Many people use the term "faith" to describe belief in something
for which there is no evidence, or perhaps insufficient evidence. Is
that really what is meant by biblical faith? It seems that the correct
idea of what faith entails is something closer to trust.
Some
say that faith is a blind leap in the dark. Now, I will say something
that may raise the hackles of some Christians (particularly fellow
apologists out there) but I think that there is some truth to that statement. Faith is
a sort of blind leap in the dark, but that I think that this
illustration needs to be more thoroughly expounded upon because I think
that everyone has faith in one thing or another at any given time and that in all these cases, they are making a blind leap in the dark.
I
think that most people can agree that there are few things that we can
know with the same type of precision and confidence that we know 2+2=4.
There is a level of "mathematical" certainty that is unobtainable for
most of the elements and areas of our every day lives. For example, I
know that my wife loves me. However, I have to also admit that it is possible that she does not.
Before my wife gets angry with me, I'd better explain further. While I do think that it is possible
that I incorrectly believe that she loves me, that is because her love
for me is not something I can know with indubitable certainty (that
is...without the possibility of being wrong). It is possible
that she married me and has stayed with me and shared her life with me
for some sort of ulterior, self-serving reason. But, while such a theory
may be possible, it seems highly unlikely that my wife would
marry me, live with me, have children with me, share her life with me
and generally do things that seem to enhance the quality of my life.
Another, less volitile, example would be what I had for lunch this afternoon. I know what I had for lunch. But I could
be mistaken. It is possible that while I still can see the evidence of
the wrapper that is in the trash can, the plate and napkin I used with
an appearance that corresponds to what I believe I had for lunch, I
could still be incorrect. What if someone else had disposed of those
items in that trash can? That's possible. However, I recall eating my
lunch and throwing away that particular trash in that particular trash
can. Unless I have some sort of reason to doubt my own memory, I am
perfectly justified in believing that I am correctly remembering what I
had for lunch.
Yet again, how does
one disprove that we are not brains in a vat being electro-chemically
stimulated to experience the sensations that we have of the world around
us? We can't prove that this isn't the case, but we are
certainly not being unreasonable in thinking that the world really is
what we perceive it to be.
This is
where faith comes in. While I cannot know with mathematical certainty
that my wife loves me, there is enough evidence to make it more probably
true than not that she does love me. So, if I see that the
more plausible conclusion is that she loves me, how do I bridge the gap
between "it's likely true" to "I'm going to live my life as if it were
true?" That, to my understanding, is faith.
When we talk about faith being equivalent to trust, what we mean is that faith is acting as though the thing you believe to be true actually is true. When I sit in my chair, I have every reason to believe that it will support my weight and therefore I act as if that were the case
by placing my faith (trust) in the chair when I sit in it. The same is
true when we believe that an airplane will get us safely to our
destination. We get on the plane because we are acting as though the
believe in the plane's (and crew's) ability to get us safely to our
destination is actually true. We trust that it is so and so we act accordingly.
How
does this relate to religious faith? Well, as a Christian, it seems to
me that the evidence makes it more plausibly true than not that Jesus of
Nazareth spent three years teaching His disciples, predicted His own
death, burial and resurrection, and then proceeded to actually fulfill
the predictions He made some time around 30 A.D. That, along with other
evidence such as the eyewitness testimonies of the apostles, seems to me
to provide enough evidence to show that these events are more probably
than not. Therefore, I am going to live my life as though these things
are true, historical facts that actually happened. And if they did actually happen, it seems to me that they bring with them some major implications on my life and my future.
So, faith is not "wishing" although, in a sense, it is
a blind leap in the dark. However, this "blind leap" is only taken
after we have been assured by a trusted source that we will safely land
on solid footing. I may not know indubitably that God exists or that
Christianity is true, but the evidence seems so overwhelmingly to point
to that conclusion that I am going to take that "leap of faith" by
living my life as if it is true.
For more resources:
- Faith is Not Wishing: 13 Essays for Christian Thinkers - Greg Koukl
- Faith is Not Wishing - Apologetics Guy
- Biblical Faith vs. Blind Faith - Cerebral Faith
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