I will be the first to admit that you cannot prove God. Faith is, in its very essence, a belief in the unseen. This opinion of Faith does not need to be defended. God is who he is and does as he does whether or not I see evidence for it or believe in it. But that does not mean that faith is without reason or even at the least at odds with it. Neither should it stunt the exercise of weighing the evidence nor cause us to distrust those who do. Not surprisingly, popular author and speaker Richard Dawkins portrays a very negative view of faith:
"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.”If this were true. Shame on Faith. Faith should never cause us to cover our ears and sing la la la in the face of evidence. Must we outwit the atheist? Most of us probably can't (and would be foolish to try). Must we have all the answers? No body ever will. But the active evaluation of the evidence can and should be a healthy exercise of faith. As Paul said, "test these things, see if they be true!" I'm pretty sure God isn't afraid of the evidence. Neither should we be. Nor should we feel the need to construct complicated, logic defying, conspiracy theory-worthy mental exercises to explain the portrait right in front of our nose.
If faith has no need of being substantiated by physical evidence, does it follow that 'Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence"? Intelligent as he may be, what Dawkins fails to see is that while the evidence does not prove God's existence, it also does not disprove His existence. Realizing a feasible explanation for anything says nothing of the supernatural that may or may not be behind it. Evolution, if it is to be understood as true, says nothing of God's role or existence. Evidence for it is not evidence against God. Such evidence does not exist (or would be impossible to detect). By faith Dawkins accepts that his reality is the only one. The evidence itself cannot disprove that, but neither can it disprove a reality that includes God.
So faith really is not existing in the absence of evidence, or despite the evidence, but rather working with the evidence. Faith and reasoning do not have to be at odds. The data is what it is. Reasoning and faith give it meaning.
I agree with your comments, and they were very well written. Our definition of evidence is what is important in this discussion. My point is that in interacting with people, such as Dawkins or his disciples, we should feel no pressure to scramble and round up physical evidence to prove the reality of what we believe. Because it is just that, "what we believe". Faith is not always intellectually satisfying because it does, to a certain extent, operate in the absence of "physical data" to prove it, while definitely not lacking in transformed hearts and lives as evidence.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "Faith should never cause us to cover our ears and sing la la la in the face of evidence." If we are afraid of evidence, and ignore it, than our faith isn't faith, it is delusion.
Furthermore, Richard Dawkins, as you said, has the burden of proof on him, because he is not able to disprove the existence of God. My point was that every position is a faith position, while they might not admit it.
For example, something came out of nothing in the origin of the universe, and there had to be an unseen force to do this. We "believe" that the unseen force bringing this about was God.(How this process happened is another question, maybe for another post:)) In any case, they "believe" something else. Both operate on faith, and so there system is no more intellectually satisfying than ours, but ours is infinitely more eternally satisfying, and truly more intellectually satisfying in the end.