The Bible defines faith as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). In other words, it is being confident in things we hope to be true but cannot verify through our senses. It is affirming such things, though they cannot be deduced by reason. It is assigning a proposition more confidence than reason warrants. Faith is, in fact, the opposite of reason. They are mutually exclusive concepts, with no common ground. According to Paul, faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason.
A couple of examples are in order. Assume I decide to conquer my fear of heights and go skydiving with a skydiving school. Before boarding the plane, I am required to take a class. There, I learn of all the precautions taken to insure the safety of the skydivers. I learn of their fifty year history in which no one has ever been injured. I learn of the extensive knowledge and expertise of their employees, including the people that will be packing my parachute and that will be by my side on the jump. If I decide to go through with my plan and jump from the plane, it would be a matter of trust rather than faith. I have acquired evidence that I am likely to land safely and used reason to come to a justified conclusion based upon that evidence.
But assume instead that I learn this is the first day the skydiving school has been in business. No one there has ever skydived before. None has even packed a parachute. They are, however, extremely enthusiastic and charismatic. I like them and am inspired by their enthusiasm. If I choose to go through with my plan under these circumstances, it could only be described as an act of faith. I have no good evidence or reasons to believe I will reach the ground safely, so my decision cannot be grounded in such things. It can only be understood as an emotional response – as an act of faith.
the evidentialist puts no stock in faith. He requires evidence before committing to a position, and this evidence must, if possible, be obtained from reliable sources. He then draws conclusions from this evidence, through a chain of inferences based upon the rules of logic and reason. The confidence he places in these conclusions is in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of the evidence. It is this paradigm that provides the foundation for the American legal system and the scientific community. The scientific method is really just a specialized application of evidentialism to the natural world.
Everyone uses an evidence-based paradigm in the course of their daily life, even devout Christians. We all trust our senses and our reasonable inferences from those senses. Likewise, we evaluate the reliability of information obtained from other sources and trust that information if it passes our internal “bull detector.” Rarely if ever do we base everyday decisions on things we merely hope to be true but run contrary to the available evidence. We do not, for instance, set off into a driving rainstorm in our best attire having “faith” the rain will stop once we step out the door.
For most Christians, however, their religion is different. In religious matters alone, they feel free to set aside evidentialism. They allow themselves to believe things for which there is no good evidence and for which no reasonable inferences can be drawn. Why is this? Psychology suggests it is because they are wedded to the beliefs of Christianity for purely emotional reasons, and recognize such beliefs simply cannot be supported by reason. These beliefs are typically learned, and incorporated into one’s identity, in childhood before one develops critical thinking skills. Accordingly, Christians must appeal to an alternate means of establishing knowledge, and that is faith.
Faith and reason are, therefore, inherently at odds within Christian theology. This conflict can be seen in the writings of Martin Luther, who called reason “the devil’s bride,” a “beautiful harlot,” and “God’s worst enemy.” According to Luther, “Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding,” replacing any deductions obtained through reason with the “Word of God.” Tertullian embraced the irrationality he deemed essential to Christianity, stating that Jesus’ death and resurrection must be believed precisely because it was absurd and impossible.
Tertullian found reason irrelevant to belief, claiming that in light of the truth revealed by the Gospels, there was no further “need of research.” Many of today’s apologists likewise see reason and evidence as immaterial to Christian belief, as demonstrated by William Lane Craig’s “internal witness to the Holy Spirit,” or Alvin Plantinga’s “sensus divinitatus” and view of Christian belief as properly basic.
For faith to be valid, however, it is not enough that reason be inadequate. It is not enough to simply point out that reason has limits and cannot adequately explain everything. Faith must add value. It must reliably increase our understanding of the world above and beyond what reason can accomplish, providing explanations that are demonstrably better. And it must do so in a way that is objectively verifiable. We must be able to show that, at least in some circumstances, faith paints a more accurate picture than reason ever could. The role of reason is to allow us to reliably distinguish truth from falsity. Unless the Christian can demonstrate that faith can do the same, faith cannot serve as a basis for knowledge.
Religions are virtually all anti-empiricist, because they hold the real nature of the universe is hidden from us. While it might have made sense to look for alternatives to an empiricist worldview when these religions emerged, it makes sense no longer, as we can now explain just about everything in the universe empirically or at least reasonably believe that they can be explained empirically as our scientific knowledge improves. That is the message of science. Faith can never provide an adequate alternative since faith can be used to justify almost anything. If a given process yields thousands of mutually exclusive answers to the same question, that process must be fatally flawed.
