Discussions like this, however, get very muddled unless we first discuss definitions. This, I think, is primarily when Christians run into trouble. I've actually heard Christians define faith as "belief in something in spite of the evidence". This is semantic suicide. If you define faith as contradictory to reason, you've lost the battle before you've even begun. If you surrender before the battle even starts, you're going to lose.
Christians need to define faith using (what else?) the Bible. Hebrews 11:1 says "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". This definition is not at odds with reason at all; in fact, faith and reason are inextricably linked. I found a good definition of faith on Davis Wilson's blog. "Reason is the process by which one infers from acknowledged truths other propositions that are likely or necessarily true." This covers both inductive and deductive reasoning.
Atheists (and some Christians) have a very incorrect idea of what reason does. They seem to think that reason and logic will lead you to absolute truth, or that you can prove the existence of God through logic and reason. This is, in fact, what Descartes tried to do. In Discourse on the Method, he attempted to find truth by doubting everything that had any shade of uncertainty to it. He says that he cannot doubt that that which does the doubting (his mind) does not exist, i. e. I think therefore I am. He then proceeds to "prove" the existence of the soul and God.
This is the cardinal sin of much of modern Christian thinking, the idea that we start with our own reasoning and this leads us to God. Let me emphasize this: God is the starting point of our worldview, not the conclusion. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7 NASB) Once Christians begin realizing this they will stop bowing their knees to the false idols of rationalism and scientism and learn real apologetics.
What is proper apologetics, you ask? Again, the answer is in Proverbs. "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes." (Proverbs 26:4-5 NASB) My problem isn't that Christians use reason or science or what have you to provide evidence that God exists, but when Christians try to prove the Bible using reason along, or science alone, we run into trouble. When Christians argue, "We should believe in God because of the scientific evidence." I want to ask, "Who's the God here?" We should believe God exists because science tells us so? What if science didn't tell us us so? Should we still believe in Him? We being with the assumption that God exists and the Bible is true. This then explains all the scientific evidence. If God exists then all the scientific, logical, moral, archaeological evidence (properly examined) and what else have you would comport it. If God, then evidence. C. S. Lewis once said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else." Most people seem to have this backwards.
So we don't answer a fool according to his folly. We don't bow to his god and claim it proves our God. We are to answer the fool's folly, however, but by exposing his self-contradictory, untruthful nature. Neo-Darwinism claims we are all results of natural laws, of mechanistic processes. We are bags of chemicals doing what chemicals do. As a metaphor, we are programmed, like computers. How, then, can we know what we know is true? If we are "programmed" to believe what we believe, fated to do what we do simply because our actions are the sum total of billions of chemical reactions, how are we to know that our perceptions are reliable? I can program a computer to claim that black is white, that the year is 3008, or that human existence is a cosmic accident; i. e. I can "program" any falsehood into a computer I want, and there is already evidence that mankind is "hard-wired" to believe in some kind of god or supreme being. So it would appear, according to the naturalist, that we have in fact been programmed to believe falsehoods. How, then, can we trust any of our scientific theories? They claim at least that the scientific theories are to be consistent, but could they not then be consistently wrong?
If we assume the truth of the Bible is true, it will answer every question put to it. If we assume any number of worldviews that are false (naturalism, rationalism, etc.) it will be self-contradictory, and we can prove it to be so. Why then is the Bible true? Because every other assumption leads to nonsense.
Here's an example. I take on "faith" (the axioms) that two points determine a line, or three determine a plane. What reason and logic tell me are the kinds of statements about points, lines, and planes that we can infer from our initial assumptions. Further, reason can falsify the assumptions by showing they are self-contradictory, but it cannot show our assumptions are true. The truth of our assumptions is the very assumption we are making. If we make bad assumptions in geometry, reason will show that out eventually, and show further some contradiction results, thus showing our assumptions need some adjustment. Faith and reason work together. Faith is where we start, and reason, true reason, submitted to God's authority, helps us get there.
I realize this post was a bit meandering. I went from faith and reason to apologetics back to faith and reason again. But hopefully my readers will find their way through. =)
4 comments:
It isn't always a good idea to refer to things as axioms, because in math, as you I am sure remember, a different set of axioms can result in entirely different, and seemingly contradictory, theorems. For example, if I get to choose the set of axioms to work with I can create a triangle with three right angles.
Well, it still illustrates my point. Euclid's first four axioms have been shown to be independent of the fifth. But the assumptions or axioms are talking about are all-encompassing. Questions like "Does God exist?" have ramifications in every part of life because the claim is that God created everything ex nihilo, so He controls everything.
The point of an analogy is to illustrate from a different situation. By its very nature it breaks down at some point. =p
So really what you're pointing out is that there is no way to prove that God exists. Which is kinda what atheists and some other groups are saying, not so much that He doesn't exist, but that we can't prove it. And that is a valid point, that we can't prove that, that technically speaking we can't prove anything. We can gather evidence, but we can never say for certain if the Christian God exists or if any other deity exists, for that matter. For most people of non fanatical religious faith, that's really all they want Christians to say, that they can't prove God, so yes, there might be a possibility that Christians aren't correct in their assessment of the universe. Not that it is incorrect, but that there is a possibility of it. Mostly because if you think that there is a possibility you're incorrect you have a much smaller tendency to kill people for not agreeing with you.
Also, I have never really seen the difference between the biblical definition of faith and the other one you gave. I mean, "in what we cannot see" kinda implies that it's something outside of the realm of the senses, which makes it pretty much outside the realm of science and concrete reason. I just don't see that much of a difference, other than the fact that one is stated more positively than the other, between the idea that faith is a lack of reason and that faith is a complement to it, covering the areas that reason doesn't.
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