As an ex-atheist, I am guilty of perpetuating the false
dichotomy of “reason” and faith. The popular culture of the last decade has provided
ample ammunition for the rationalists’ (non-)holy war, which presents a
distorted image of religious adherents as dangerous fanatics or deluded bigots.
The “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement have led the charge in
describing the faithful in terms usually applied to the mentally ill or dangerous criminals: Daniel
Dennett, for example, offered an analogy of an ant behaving erratically because
it was afflicted by a parasite. A famous newspaper ad depicted the
still-standing twin towers in New York with the caption “Imagine No Religion.”
Richard Dawkins implicated even the most benign of believers with his assertion
that religious extremists learned their destructive mental habits of “faith” at
the hands of religious moderates. The implication is that there are two starkly
different ways of thinking: rational or religious. And the religious is
uniformly bad because it could just as easily take down a building as compose a
worship song.
I will argue that this is an unfortunate caricature of
faith. As a born again Jesus follower today, I affirm the value of the right kind of faith. To be
a true follower of Jesus you must have faith, yes! But don’t misunderstand what
that means. Saying you must have faith is not the same as saying you must close
your eyes and cover your ears and shout “la la la, I’m not listening, I can’t
hear you” until inconvenient facts go away. The kind of faith that Jesus
advocates is not the kind that will make you a blindly obedient automaton.
Rather, biblical faith requires careful assessment of information, a
willingness to reprove error where it is found, and finally, a relational trust
in Jesus.
It’s that trust part that gets people, and for good reason.
There are a lot of wackos out there who can deceive you, so you want to be careful
where you put your trust! Jesus understood this reality, and regularly warned
people to “Beware of false prophets,
which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
(Matthew 7:15). The Bible offers warnings repeatedly such as, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone
out into the world. (1 John 4:1).
It is tempting to say that you will simply trust no one but
yourself. Maybe a proven system of fail-safes like the scientific method will
be your ultimate and only standard for knowing truth. But you can’t put God in
a Petri dish, my friends. Actually, if we had to rely on our five senses and
upon science for every bit of information, we would have a difficult time
functioning as human beings. How do you know your significant other loves you?
Do you have a checklist whereby you can objectively verify their love? Cards on
all the right holidays and hugs of just the right duration? Will an EEG reading
pinpoint what moves you about a work of literature or of music? Maybe you could
chart the exact firing of electrons and then, instead of listening to your
favourite song, you could just evoke the same emotions by stimulating the right
series of nerves? Can a man in a lab coat do tests to determine objectively
what is right and wrong, as atheist Sam Harris comes close to suggesting?
This is all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is to make a
point. Your epistemology for knowing your spouse loves you is based upon a
relational trust. The meanings which we derive from our experiences are far
more subjective than “rationality” allows, and yet, they are what make us
human. That subjective criterion of relational trust is the basis of the Christian
life, and indeed, the singular requirement for salvation. In short, God wants a
relationship with you. He doesn’t want you to be just some servant who blindly takes
orders, but he wants to call you friend AND make known to you the things of
God! (John 15:15). He wants you to get to know him and trust him – not some
other false God, not some religious system, and not some man who claims to
speak for God today. Trust only God, who as Jesus Christ presented himself to
humanity and died on the cross to atone for your sins. He will give you eternal
life. (1 John 5:9-13)
Forget whatever caricature of Christian faith that Dawkins or
false religious teachers have spoonfed to you. Instead, look at what Jesus said
and did as recorded in the gospels themselves. He gives a reasonable basis for
that relational trust to rest upon. Take for example “doubting” Thomas, who
would not believe Jesus was resurrected until he felt the nail prints in his
hands and feet. Jesus gave him that proof, after which his skepticism was satisfied
and he cried out “My Lord, and my God!” (John 20:24-28).
