid books out there presenting all kinds of evidence that Jesus is God. Picking just a few that are worth knowing about and thoughtfully lending: Rebecca McLaughlin‘s brilliant Confronting Christianity (she has a great book for teenagers too, 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (And Answer) About Christianity); McDowell’s classic More Than a Carpenter, particularly on the historical evidence; or Moreland’s more philosophical Scaling the Secular City. Or for something lighter but still compelling and very funny, Andrew Wilson’s If God Then What is great. Surely it’s intellectually dishonest for people to say there’s no evidence for faith if – as often seems to be the case – they’ve never risked reading anything like these. Or if we’re up for exploring a really extensive coverage of the evidence, William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith is brilliant though strongly philosophical in parts, or there’s the updated version of McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict, or Douglas Groothuis’ Christian Apologetics; though all three are encyclopaedic in the territory they cover, so inevitably their expected target audience who will invest that sort of time is Christians. But google these authors, some of them also have very helpful websites. (Writing this PS doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with absolutely everything said by any one of them; and that’s ok!)
