In the first three
parts of this series on faith and evidence, I thoroughly examined Old Testament
and New Testament scriptures to demonstrate that Biblical faith is not “belief
without evidence", but instead is a confident trust and hope based upon the
evidence that God has revealed about his nature and his ability to protect and
care for his people. Yet, some Christians may be thinking, “But I don’t need
evidence to believe in God. I just have faith.” Even more, some Christians may
believe that the desire or pursuit of evidence reveals unbelief. The purpose of
this post is to address those concerns.
First, whether
they are aware of it or not, I would claim that every Christian has at least
three pieces of evidence that support their faith: the conviction of the Holy
Spirit, personal experiences with God, and general revelation of God’s power
and design through nature. The evidence of God’s invisible attributes through
nature is something that we may not recognize overtly but is something that we
absorb unconsciously from a very early age (See Romans 1:19-20). It has been
demonstrated that young children, even children with secular parents and no exposure
to religion, believe that the design seen in nature requires a creator.1 It appears that we have
to outgrow this natural intuition to reject belief in God.
All Christians also have personal
experiences that they can share about how Christ has transformed their life,
brought them peace and freedom from guilt, or worked in providential or even miraculous
ways in their life. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit ministers to every Christian,
confirming the truth of the Christian worldview in their hearts. Jesus promised
his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all
truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he
will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John
16:13). So, while I agree that Christians can have a sincere and genuine faith
without any knowledge of apologetic arguments for the Christian worldview, all
Christians do have some evidence for their faith.
However, I would also argue that two of
these types of evidence, personal experience and the conviction of the Holy
Spirit, are insufficient in demonstrating the truth of the Christian worldview
to non-Christians. Some apologists have noted that there is a difference
between “showing and knowing.” Through personal experience and the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, I might have a very strong personal conviction or knowledge of
the truth of Christianity, but it is difficult to use these experiences to show
that truth to others.
Furthermore, followers of other religions
also point to personal and spiritual experiences to support their beliefs.
During a lonely season in college, I met with Mormon missionaries for a few
sessions. In one of the very first meetings, they quoted the following verses:
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all
without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no
doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave that is driven and tossed by
the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from
the Lord.” (James 1:5-7). The message was that the Holy Spirit would confirm
the truth of Mormonism to me if I asked God and did not doubt that he would
answer my request. I ended up breaking off the meetings, but a few years later,
when I was more established in my Christian faith, a friend and I met with
Mormon missionaries to try to engage them in reverse evangelism. Predictably,
the missionaries used the exact same verse to challenge us to ask God to reveal
the truth of Mormonism in our hearts. My friend responded, “I did ask the Holy
Spirit, and he told me that you’re wrong.”
Admittedly, our discussion with the Mormon
missionaries was not very productive for either side, but the question remains,
how do we discern truth when people from different religions claim to have
personal and spiritual experiences that confirm their worldview? This is where
additional evidence is beneficial. Let’s say a Christian, a Mormon, a Muslim,
and a Hindu all claim to have personal and spiritual experiences that confirm
their religious beliefs yet are open to examining their worldview. I think the
best thing would be for each person to acknowledge that their experiences are
real, but that personal and spiritual experiences can also be deceptive. The
human heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah
17:9), so we need to be aware that our emotions and experiences can sometimes
mislead us.
I also think each person should
acknowledge that it is impossible for each person’s worldview to be true, since
they make contradictory claims about the nature of reality. They could all be
false, but they can’t all be true. Then, I would encourage the group to openly
and honestly evaluate the historical, literary, archaeological, and scientific
evidence supporting each worldview. In my opinion, the Christian worldview
clearly comes out on top in this approach. The group would discover that there
is no archaeological evidence confirming the accounts in the Book of Mormon,
but there is substantial archaeological evidence confirming elements of the Old and New
Testaments. They would discover that there is a robust historical case
supporting the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, events that the Christian
worldview affirms but that Islam denies. Scientific evidence indicates that the
universe had a beginning, approximately 13.7 billion years ago, an event that
points to an all-powerful, infinitely intelligent, personal creator outside of
time, space, and matter. Such a description fits the description of God in
theistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but does not fit
pantheistic religions such as Hinduism or new-age movements, where the divine
is found within creation itself. I think that such an investigation would lead
the group to conclude that the spiritual experiences of the Christian are
leading to truth whereas the other spiritual experiences are leading to
deception. Such a conclusion would fit with the Biblical description of the
spiritual realm, one in which the Holy Spirit leads to truth, but false spirits
also seek to lead people into error.
In addition to guiding such discussions,
evidence is also useful in answering the questions and doubts of people within
the church, often youth. Survey data indicates that young people are leaving
the church at an alarming rate. While sometimes they leave the church for
emotional or experiential reasons, such as hypocrisy amongst believers or abuse
within the church, often they leave because no one was able to answer their
intellectual doubts.
In 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted
a study of religious “nones” who were raised as members of a particular
religion before shedding their faith in adulthood. Fifty percent of respondents
said “lack of belief led them to move away from religion. This includes many
respondents who mentioned ‘science’ as the reason they do not believe in
religious teachings, including one who said ‘I’m a scientist now, and I don’t
believe in miracles.’ Others reference ‘common sense,’ ‘logic’ or a ‘lack of
evidence’ – or simply say they do not believe in God.”2
Consider, the following anecdotes atheists
who formerly considered themselves to be Christians and were asked to explain
why they no longer believed in God:
“I think I was around 9 or 10. I was
reading the Bible…I didn’t read the whole thing, but the first 30-40 pages. I
had a lot of questions in those few pages. A majority of the questions were
answered with "you just need to have faith." If you cannot explain to
me why things are the way they are, I do not believe what you say. Even as a
kid, I could not chalk anything up to faith. There were also a lot of things I
didn't agree with.”
“In my teens I started questioning. I
would ask questions like "Why would God create a person that he knows will
be evil and will go to hell?" I really enjoyed when the religion teachers
had no answers. Still, fear made me stick with it. Eventually intelligence won
out. I simply couldn't get religion to make any sense. Letting go of it was
very freeing.”
“Every time I asked a question like
where is a god or if he was real, why can't we see him? And the answers that I
got back were, " He works in mysterious ways", just doesn't make any
sense.”3
I want to say respectfully, yet boldly,
that the responses of the Christians in these persons’ lives were not good
enough. If your child, a friend, a family member, or a young person in the
church comes to you with similar questions, you must be prepared to give a more
substantial response than, “Well, you just need to have faith.” This doesn’t
mean that everyone needs to major in apologetics, but I think that all
believers should have an introductory level knowledge of evidence for the
resurrection of Jesus, evidence for the reliability of scripture, answers to
the problem of evil and suffering, and scientific evidence for the theistic
worldview.
When you don’t know an answer to someone’s
question, it is okay to do some research and get back to that person later (but
not too much later) or to direct them to another person in the church who is
equipped to answer their questions. There are many great resources that
Christians can access to build a foundational understanding of apologetics. A
couple book recommendations are Talking with Your Kids
about God or God’s Crime Scene. I have picked up a lot
of knowledge listening to YouTube while I wash the dishes. I recommend checking
out the following channels: Mike Winger, Capturing Christianity, Inspiring Philosophy, or Trinity Radio (though I recommend
watching videos that feature Braxton Hunter. I find his occasional co-host to
be a little bit too snarky).
While I think that each individual
believer has the responsibility of pursuing basic apologetic knowledge, I also
challenge the church to better equip the flock. In my opinion, pastors should
regularly incorporate apologetic teachings into their sermons. Churches should
make apologetics workshops and classes available to their members. Youth groups
should not only teach their students evidence for the Christian worldview but
should also equip them to share this information with their friends and in
environments that are hostile to the Christian worldview. In this video, apologist J. Warner Wallace makes the point that
instead of merely teaching our students, we need to train our students to
defend the truth of the Christian worldview.
This post in no way minimizes the role of
the Holy Spirit in leading people to faith in Christ. Ultimately, no amount of
evidence is going to lead to saving faith unless the Holy Spirit convicts a
person of their sin and their need of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It
is the power of the gospel that leads to salvation, not the power of apologetic
evidence, though God often uses evidence to overcome people’s intellectual
objections to Christianity. It may be that you do not feel a strong need for
apologetic evidence to bolster your faith in Christ. We are all wired
differently, and many people are led to Christ through the sacrificial love
shown by a Christian friend or personal experiences of God’s providential
protection and provision. Yet, others are either led to Christ or prevented from leaving the church in part through
evidential arguments and survey trends suggest that the American church is
failing to answer the intellectual doubts and questions of our children. By
investing in learning the robust apologetic evidence for the Christian faith,
believers will be equipping themselves to “become all things to all people,
that by all means [they] might save some.” (1 Corithians 9:22).
References:
1) Barrett, Justin. Born
Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Beliefs. Atria Books, 2012.
2) Wallace, J. Warner. “Are
Young People Really Leaving Christianity?” Cold-Case Christianity. January
12, 2019. Retrieved from https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/are-young-people-really-leaving-christianity/
3) “Atheists of Reddit, What Made You Leave Your Religion?” Reddit.
Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/csn64k/atheists_of_reddit_what_made_you_leave_your/
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