If you’ve missed the first couple posts in this series, here’s a quick
summary to bring you up to speed (although I’d also recommend reading the
introduction). A common critique of Christianity from skeptics and atheists is
that faith is belief without evidence. Aron Ra, a popular atheist speaker and
writer with almost 250,000 subscribers on YouTube, asserts the following:
“Faith is an assertion of unreasonable conviction, which is assumed without
reason, and defended against all reason. In my essay, I specified that by
‘reason’, I meant ‘evidence’, the only reason to believe anything. Since
defenders of the faith often refuse to amidst that faith is a belief that is
not based on evidence, then I’ll have to prove that I’ve got that right.”1
Well, if Aron Ra wants to prove that he’s “got it right”, it seems a good
place to start would be accurately representing New Testament references to
faith. The word “faith” appears far more often in the New Testament than in the
Old Testament. For example, in the English Standard Version the word appears
278 times in 257 verses, approximately nine times more than in the Old Testament.
In approximately 90% of the cases, “faith” is translated from the Greek word
“pistis”, which is defined by Strong’s Concordance to mean “conviction of the
truth of anything” or “belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine
things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of
faith and joined with it.” In the Old Testament, the term “faith” seems to
often be synonymous with devotion, whereas in the New Testament the term does
seem to be more closely associated with one’s beliefs. However, are the critics
such as Aron Ra correct when they claim that this belief is without evidence?
There are far too many occurrences to examine every one, but let’s take a
look at a few times in which the Greek word “pistis” is translated as “faith”
and see if it fits the representation as “belief without evidence. In a famous
gospel story, four men lowered their paralyzed friend through a hole in the
roof of the home where Jesus was preaching to a packed crowd in hopes that he
would heal their friend.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son your sins
are forgiven.” (Mark 2:5)
Would it be accurate to describe the friends’ faith as belief without
evidence? Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus had already driven out demons
and healed many, including a man with leprosy. As a result of reports of these
miracles, the crowd that had gathered around Jesus was so great that the men
had to improvise and dig a hole in the roof to bring their friend to Jesus.
They took such extreme measures because they trusted that Jesus would heal
their friend based on the power and compassion he had already demonstrated.
Their faith was not belief without evidence, but active conviction as a result
of evidence.
A couple chapters later, Jesus and the disciples were crossing the Sea of
Galilee when a strong storm arose and threatened to swamp the boat. The
disciples ran to Jesus, who was sleeping in the stern and asked, “Don’t you
care if we drown?” After rebuking the storm and calming the waves, Jesus turned
to his followers, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark
4:38-40). If faith is belief without evidence, what grounds would Jesus have
for rebuking his disciples? If they had not been given any evidence that they
could trust him or any proof of his identity as the Son of God, then they
should have been afraid in a life-threatening storm. Yet, they had already seen
him perform many miracles. In this context, the disciples would have had faith
if they had trusted that Jesus would guide them safely through the storm, but
not without reason to do so.
Now, it is true that the word faith is more synonymous with belief in the
New Testament than the Old Testament, where it often connotes devotion. For
example, a major theme in the New Testament is that Christians are justified by
faith. For example, Galations 2:16 says, “We know that a person is not
justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also
have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and
not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
To examine whether this faith is belief without evidence, we must examine the
full gospel message that the apostles preached, but first it will be fruitful
to analyze how Jesus’ actions and words shed light on the connection between
faith and evidence.
John the Baptist was appointed to herald and prepare the way for the coming
Messiah. However, as a result of John’s critique of his illegitimate marriage, Herod
had thrown John in prison and John began to question whether Jesus truly was
the Messiah. Like the rest, John had expected a conquering Christ and this turn
of events didn’t fit his expected script. So, John sent some of his disciples
to ask Jesus if he was the promised one or whether they should expect someone
else. Jesus’ response is telling. Does he instruct John to just believe and
take it on faith? No, instead after healing diseases, freeing people from evil
spirits, and bring sight to the blind he answered them, “Go and tell John what
you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good
news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Luke
7:22-23).
We see in this account two ways in which Jesus consistently gave evidence
or proof for his identity: miraculous signs and Biblical prophecy. Jesus
demonstrated his identity to John’s disciples by first performing miracles and
then directing them to scripture that attests that he is the expected savior
(compare Jesus’ words to Isaiah 61:1-2). Instead of expecting the questioners
to believe without evidence, Jesus sends them away with two powerful forms of
confirmatory evidence.
Jesus points to his miracles as evidence of his identity in an altercation
with unbelieving Jews. They threatened to stone him because, in their eyes, he
had committed blasphemy by “claim(ing) to be God” by saying, “I and the Father
are one.” (John 10:30,33). Jesus responds, “If I am not doing the works of my
Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not
believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father
is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38). Once again, Jesus’ response
completely undercuts the claim that faith is belief without evidence. Even
though the unbelieving Jews don’t believe in Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God,
he points them to his works as evidence that should lead to belief.
In another altercation, the scribes and Pharisees approach Jesus asking for
a sign of his authority. Knowing that their intentions were not genuine, Jesus
refuses their request but does give a prophetic sign saying, “An evil and
adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except
the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Johah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth.” Although Jesus denies their immediate
request, he ends up giving a prediction of the greatest evidence for his
identity: his resurrection. Once again, this evidence is connected to the Old
Testament scriptures, which weave a narrative of God’s redemptive work that
further confirms Jesus' work and identity as Messiah.
After Jesus death and resurrection, his disciples took the baton in
preaching the gospel and continued to prove the truthfulness of their message
through miracles and Old Testament prophecy, but also added their eye-witness
testimony of the resurrection as an added line of evidence. These three types
of verification are woven throughout the early church and all three can be seen
in an incident that occurred soon after the resurrection (See Acts 3:1 - 4:4
for the entire text). Peter and John healed a lame beggar as they were walking
to the temple and the onlookers were astounded by this miracle. As a crowd
gathered, Peter shared the good news of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus,
“whom God raised from the dead” and declared, “To this we are witnesses.” (Acts
3:15). He also tied these events to Old Testament Scripture by explaining,
“Brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your rulers (when they
crucified Jesus). But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that
his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.” (Acts 3:17-18). As a result of
these three lines of evidence - miracles, eye-witness testimony, and Old
Testament prophecy - “many of those who had heard the word believed, and the
number of the men came to about five thousand.” (Acts 4:4)
The earliest surviving creed of the early church, which likely dates to
within three years of the resurrection, incorporates both eye-witness testimony
and Old Testament prophecy. This is one of the earliest teachings of the
Christian church and it is clear that faith is supported by evidence, not held
in absence of evidence.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then
he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom
are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he
appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8, emphasis added)
These two examples are not isolated occurrences. The apostles healed many
people, drove out evil spirits and performed miraculous signs; as a result,
many people came to believe in the Lord (Acts 5:12, Acts 8:6-7, Acts 9:32-42,
Acts 13:6-12, Acts 14:8-10, Acts 16:16-18, Acts 19:11-12). The Apostle Paul’s
routine on his evangelistic missions was to go to the synagogues and reason
from the Old Testament scriptures to provide evidence that Jesus is the Christ
(Acts 17:2-4, Acts 17:17, Acts 18:4, Acts 18:9). The Bereans are praised for
having noble character because they received the gospel with eagerness and
examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11). The
apostles routinely appealed to their status as eye-witnesses of the resurrection
and the life of Jesus in their public sermons and letters to the churches (Acts
2:32, 1 John 1:3, 2 Peter 1:16). Hopefully, this landslide of examples proves
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christian faith is not belief without evidence.
Yet, there is more. Bertrand Russell, one of the twentieth century’s most
famous atheists, was asked on his deathbed what he would say to God if his
atheistic hypothesis was incorrect. Russell replied, “I think I should say to
him: Sir, why didn’t you give us more evidence.”2 Unfortunately, this excuse will not hold-up in God’s
court of law. A clear teaching in the New Testament is that every person has
received sufficient evidence to believe that God exists. In his letter to the
Roman church, Paul writes:
For what can be known about God is plain to (all men), because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the
world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20).
When one looks at the wonder of nature and ponders the vastness of the
universe, even in an age when people knew far less about the mind-boggling
dimensions and intricate fine-tuning of the cosmos, it should be obvious that
there is an all-powerful, creator God. Furthermore, when one looks within they
see that humans have been given a conscious and innate knowledge of right and
wrong, which points to a moral law-giver. Paul puts it this way:
For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law
requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.
They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their
conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even
excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of
men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)
So not only does the history of the early Church show that the gospel
message was accompanied by miracles, eye-witness testimony, and Old Testament
prophecy as corroborating evidence, but Paul clearly teaches that everyone,
even those who claim that faith is belief without evidence, have received
sufficient evidence to believe in God.
However, there are a few passages that some skeptics, such as Aron Ra, will
cite to claim that Christian faith really is belief without evidence. The most
famous of these is Hebrews 11:1, which says, “Now faith is the assurance of
this hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I will be dealing with that
passage, and other objections, in the next post in this series.
References:
1) Ra, Aron.
“Religious Faith IS ‘Belief Without Evidence.” Reason Advocates. August
29, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/08/29/religious-faith-is-belief-without-evidence/
2)
Kreeft, Peter. Christianity for Modern Pagans:
Pascals’ Pensees Edited, Outlined and Explained. Ignatius Press, 1993.
