Is Faith Opposed to Reason? What is Faith? Pt. 1

You’ve probably heard people refer to “blind faith”, a “leap in the dark”, “hoping against the odds,” or “believing against the evidence.” While it might be nice to romanticize the faith and pit it against factual, calculated reasoning, this idea of faith is inconsistent with scripture and doesn’t work in the real world.

If we accept the silly idea that faith is the opposite of reason, we’ve bought into our opponents’ lies. Modern atheist Richard Dawkins said in a 1994 lecture, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” (You can read the entire lecture here.) 

But is faith really just an excuse for intellectual laziness?

Atheist Antony Flew debated theists R. M. Hare and Basil Mitchell on the question of the rationality of religious belief in 1948. Read it! He argued that theists make their propositions meaningless when they say things that have no possibility of contrary evidence. For instance, if a Christian receives an answer to prayer, he might see it as evidence for God, but if he does not, he explains it away by saying, “It just wasn’t God’s will.” This is illogical. Either religious claims are propositions for which the possibility of contrary evidence must exist, or they are meaningless clichés that have no truth value. He would agree with Dawkins that faith fails to take evidence into account.

Flew’s fellow Oxford professor R. M. Hare responded by pointing out that everyone has foundational assumptions that he or she holds to explain the world (he called these “bliks”). Bliks are not subject to evidence the way normal propositions are because they are not really explanations. While it is true that atheists take quite a bit by faith, this is an unsatisfying answer.

The second Oxford theist, Basil Mitchell, responded by saying that as long as we have sufficient evidence for something, it is reasonable to take the rest by faith. Although we can’t always know exactly how much evidence is enough, faith is reasonable as long as it takes the evidence into account. Mitchell’s view makes sense in light of scripture. 1 Corinthians 15 says,

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

In other words, the Bible says for itself that there is a situation under which Christianity is no longer reasonable: if Christ has not been raised from the dead. However, God has left us with overwhelming evidence for the truth of the resurrection, and from this fact we can infer the rest of Christianity. Therefore, no matter how much evil we see in the world, faith in Jesus is still the most reasonable path to take.

Hebrews 11 is all about faith. We see in verse one that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” and in verse six that “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” The rest of the chapter makes it clear that the people listed here were not looking for a pie-in-the-sky easy life. They stuck to their convictions in the middle of extreme suffering because they took God at His word.

Summit Ministries notes in a 2010 article, “The Bible defines faith in a totally different way from the common understanding. Faith is not wishful thinking, blind hope, or surrender of reason. Biblical faith is a decision to believe something about God or Jesus based on evidence, the kind of evidence that would stand up in any court of law.” 

So believer, hold onto your faith. Weigh the evidence and see for yourself that Christianity is reasonable. And when you have made your choice, stand by your convictions no matter what. 

Want more on faith? Read Part Two!