Thomas sees the risen Jesus. That evidence
causes him to believe. –
The Bible Episode
10 “Courage”
“Faith is believing without
evidence, right?” Wrong! Emphatically wrong.
Those who want you to believe faith is
believing without evidence are either
ignorant (but well meaning) Christians, or
more likely – those like atheists and Satan
and those deceived by them–all who will be
spending eternity in hell. Such want you to
be just as foolish as they are by condemning
yourself along with them by believing this
foolish platitude. Don’t fall for it. Faith
is not “believing without evidence.” On the
contrary, Christians believe because of
the evidence.
Faith is not
believing without evidence. On the contrary, Christians
believe because of the evidence. That
is why Christianity is a
Rational Faith.
(Couldn't neglect to mention that obvious
connection.)
Christians do not believe in spite of lack
of evidence. Again I say, those trying
to convince you that Christians believe in
spite of no evidence are trying to make you
disbelieve as they do, and in so doing, send
you to hell with them. Don't believe them.
Save yourself from an eternity of
condemnation and torment.
What is Faith,
and Where does it come from?
The Bible actually defines faith, and even
as it is a difficult concept to define for
the uninitiated today, it was also difficult
concept in the first century A.D. when written by the author of
Hebrews in the years following Jesus' death
and resurrection. It is found in chapter 11
verse 1 of the book of Hebrews. It is a
difficult verse to translate - as witnessed
by the various ways it has been translated.
To make things as clear as possible, I will
give you my paraphrase translation which is
close to the
New life translation, but mine follows
more closely the words used to express the
concepts I believe the writer of Hebrews is
trying to convey:
"Faith is the reality (‛υποστασις
- hupostatis[1])
of the things we wait for, the confidence of
accomplished (0r completed) (πραγματων
- pragmatōn[2])
evidences (ελεγχος
- elegchos[3]) we do not see."
The first
thing to note is that there are two parts to
this Biblical definition of faith. Let's
look at them in turn:
The first part deals with "reality" - things that actually are (or
will be) as God has spoken them. In other
words, truth. (Conveniently I just did an
article on truth if you need a
definition.) So faith concerns things that
actually are. They are reality; or in the
case of things to come, they will certainly
happen. The point that is being made is that
they are real either now, (for example,
heaven is real, our new home there is real,
our new birth in Christ is real, our
adoption by God is real, etc.) or the things
God has said will happen - like the second
coming of Christ in glory - will certainly
happen.
The second
part deals with a settled confidence in the
certainty of things we do not see. Where
does such a settled confidence - undeterred
by things of this world - come from? It
springs from the
"evidences", or proofs of things
"accomplished" - or "completed" (both words
fit well, and as you can see I had a hard
time choosing one) by the God who has not
just revealed himself in time and history,
but has revealed himself as the ultimate in
truth and reliability. What he says is true
and what he promises we can rely on for him
to accomplish - based on what he has already
accomplished. What kinds of evidences has
this God given us as "accomplished" or
"completed"? He has given many such
evidences. I will highlight three.
What
accomplished evidences has God provided that
we cannot see?
What are some
evidences of what God has accomplished that
we cannot see? Notice once again there are
two parts here - 1. evidences that we can
detect that 2. Have components that we
cannot see. So what would some of those
evidences be?
Let's start with the Philosophical:
Evidence 1: Why does something exist
instead of nothing? How do we get the
universe we see today?
The secular theory of cosmological origins -
the Big Bang theory - states that once there
was nothing, and then everything exploded
into existence at a moment in time.
That defies a number of physical laws. The
law of conservation of energy. (Energy can
neither be created nor destroyed. If
there was once no energy, where did "all the
energy that will ever exist" as the big
bangers say - come from?) It defies the law
of causality. Because according to big
bang theorists - the "singularity" happened
without cause. But that's impossible. Things
that begin to exist must have a cause. (See
the
Kalam Cosmological argument. Another
problem, when and where did the Big bang
occur? There was no space or time before the
big bang, so there was literally no place it
could have happened, and, since time didn't
exist, there was literally no time it could
have happened. These problems are just for
starters.
The only rational, non-contradictory answer
to the question, why does something exist
instead of nothing, is because an eternal,
omnipotent God, outside of space and time,
desired it to be so, and acted to make it
so. He made the space time and matter we
exist in and are made of. We don't know how God did it, but we can
see that it has been done, and the laws of
both physics and logic tell us only a being beyond the
natural world - beyond space time and matter
- could have brought the natural
world into existence.
Let's move on
the physical evidences.
Evidence 2:
The Heavens declare the Glory of God
That is
from Psalm 19 which states:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his
hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display
knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language where
their voice is not heard.
Psalm 19.1-3
Because of
the glory of creation, the apostle Paul can
state:
19
since what may be known about God is
plain to them, because God has made it
plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world
God's invisible qualities--his eternal
power and divine nature--have been
clearly seen, being understood from what
has been made, so that men are without
excuse.
Rom 1.19-19
Everyone
who has seen God's creation has the
testimony of that very creation about the
divine nature of the God who created it. It
is so evident that men will be without
excuse before God if they claim they didn't
know God exists because as scripture says,
the fact that God exists has been made plain
to everyone. (Yes that means atheists are
lying to themselves. They know God exists.)
We can look at
God's creation and learn much about God -
his divine power, creativity, love of
variation and order - among his vast
infinite qualities - which are more vast
than the deepest expanses of space. Just
looking at the cosmos and the earth should
inspire faith and confidence in the God who
created them. Jesus said,
The
wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear
its sound, but you cannot tell where it
comes from or where it is going. So it
is with everyone born of the Spirit."
(John 3:8)
Likewise
with creation. We did not see the act of
creation, but we can see from the results of
the creation, that there is a magnificent,
life giving God behind the creation.
Evidence 3:
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God
Evidences 1
and 2 should get you to theism, perhaps even
monotheism. But the identity of God is still
hidden. The resurrection of Jesus identifies
the one and only God. That is the God who:
Has
power over life and death
Is
clearly the giver of life
Is
thus the giver of all life on this
planet
Jesus
said,
"I
am the resurrection and the life. He
who believes in me will live, even
though he dies;
26 and whoever lives and believes in
me will never die. Do you believe
this?"
John 11.25-26
How do
we know that Jesus was not speaking mere
words? To prove he had the authority to
forgive sins (an authority only God has)
and not merely talking, he made a lame
man walk. (Matt 9.1-9) To prove he has
the power to rise the dead, he rose
Lazarus from the dead (depicted in the
latest "The
Chosen" movie (season 4 episodes
7-8)) and was himself resurrected from
the dead. (John 21.14) How do we know he
rose from the dead? Given the evidence,
it is the only rational conclusion. You
can review the evidence for the
resurrection here: "AD
Apologetics - Part 2: Jesus' Triumphant
Resurrection."
Final
Thoughts
So
please understand dear reader, faith is
not "believing without evidence." Faith
is taking what we can see with our own
eyes: the stars and their movement
across the heavens, the wonders of life
on earth, from amazing hummingbirds, to
magnificent great blue whales, to the
crowning achievement of God's creation -
man - made in the image of God (Gen
1.27), to the testimonies of the
witnesses of the risen Jesus - faith is
taking these evidences and accepting
them for what they are: irrefutable
evidences of an all-powerful God who
created us, who loves us enough to save
us from ourselves and our sins by taking
on flesh and dying for us - for which we
have the testimony of many. That is not
faith without evidence. The many
evidences in scripture - including that
of the resurrection - is the
evidence that gives us confidence to
believe in the Son of God. This is the
Son of God who:
"... has come and has given us
understanding, so that we may know
him who is true. And we are in him
who is true--even in his Son Jesus
Christ. He is the true God and
eternal life.
1 John 5.20
God the
Father, and Jesus the Son of God are not
people we guess about or merely hope
exist. We know them. We know Him who is
truth as John says. And we know based on
the evidence given us. Both the
evidence and our confidence in it, is
something you cannot see, but something
that is very real. It is this confidence
in what God has done, and the character
of God which gives us confidence in all
that he says - that we call
"faith." It's a faith in Him, whom you
cannot see, and based on the realities
outlined above, and anchored in a God
whom Christians know to be real,
truthful and faithful.
I'll leave
you with the faith and confession of Thomas,
a
realist
who would not believe until he saw the
evidence - the risen Jesus - with his own eyes. But as Jesus says,
"Blessed are those who have not seen, and
still believe."
One final thought for those
who may be confused regarding seeing
evidence. Not seeing the evidence
personally, but accepting the
testimony of a witness who has, is quite
different from there not being any evidence
all. Do you believe there are rings around
Saturn and
Neptune as scientists claim - even if
you have not personally seen (as in through
a telescope) them? If you do, it's not
because you're believing without evidence;
it's because you're believing the testimony
of someone who has seen the evidence - as
Christians believe the testimony of those
who have seen the risen Christ.
Notes 1.
hupostasis - the same word is used in Heb 1.3 of Christ being the
exact "hupostatis" (reality, expression) of God. Back
2.
pragmatōn - Luke uses the same word in
Luke 1.1 to express "the things that have been fulfilled" Back
3. The verbal form:
elegchō is typically used when speaking
of providing proof - often in strong form of a rebuke. Here the idea
of strong evidence or proof carries over. Back
