“Faith means not wanting to know what is true” – Frederick Nietzsche
In my blog post on how we can we can know that the story of Christ’s resurrection is true, I received a couple of comments respectfully objecting to my evidentiary/philosophical approach to the matter. I thought I’d follow up with them in another blog entry vs. handling them in the typical comment/reply fashion.
Further, I wanted to address the comments of atheist Ryan Benson in his recent column on Patheos where he raised some good objections to Christians and others who wrote him in response to his challenge of explaining ‘faith’. I think Ryan’s column serves as a good response to those who protested my approach to the resurrection and why we need to say more to people than ‘just believe’.
Is faith, as one of my blog commenters put it, something that you just know that you know that you know? And regarding the need to bridge the gap between the historical aspects of Christianity and the faith that Christians hold – is that important or not? At least one person didn’t think so.
But it is important. And it’s also essential that we have a right handle on what ‘faith’ actually is where the Bible uses the term. If we don’t, we can’t intelligently answer people like Mr. Benson and others who ask us to define what faith is and why they should embrace our position that Christianity is true.
Getting Started
A number of years ago, James Sire wrote an excellent book and held a series of seminars on college campuses that were both entitled “Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All?”
That’s a very good question.
I think I have a good answer to the question. The reason to believe something – the only reason to believe something – is because that ‘something’ is true.
Anyone disagree? I hope not.
If atheism is true, then we all need to be atheists. If Muhammad truly is God’s last prophet and the Qur’an represents the true word of God then we all need to be Muslims. And if Christ really did rise from the dead and His words were faithfully recorded by the New Testament writers then we all need to be Christians.
Truth matters in every area of life – medical, business, personal relationships, take your pick. And so it stands to reason that truth is the only thing that ultimately matters in the spiritual realm too.
Why? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, without truth in religion how can something like the Mormon’s “burning in the bosom” (which they say tells them something is right and true, such as Joseph Smith was a prophet from God) ever be challenged or falsified? But with facts and history, we have something to work with. For example, if a Mormon gets a burning in the bosom telling them the Book of Mormon was given to Joseph Smith by God, we can show them how Smith plagiarized almost entire chapters of the 1611 King James Bible (including the words added by the translators) and demonstrate to them that he was a fraud.
Second, truth matters in life simply because consequences exist for being wrong. The Apostle Paul understood this fact all too well. This is why in his famous defense of Christ’s resurrection recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, he said: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:16-19, emphasis added).
If you call yourself a Christian, do you understand that you are most to be pitied among everyone else on the planet if Christ wasn’t raised from the dead – in other words, if Christianity isn’t true? There are sad consequences that come from being a Christian if Christianity isn’t real, so says the most eminent apostle of Christ. This being the case, we see that truth should be the bedrock and foundation of all faith, which is perhaps why the Hebrew term for truth (“emeth”) literally means “firmness and duration”; that is to say, an everlasting substance.
I appreciate Ryan Benson’s correct statement in his column about how a disregard for the firm foundation of truth causes religious people to turn a deaf ear to the radical differences and beliefs in opposing faiths. In our pluralistic culture where it’s fine to say “this is right” as long as it’s not followed up with “and therefore that is wrong”, it’s good to see someone call attention to the importance of the law of non-contradiction. It’s also a Biblical stance. The Apostle Paul made use of all the core principles of logic such as the law of identity (e.g. 2 Cor. 11:4), non-contradiction (e.g. 1 Cor. 10:21), excluded middle (e.g. 1 Cor. 8:5-6), and rational inference (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:16-17) in making his case for the gospel.
What happens when you take an approach to religion/spirituality where a concern for the truth is secondary? That’s easy – you’ll gravitate to something that’s pleasing to you. Pascal puts in like this: “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof [truth] but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
Defining Faith
The whole idea of mixing proof/truth and faith bothers some Christians and so they tend to bifurcate the two much in the same way philosopher Immanuel Kant separated his phenomenal and noumenal realms. This stance on both the religious and irreligious side has led to the following perception:
On the one side we have something that’s objective and true (science is normally hailed as the champion here) that’s associated with the mind, and on the other side we have subjectivity and opinions, where religion is relegated; just a matter of emotion and the heart. That’s why in Penn and Teller’s famous HBO critique of Christianity they say, "If you believe that the Bible is real because of faith, we can't touch you. . . . They [Christians] pride themselves on believing things that are hard to believe in. They think God will bless them for that. But if you want history or fact in your Bible, you are so *******"
We see/hear this attitude all the time. “Oh, you’re a person of faith…” You can almost feel the condescending pat on the head when such a statement is made. Because, after all, faith is a belief you have in the absence of evidence and proof isn’t it? That’s why it’s called ‘faith’, right?
Wrong. That’s not how the Bible defines faith at all. And I am so glad that it doesn’t.
Think about where such thinking leads. If it’s correct that faith is believing something without substantiation, then strong faith is when you believe something that you suspect isn’t true. And the strongest kind of faith must be when you embrace something that you know isn’t true. Just like Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing something you know ain’t so.”
But again, that’s not how the Bible defines faith. In the Greek language there are a number of words that could have been used to convey the meaning of faith. The Hellenistic and classical Greeks used the term “nomizo” to describe belief in their gods. It basically means “I believe” but has no foundation for that belief other than it is something that was passed along by tradition (e.g. by parents, etc.) This word is never used in the Greek New Testament to speak of faith.
Instead, the terms “pistis”is used in Scripture. It is a noun that comes from the verb “peitho”, which means “to be persuaded”. If you check the best lexicon (BDAG) for the meaning of “pistis”, you’ll find the following:
- state of believing o n the basis of the reliability of the one trusted
- trust, confidence
- that which evokes trust
- reliability, fidelity
- pertaining to being worthy of belief or trust
The concept of blind faith or faith without any reason is foreign to the New Testament, which is why constantly in the book of Acts it says Paul “reasoned” with his audiences. In fact, the writer of Hebrews specifically says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Do you see that? “Substance”, which is literally defined as “actual being” and “reality” in Greek. And there’s the word “evidence” as plain as day.
Such a definition of faith tears down people like Sigmund Freud’s contemptible description of faith and religion: “They [religious beliefs] are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. We call belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relation to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification.”
No, faith beds down quite nicely with reality and truth. Having a correct understanding of how faith is defined in the Bible helps dissolve the invalid division that Kant and modern society have erected between truth and faith. We instead find something more along these lines:
Both heart and mind come together where real faith is concerned. As Ravi Zacharias puts it, “What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.”
What about the “hoped for” and “things not seen” parts of the statement in Hebrews 1:1? Rather than repeat what I’ve said before on this subject, see my
blog post that talks about how God uses evidence in this life to point to things we can’t see that are real in the next.
An Important Distinction
This proper comprehension of faith now leads us to make a very important distinction where faith is concerned. There is a difference between faith that and faith in.
For example, if I say I have faith in my wife, what is it that you hear me saying? Do you think I’m saying “I believe there is an ontological being living with me who is my spouse”? Of course not. Instead, you understand me to say “I trust my wife. I have complete confidence in her and believe her in what she tells me, what she’s promised me, and how she acts toward me.”
Without question, where faith is discussed in Scripture, it mostly relates to this ‘faith in’ side of faith, which is why in various interlinear Greek/English New Testaments you’ll see it listed in the text as the word ‘trust’ and not ‘faith’. But you do occasionally see both types of faith mentioned in Scripture such as, again, in Hebrews, when the writer says, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is [there’s faith ‘that’] and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him [and there’s faith ‘in’]" (Heb. 11:6).
The fact is, Christians have nothing to fear from good science and philosophy where the ‘that’ side of faith is concerned. Good science and good philosophy walk in unison together towards a personal Eternality from which everything came. Our faith is in response to a God that is real and true; not one who is imagined but a as Francis Schaeffer said, a God who is there. And the more you realize how real God is, and how true He is to His character and His word, the more you will trust Him. But the less convinced you are, the less you will trust Him. In other words, the weaker your faith ‘in’ will be.
What it Takes to Have Faith (or Belief)
The skeptic Bertrand Russell was once asked what he’d say to God when asked why he didn’t believe. “I’ll tell Him you didn’t give me enough evidence,” said Russell.
Now this is an area where I will agree with one of my Easter blog post dissenters. Evidence is not enough to make someone a Christian. Atheists will talk themselves hoarse about needing evidence and it’s because there’s not enough evidence for God that they won’t believe.
With all due respect, I don’t believe it. And the Bible is littered with Illustrations that back up my position. There are a couple that really stand out for me.
For example, take the resurrection of Lazarus recorded in John 11. Jesus raises a guy back to life who’s been dead for four days in the presence of many witnesses. You’d think that would convince the religious leaders Jesus is who He says He is. But instead it says later in the same chapter that it was this event that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused them agreement among them to kill Jesus (cf. John 11:53). Moreover, John tells us in the next chapter that they not only planned to kill Jesus but they also were going to murder Lazarus because many of the Jews believed in Jesus because they saw Lazarus alive again. Good grief – they’re going to murder the resurrected guy to try and stop the ‘Jesus movement’! So much for evidence being the only thing you need for faith.
And then you have Jesus’ resurrection. Angels, stone rolling away, earthquake, guards passing out from fear. You’d think an eyewitness report of all that would change the disbeliever’s hearts about Jesus. But instead, Matthew tells us: “And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day" (Matt. 28:12–15). The religious leaders know their story is a lie, and yet … they won’t face the evidence of the resurrection even though it’s staring them right in the face. But, after all, Jesus said this would happen before it all happened: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
Here’s a sad but very true fact: people act contrary to evidence all the time. All the time. For example, people know all the evidence about smoking, excessive alcohol use, poor eating habits, ignoring exercise, and such. And yet, many people die of lung cancer, liver failure, struggle with obesity, and suffer the effects from being out of shape. And still they persist in their lifestyles. Why? Lack of evidence? Lack of information? Lack of proof? Not at all.
Conservative columnist Irving Kristol put the problem like this: “When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mysterious as the obvious.” The faith issue is a matter of the will, not so much a matter of the mind. This is why you will see Jesus over and over again not address an intellectual deficiency in His detractors, but instead He says to them: “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?”(Mark 2:8, emphasis added).
This heart issue is what matters and not the need for more evidence. Occasionally you will see intellectually honest people admit this, such as Nietzsche who said: “If one were to prove this God of the Christians to us, we should be even less able to believe in him.” Or philosopher Thomas Nagel who candidly admitted, “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope that there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.”
We can all nod in agreement that truth is what matters in life, but really, a person’s presuppositions and personal desires can truly rule the day when push comes to shove. This is why philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, when speaking about truth, said: “Truth is subjectivity”. Kierkegaard didn’t at all mean that truth was subjective, but rather when faced with the truth, one must “subject” themselves to it. Truth has an existential bearing on the life of the one who commits to it. Kierkegaard knew that Bible truths were easy to understand in theory, but difficult to follow in practice. The latter requires obedience.
Conclusions on Faith
So is faith what Nietzsche said: “not wanting to know what is true”? Not at all. The Biblical concept of faith is something that is a product arising from a state of confidence, trust, and reliability. Something that is backed by evidence, reality, and worth believing. But it is still something that must be willed from within a person and subjected to.
Christians are sometimes criticized for holding to a statement credited to Anselm: “I believe in order to understand.” Isn’t that backwards – shouldn’t I understand in order to believe? Yes and no. It’s the old question of is God prior to logic or is logic prior to God? God is indeed prior to logic from an ontological (existence) perspective, but logic is prior to God in an epistemic (knowledge) sense in that we use our minds to arrive at a conclusion about God.
But Christians do believe in order to understand some things. I don’t fully grasp the incarnation of the Son of God, nor can I do justice explaining many of God’s attributes. But God’s Word tells me these things are true and I have faith in God that these things are correct. Thomas Aquinas helps us understand this process when he says, “He who would become educated should begin by trusting his teacher. He will never master his science unless he presumes in the beginning that the doctrine being presented is true even if, for the moment, he cannot tell why.”
Faith is taking a step in the light with trust and not a blind leap of faith in the dark with uncertainty. Does that mean “people of faith” have complete answers to all their questions? Not at all. But it does mean that we can have certainty on issues such as whether God exists (see a brief article from me on this here), what kind of God exists, and that we can confidently and smartly navigate today’s worldview maze to arrive at a reasonable conclusion about which faith is valid among the many that exist (see my ideas for this here).
Are these things something you can trust and believe? If you really care about the truth, then yes, you can. As Morpheus told Neo in The Matrix: “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. I’m only offering you the truth . . . nothing more.”
