Faith. It is that bogyman of atheists and common staple of the religious (Jews and Christians especially). It seems mysterious like a sunken treasure, dangerous like the plague, yet incomprehensible to the unbeliever who would rather have certainty, not faith. Hence it is often maligned by nonchristians and nontheists as a familiar whipping post. "We rely on science, not faith," they say.
Visiting Mark Twain, we find him attributed with the saying, "Faith is believing what ain't so!" (1) Furthermore, H. L. Mencken, himself a skeptic of Christianity, is quoted by John Stott as saying "faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." (2) A host of an atheist web site who started all his email with "ReligionisBunk" spoke of faith as "believing despite lack of evidence." (3) Michael, a critic of John Warwick-Montgomery's apologetics, asked "What is faith got to do with fact anyway?" (4) Is this a correct definition of faith? Does faith have nothing to do with fact? Faith, according to my small dictionary is "belief," "confidence," or "loyalty." (5) There is no reference here to believing something which isn't so. Actually, I would define faith as "something you haven't verified personally, but which you have a reason to believe is true." Greg Koukl says he prefers the word "trust" over the word "faith" and talks about it in the context of "my active personal investment - trust - in that which I have reason to believe is true." (6) The religious, specifically Christians like Koukl, can have faith with evidence for their faith.
Christianity, like most religions, considers belief based on faith. This doesn't mean there can never be any evidence for it like some skeptics seem to hint, but that some "truths" of it are beyond evidence or proof. They require faith - "trust" as Koukl says. By defining faith in their way, skeptics can dismiss Christianity without having to deal with its ideas, claims, and predictions. It is easy to ignore something when you have defined its ideas in such a shoddy manner. Logicians would call that "creating a straw man." Meanwhile, humanists do not have "faith," they have evidence of evolution (supposedly) which is no evidence at all but evidence because their world view dictates there can be no evidence against evolution or no alternative account of life's origins.
Actually, faith is not that mysterious. We humans exercise faith several hundred times each day, to draw a rough estimate. We do when we believe that our spouse is faithful to us even though we haven't verified it. We do have very good evidence, however, that our spouse will be faithful to use when we aren't around. We do when we believe that our house will be standing the next day. And, the best example of using faith is when we believe we will still be alive the next day, month, or year from now. We humans cannot live without faith; it's in our design.
While there may be some Christians who believe out of no evidence, this is not representative of the overall population of believers. Religious critic Chester Dolan, however, echoes a familiar atheistic belief.
Faith, as the theologians and other mystics use the term, is the capacity to accept as "true" declarations that have no predictive content. It is their way of asking us to believe something for no other reason than because they say it is so, not because there has ever been the slightest evidence to demonstrate that it is so. (7)
Just taking somebody's word for it seems to be a worthless
endeavor to Dolan. This constitutes faith without evidence. Yet
atheists believe a host of evidences from the fossils simply
because someone said so! They have never seen the fossils or
dug in the ground, yet they believe simply because an
anthropologist told them those fossils are there. If ever there
was an example of belief like that which Dolan criticizes, this
is it.
Actually, atheists believe because they sense that those who are reporting what the fossils say are accurate and true people who can be trusted. Faith in these scientists seems to be justified to atheists who put their faith in such science. Likewise, many of the religious put their faith in the reporters of religious events, such as the resurrection of Christ, because to them the events described in such holy books can be trusted and the reporters of the events can be trusted. Religious believers, particularly Christians, do not trust the Gospels out of vain trust because somebody said so, but because those who were alive those days to report the events were accurate about other things and because the world view of that religion describes reality, is historically true, and describes, philosophically-speaking, how man is.
I might also add that the religious, at least some of them, seem perfectly able to know and state what evidence, predictive-wise, fits their faith and what does not. Dolan's characterization of the religious doesn't fit the writings or evidences many of them have marshalled - especially many Jewish and Christian theologians.
1. Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention: p. 195; Also quoted in Robert Morey, The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom, 1986, Bethany House, p. 121. Morey is quoting an atheist he debated named Sheila.
2. John Stott, Your Mind Matters, 1972, Intervarsity Press: Downer's Grove, IL, p. 34
3. The atheist's web site is http://mail.cruzio.com/~jguz/. At last try I was unable to connect, but I have a summary of some is his points in my January 1999 issue of the Conservative Intellectual Militia Info-quest Newsletter.
4. From _____ Martin (first name omitted for privacy), Trinity College, email message posted to the Society-of-Christian-Philosophers' internet forum. Mr. Martin had sent an anti-Christian email posting to Mr. Montgomery who replied and quoted the skeptic as remarking that which I quoted.
5. Webster's New Compact Dictionary, rev. ed. 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.: Nashville, TN
6. Greg Koukl, Solid Ground, (September/October 1997)
7. Chester Dolan, Holy Daze: Coming to
Grips with "Religion," The Holy Daze of Humanity,
1984-1992, Mopah Publications: Lakewood, CA, p. 130