I’ve grown accustomed to your faith

Blind Faith (book) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What sort of faith do you have? I’ve maintained for a long time that a Christian’s faith can’t possible be faith ‘contrary to the evidence’, as many atheists would have it, because that would require us to have less faith in the event of an answered prayer or whatever.

Thankfully, someone way cleverer than me has pulled together a little summary, together with lovely little pictures, to explain what different people mean when they say ‘faith’. I’ll retell it here, but if you want the original click to see the original Four Types of Faith. In each case, Christianity is a chair and sitting on it is our act of faith.

• Blind faith is as if we’re approaching the chair wearing a blindfold; we can definitely sit in it, but we can’t tell if there aren’t better chairs everywhere else, or if the chair’s on a conveyor belt about to tip us into a cauldron of boiling oil. This is not good faith.
  
• Irrational faith is the faith the daft atheists (as opposed to the not daft ones, I’m not caricaturing here) say Christians have; chucking reason over our shoulder we intentionally sit on what we know is a broken chair which isn’t just foolish, it’s dangerous.
• Warranted faith is faith based on evidence; it’s the sort of faith you and I use every moment of every day. I have faith that the pavement won’t randomly turn into jelly today, yet I have no evidence to disprove that theory. We look at the foundations of the chair, observe it to be stronger, more reliable, with a better creator, and safer than all the other chairs, and sit confidently in it.
• Biblical faith is faith which is based on evidence, yet with the catalyst of the Holy Spirit. I put something up on the blog a bit ago showcasing some straightforward evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ; I’m reasonably sure it was seen by at least one non-Christian, yet I didn’t get any responses saying ‘I believe!’ Why not? Because the Holy Spirit didn’t awaken that faith. It’s as if we can see the chair but we know it’s been made by someone we hate more than anything else, so out of spite we refuse to sit in it until he comes over and gives us a hug, reassuring us that he’s actually a pretty nice guy. And his chair’s really comfortable actually.

Related articles

• Burner: A Proof that the Christian God Does Not Exist? (withalliamgod.wordpress.com)
• The Case for Christ – An Atheist’s Nightmare (cheviceunited.wordpress.com)

Nothing exploded

English: A cross close to the church in Grense Jakobselv, Norway. Suomi: Risti kirkon lähellä Vuoremijoella, Norjassa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christians have a lot of faith. They stupidly believe in some guy who lives in the sky, definitely Caucasian, definitely with a white beard, probably holding a staff or a lightning bolt or something like that, who created everything, then sneakily hid proof of evolution in it all so that the cleverest humans would be led astray, leaving the stupid ones to get into heaven because of their faith.

Well, judging by the way the new atheists talk I think that’s what they believe anyway. The fact that I’m a Christian and believe none of that paragraph (except maybe the bit about him creating everything) seems to make no difference; why address real-life Christians when imaginary ones are so much easier to get angry and aggro about!

I’m not convinced that Christians have any more faith than atheists do. Let me tell you what I can see at the moment:

• a whole bunch of electronic stuff
• chocolate biscuits
• furniture
• buildings
• statues
• trees

All of those, with the exception of the last one, have a clear creator or creators; humans. But the last one, according to atheists, needs faith to believe in a creator. Odd.

Ok, so the tree grew ‘naturally’ out of a seed, but where did the seed come from? Another tree? But that doesn’t go back forever…atheists would have us believe that everything came into existence out of nothing on its own.

Is it just me, or is that absolutely ridiculous? In what other situation would we see something and conclude that it came into being when there was nothing there before, not even its various parts?

Atheists: you demonstrate more faith than I feel I can muster up I’m afraid!

Related articles

• Christmas in an Anti-Christian Age (flyoverpress.wordpress.com)
• Room for Debate: Is Atheism a Religion? (nytimes.com)
• Cold-Case Christianity (challies.com)

My F words

The no free-will bus campaign (Photo credit: morgantj)

I’m a fan of Gordon Ramsey. Yeah, he swears a lot, but his food (The F Word) looks epic.

I want to introduce three important F words today.

Ok, one’s really two words, but bear with me on this, it’s sort of melting my head.

• Facts govern life, the universe and everything. Facts are unchangeable and objective.
• Faith is what we believe, including everything from ‘obvious’ beliefs (I believe that I am looking at a computer screen), through ‘uncertain’ beliefs (I believe that the sun is millions of miles away despite  having no real evidence to prove it) to ‘personal’ beliefs (I believe that blue is a nicer colour than brown).
• Free-will is my ability to choose what action I’ll carry out, therefore determining my own future.

Got those? Pretty straightforward so far, yeah? Now let’s dig into them.

Neither faith nor free-will have any bearing whatsoever on facts. Regardless of how much I believe I can fly, or how much I choose to fly, I cannot fly.

Facts have a direct influence on faith. If I see that a ball bounces when someone drops it, I believe it will bounce when I drop it too. So I see others attempt to fly and fail, and my faith changes; I believe I can’t fly.

Faith has a direct influence on free-will. If I don’t believe I can fly, I’m simply not going to choose to jump off a building as a test. So my free-will is restricted by what I believe.

I’m not sure where I’m going to end up with this (check back in a week or two maybe), but I’ll leave you with a little thought.

If Christianity’s true, whether or not you or I believe it has no bearing whatsoever on it as a fact. The evidence should be looked at without any preconception whatsoever.

But that’s not something that we can do, because our faith limits our free-will; Christians look at the evidence and their faith is built, non-Christians look at the evidence and discount it (‘miracles don’t happen, therefore accounts of miracles must be false’).

Two conclusions:

1. Faith in Jesus is entirely a gift from God. We can’t just choose to believe because we all start from not believing, which restricts our ability to choose to believe. So Christians should continually go back to God and thank him for his grace in giving us the faith that we might believe.
2. Not having faith in Jesus prevents you from thinking rationally about the evidence for Christianity. So non-Christians should re-approach the evidence from a perspective of acting as if you already believe if you are to build up a balanced view of it.

Faith isn’t foolish

Earth’s gravity measured by NASA’s GRACE mission, showing deviations from the theoretical gravity of an idealized smooth Earth. Red shows the areas where gravity is stronger than the smooth, standard value, and blue reveals areas where gravity is weaker. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s a question to lift our spirits: do we know that we exist?

Descartes attempted to doubt his own existence, and ultimately came to the conclusion that I think, therefore I am. A good conclusion. But not necessarily the right one. What if ‘reality’ is just a massive computer program and my thoughts are just  ones and zeros in The Matrix? What if I only exist virtually, and then only until the power’s switched off?

Thinking like this draws us closer to insanity, and after however many thousands of years of civilisation (unless the entire world came into existence two minutes ago, and all our memories are artificial) we still don’t have a concrete answer on it, so it seems sensible to just assume that we exist, and live in light of that assumption. Otherwise, nothing would make sense, because it might not even be real.

So we need assumptions to operate. Science knows this. In order to conduct scientific experiments it’s good practice to document your assumptions beforehand, assumptions like ‘gravity is a constant’. We approximate gravity to an acceleration of just under 10 metres per second per second; we know that gravity’s stronger the closer to the centre of the earth we get, but it’s fair to assume it’s constant to enable us to draw sensible conclusions.

But, of course, we don’t know that gravity’s stronger, we have to assume that as well; experiments to date have all shown that it does get stronger, but what if we’d simply been measuring it at times and in places where it was? Without having a constant stream of information from all times and all places we can never know that, and even then we wouldn’t know that gravity isn’t suddenly going to change nature when we wake up tomorrow.

Let’s admit it: it isn’t foolish to have faith that gravity will stay the same tomorrow, it’s sensible.

But it’s still faith.

Whatever anyone says, faith is faith, regardless of which clever scientist/historian/theologian/philosopher is analysing the evidence.

Related articles

• Amira: Scientists believe they have come close to solving the ‘Matrix’ theory | Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)

Proof for God

English: A package of Original Fruit Skittles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I worked in a school for one year. That one year was enough. And if there was one moment that defined exactly why it was enough it was an experience I shared with a kid called Steven while queuing for lunch one day.

I felt a sharp tap on the back of my head. It was in the dinner hall of a school – this sort of experience is not an odd one, so I ignored it. But then it happened again, and again. I turned around, and there was Steven holding a bag of Skittles.

‘Please stop doing that,’ I said.

‘What did I do?’ he asked.

‘You threw some of those Skittles at me.’

‘Prove it,’ he said, before throwing another one at my head and cockily walking out.

I don’t know what Steven’s doing today. If he isn’t in prison it’s most likely because (a) he hasn’t been caught this time, (b) he’s met God, or (c) his lifestyle has ended up killing him. I really hope that (b)’s true.

But anyway, it doesn’t matter what Steven said because I knew the truth; he did throw those Skittles at me. And they really hurt. And he was right, there was no way for me to prove it; I had evidence, and logic had led me to a conclusion, but I couldn’t prove it like I can prove that 2+2=4.

But when it comes to God, suddenly a lot of non-believers demand this proof, and that’s just silly. We don’t put this standard on any other belief we hold, whether it’s belief in something concrete like ‘the earth isn’t going to disappear today,’ something more abstract like ‘I love my wife,’ or a theory like ‘capitalism seems like a good idea today’…despite the fact that there’s no proof for any of these.

It’s not wrong to have faith; we all demonstrate faith every time we perform any action. The faith demonstrated by Christians is logical faith inspired by a tonne of evidence.

HT: Andy Kind

No church in the wild

Kanye West in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ok, bit of a confession to make, and you’re not allowed to judge me for it. Deal? Deal.

I find Kanye West’s music really interesting to listen to. I know he swears, and talks about drugs and guns and all that gangsta stuff but I find that whenever I hear one of his new releases it’s just good, musically speaking.

But something that’s really interesting is the religious content that seems to worm its way into his songs – he’s clearly a spiritually troubled man, and tries to explore that through his music. And maybe that’s most obvious in his current track, No Church in the Wild, which contains specific references to ‘Jesus [who] was a carpenter, Yeezy, he lay beats / Hova flow the Holy Ghost’. The most interesting ideas come in the chorus though:

Human beings in a mob
What’s a mob to a king?
What’s a king to a god?
What’s a god to a non-believer?
Who don’t believe in anything?

The rhetorical questions he asks seem to be sensible; what’s a mob to a king? A mob expresses the dissatisfaction of the people, but at the end of the day the king can just sit back on his throne and say, ‘I don’t care what they think.’

What’s a king to a god? A god could put a king in power, or take him out of power. So in comparison to a king, a mob has no real power unless the king changes his mind. In comparison to a god, a king has no real power without the god’s will being aligned to his.

What’s a god to a non-believer? Well, actually, still a god. A god doesn’t care whether someone believes or not, they still have their power. So let’s apply this to Christianity.

On not a small number of occasions I’ve been in a conversation with an atheist when I’ve asked: ‘What will happen to you when you die? If the Bible’s wrong nothing will happen, but if it’s true you’ll be punished for eternity – sounds like a big risk to take!’ And the answer is always the same: ‘I don’t believe in all that stuff, so I don’t mind taking that risk.’

And that’s completely illogical. When I do a bungee jump, my belief in the bungee cord’s ability to keep me safe has no bearing whatsoever on whether I’ll be safe! So the object of your faith is more important than the strength of your faith.

So, atheists, stop having such blind faith because it’s just silly. And Christians, let’s start telling people about our great God who is in complete control and has offered eternal purpose and life to those who believe.

Related articles

• No Church In The Wild (holymansam.wordpress.com)

What will it take for you to believe?

 

Corcovado jesus (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Have you ever wondered what blind faith actually looks like? We use it as a phrase but never really dig into it. Well, how’s about this as an example:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. (Matthew 28:16-17)

Hang on, some doubted? You’ve just physically seen the risen Lord and still doubt? Sounds like blind faith to me!

Earlier this month a guy took offense at some throwaway comment I made, suggesting that the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection was all fake. We had a bit of a chat but when I asked him what it would take for him to believe, I was met with silence.

In other words, he has already made up his mind about Jesus’ resurrection without having considered any evidence. That’s called blind faith.

Believe it or not I don’t have a problem with people’s blind faith so long as they admit that it is what it is! Someone who says, ‘I haven’t looked at the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection but don’t believe it and will never believe it’ gets my respect because at least they’re grown up enough to take responsibility for their own decisions (even if I think they’re wrong).

But if you say that you’ve looked at the evidence and would be willing to believe but still don’t, I do want to ask you the question: what would you need to be shown to be convinced?

 

Related articles

• Talking reason at Easter (samisaacson.wordpress.com)
• Doubt vs Faith (musiqdragonfly.wordpress.com)
• Blind Faith? (str.typepad.com)

Walking by faith

Blind Faith (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of weeks ago a video went viral of a lady walking along the pavement and falling unexpectedly into a 20-foot hole. Did you see it?

Well, here’s the thing. If you listen to the neo-atheists’ version of what ‘faith’ is, she had it coming. She stepped onto that pavement slab by blind faith, and her folly was revealed as she fell.

Of course, the atheist at this point will say something like: ‘No, that’s not faith, her entire life she’s seen and experienced pavements supporting people’s weights; she was using reason to guide her choice to step onto it.’

Well, I disagree. Faith is not the opposite of reason, it’s the result of reason.

Think about it – I have faith that God answers prayer. And when I pray and see a result, does my faith grow or shrink? It grows! Faith, therefore, is certainly not ‘belief contrary to evidence,’ as many would have us believe.

Or think about an everyday occurrence. I have faith that my bed will support my weight, so I lie on it. A bit ago my faith was exposed when the bed collapsed while I lay on it…

So faith’s not contrary to the evidence, it turns out that the strength of my faith actually means nothing whatsoever; what matters is the stability of the pavement, or the bed, or whatever I’m willing to rely on.

On Christ the solid rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

Talking reason at Easter

Holy Week at Santhome Basilica, Chennai (HDR) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Sunday Christians around the world celebrated in remembrance that Jesus of Nazareth came back to life after having died.

And of course, a whole bunch of non-Christians either had no idea of what Easter actually is, or they thought something along the lines of ‘Christians can believe what they want to believe but I refuse to.’ And that must be true, because if they actually believed that Jesus came back to life then they’d be Christians. I rest my case.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out to any non-Christians that have an ear to hear (or an eye to read) that Christians don’t simply believe that Jesus rose again, but that it’s the only logical conclusion to draw based on the mountain of evidence for it.

Over here there’s a transcript of a debate between a Christian and a non-Christian. The Christian basically says ‘here’s the evidence, the only logical conclusion is that Jesus rose again’. The non-Christian has a bit of an odd way of responding: ‘miracles don’t happen, therefore the evidence must be false.’ Clear circular reasoning.

And the non-Christian admits it – here’s his explanation as to why no-one has ever walked on water:

Suppose from the 1850s, we have an account of a pastor of a church in Kansas who walked across this pond during the fourth of July on a celebration, and there were twelve people who saw him do it. The historian will have to evaluate this testimony and have to ask, did he probably do it or not? Now these eyewitnesses might have said that he did it. But there are other possibilities that one could imagine. There might be stones in the pond, for example. He might have been at a distance, and they didn’t see him. There were other things that you could think of. If you were trying to ask for probabilities, what is the probability that a human being can walk on a pond of water unless it’s frozen? The probability is virtually zero because in fact humans can’t do that.

Right…in other words, miracles don’t happen, and I would rather assume that I must be right than properly evaluate evidence that could suggest otherwise. If Jesus Christ was really God, then something as easy as walking on water is easily explainable…

Non-Christian! If you’re still reading, and your mind is thinking that your approach is genuinely logical, allow me to agree with you! But let’s agree together on one more thing: you and I both use reason in light of our equal levels of ‘blind faith’, it’s just that my blind faith is faith that the mountain of evidence is true, whereas yours is blind faith that any evidence that disagrees with your own beliefs must be false. That’s quite impressive faith!

The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges

This book is an investigation into the full impact of the gospel on our daily lives. Bridges looks at a series of different angles to ask what was achieved at Jesus’ cross, looking at its already completed effects, the day-to-day impact of living in light of the gospel, and the eternal consequences for us and for others.

There are similar books to this out there, such as The Cross of Christ by John Stott, but I don’t think that takes anything away from this book. Jerry Bridges has a good way of communicating, and he uses it to full effect in this book. The content is foundational from a Christian perspective but not presented in a childish way, so I’d certainly recommend this book to all new Christians, as well as anyone who has been a Christian for a while but doesn’t feel that they have every basic nailed (i.e. all of us). It’s very easy to read; Bridges doesn’t shy away from the challenging long words like propitiation, but he’s good at explaining exactly what he means.

The only potential problem with this book is one which I think is unavoidable – a lot of the concepts presented here aren’t that practically applicable due to them being about spiritual attitude, faith, and so on. So although there is a good chapter on sanctification if you’re looking for practical tips on how to pursue purity I don’t think this is the place to find them.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”