What’s your (real) objection? (Part 4)
Is your faith blind?
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
Richard Dawkins
In the introduction to this series, I quoted my friend who said, “blind faith doesn’t work for me.” As it happens, it doesn’t work for me either even though I have entrusted my life to the person of Jesus Christ!
Regarding faith, Richard Dawkins, the well-known and outspoken evolutionary biologist from the University of Oxford, often expounds derisively on this topic as per the foregoing quote wherein he implies faith is blind. In judging Dawkins opinion, however, one should note that it is prejudiced by his materialistic worldview, which holds that we can only know reality by investigating the physical realm.
Interestingly, the foregoing assertion by Dawkins is a statement of philosophy, not science. Moreover, many serious philosophers have identified logical holes in Dawkins’ arguments against the faith domain. Perhaps he should stick to his own lane (science) and leave philosophy to those better versed in that discipline!
According to the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, “…faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Note that a key feature of faith is a confident hope or trust. This definition incorporates the concept that we cannot see that for which we are hoping.
For example, I cannot see the spiritual domain where I shall spend eternity in God's presence. I simply trust that I will live forever in an intimate relationship with the Creator based upon my ongoing experience of His presence and the claims of the Bible. And my confidence in the truthfulness of the Bible is not unsupported by evidence. Indeed, as dealt with in my book “More Than Your Business Card,” there is a lot of evidence supporting the trustworthiness of the Bible including, in particular, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as well as the compatibility of modern science with the Christian worldview.
There are several things that scientists believe exist even though they don’t know what they are.
Dawkins seems to think that believing in something we don’t know via our cognitive faculties is a “cop out.” However, there are several things that scientists believe exist even though they don’t know what they are. For example, no one knows what gravity is. While Newton and Einstein discovered mathematical “laws” to describe the effects of gravity on matter, neither knew what it was and no scientist to this day has solved this mystery. The same can be said of energy.
No one would describe these scientists as “faith-heads,” a derogatory label Dawkins has applied to Christians. Yet, like us faith-heads, Dawkins does his science by faith. Indeed, modern science would not exist were it not for the foundational premise (aka faith) that there exist regularities in the universe that we can discover and exploit. And, notwithstanding my friend’s objections, many scholars (including scientists) would argue there is a mountain of evidence supporting the truth of the biblical worldview.
In a debate once with Dr. John Lennox in Oxford, Dawkins asked Lennox “Who created God?” On a related note, I asked my seven year old grandson recently if there was anything God didn’t create. His answer: “Himself!” His response brings to mind Jesus’ assertion that little children sometimes see truth more clearly than adults!
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
