In the last post, we discussed how principles are present in everyone’s lives. Now in this
post, I’d like to discuss a very important way this can affect you. Lurking in
the background of every attempt at reasoning, whether excellent or terrible or
anywhere in between, is a set of principles. Now I’m not advocating that we go
out and list these principles any time we’re about to engage in reasoning; but
being aware of these can help.
I read a recent
“deconversion” story of a former Christian-turned-atheist recently. In his
story, he explained how he loved Christ and wanted to be a Christian. Further,
he wanted to have strong proofs for his faith. He mentioned something like, “I
wanted to find irrefutable arguments and evidence for God’s existence and Christianity’s
truth, or at least arguments that were so good no one could deny them.” When he
didn’t find such arguments and evidence, he abandoned the faith.
Now this post is
not to discuss the various evidences and arguments for Christianity’s truth and
God’s existence, though I certainly think those are quite good. I do want to
discuss his principle. It’s quite unreasonable.
I see a variant
of this thinking quite often—sometimes even from budding young apologists—but
what I don’t see is anyone attempting to justify it. Why, in order to be
justified in being a Christian, must the evidence be so good that no one can
deny it? I don’t see a good reason. Even the “extraordinary claims” line often
tossed about doesn’t justify such thinking (it only justifies “extraordinary
evidence,” not evidence so good no one could deny it).
In fact, not
only do we not see a reason to accept the standard, we can actually see a
reason to reject it. Given that the goal of Christianity, so to speak, is not
merely to believe in God, or even merely to believe in the intellectual facts
of the Gospel, but instead to enter into a loving, trusting relationship—with
God as our Father and Christ as our Savior where we follow him with our lives—that
we call “faith,” it would actually be counterproductive
for God to have the world be such that we could not deny the truths of the
Gospel. God does not want compulsory relationships; in fact, love is such that “compulsory
love” is an oxymoron.
Notice the wide
gulf that exists between “can deny x,”
and “cannot accept x;” they are not
identical. There is no good reason to accept such a standard. In fact, such a
standard implicitly says, “If I am not forced to believe, I will not believe.”
But this, then, is a dispositional matter of the will, not the intellect. And that is something for which we need
God and his Word.
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