Reason as Evidence for God

I recently recommended Doug Wilson's book Persuasions: A Dream of Reason Meeting Unbelief, to someone in our church who was looking for apologetics reading. Unlike most books about the reasonableness of the Christian faith, this one is written as a narrative, reminiscent of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Each chapter follows the main character, Evangelist, who, while on his way to the City, encounters travelers heading in the opposite direction toward the Abyss. Each traveler represents a non-Christian worldview or philosophy of life, and in the course of his exchanges with them, Evangelist both defends the Christian faith and identifies the problems with their alternative perspectives.

After reading the book, my friend shared his reactions via email. Overall, he was impressed by Wilson's argumentation and felt he did a very good job of substantively addressing important issues in relatively little space. My friend did, however, take issue with how Wilson, via Evangelist, addressed an atheist named Mark. My friend said:

With Mark, for the Evangelist to argue that reason, being a product of random forces, cannot be trusted, nor said to produce a "true" or "false" result is, while technically correct, not a very persuasive argument. It's possible that the chemical reactions resulting from random processes that Mark calls reason are really just random processes, but in the end, it doesn't matter in terms of whether the atheist should believe in God.

Since I devoted some time to responding to my friend's criticism, I thought I'd make my effort serve double duty by posting an edited excerpt of my reply below:

The argument from rationality for the existence of God is one that C. S. Lewis popularized in his book Miracles and that contemporary Christian philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert (author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason and owner of a blog devoted to discussion of the argument) have advanced.

One has to keep in mind that the dispute between the atheist and the theist doesn't consist merely of disagreement about particular facts but is in actuality a clash of worldviews, systems of interpretation that rest on certain presuppositions about the nature of reality, the sources and scope of human knowledge, and ethics. All of these are intertwined and interrelated. What one believes in one area has consequences for another. For example, if I assume that reality consists exclusively of matter and material processes, a necessary consequent is that there are no such things as objectively existing moral truths. Likewise, claims to knowledge of moral absolutes would be inconsistent with the belief in such a universe. What the argument from reason asks is, given our belief that we are able to form true beliefs that correspond to the world outside our minds and that we are able to make reliable inferences and deductions, what kind of universe best accounts for or grounds these phenomena.

In Miracles, Lewis contrasts the naturalist and the supernaturalist. The former, he says, contends that reality is a closed system in which every state of affairs can be explained (at least in principle) in terms of some prior state of natural affairs. He writes (quotations are from the 1978, Collier Books paperback edition):

What the Naturalist believes is that the ultimate Fact, the thing you can't go behind, is a vast process in space and time which is going on of its own accord. Inside that total system every particular event (such as your sitting reading this book) happens because some other event has happened; in the long run, because the Total Event is happening (6).

Lewis maintains that all that is necessary in order to demonstrate that naturalism is false is to identify something that operates independently of the system.

If Naturalism is to be accepted we have a right to demand that every single thing should be such that we see, in general, how it could be explained in terms of the Total System. If any one thing exists which is of such a kind that we see in advance the impossibility of ever giving it that kind of explanation, then Naturalism would be in ruins (12).

He then sets out to demonstrate how reason fits the bill as one phenomenon that cannot be accounted for in completely naturalistic terms and is therefore evidence that nature is not all that exists.

Lewis starts by stating that the possibility of knowledge and science depends on the validity of reasoning. When we use words like "therefore," "must be" and "since" with respect to beliefs of which we are certain, we are only correct to the extent that our beliefs actually correspond to what is the case outside our minds. "But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them -- if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work -- then we can have no knowledge" (14). He quotes J. B. S. Haldane: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true...and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms" (15).

Lewis proceeds by stating that in a sentence such as "Grandfather is ill today because he ate lobster yesterday," the word "because" indicates a cause and effect relation. Eating the lobster had the effect of Grandfather being ill. In a sentence such as "Grandfather must be ill today because he hasn't got up yet" (and we know that he has characteristically been an early riser), "because" does not indicate cause and effect (not rising early isn't what caused Grandpa's sickness). Rather, "because" here indicates the reason for our belief that Grandpa isn't feeling well.

Lewis notes that this relation is what logicians call Ground and Consequent. According to a purely naturalistic or materialistic (in the philosophical sense) scheme, all our beliefs are simply physical events that are the effects of prior physical (and non-rational) causes. And, as Lewis points out, "a train of thought loses all rational credentials as soon as it can be shown to be wholly the result of non-rational causes" (26).

The argument from reason sets before us two sets of presuppositions and asks which set provides the necessary preconditions for what we all take for granted, namely the validity of reason and our ability to form true beliefs about the extra-mental world. On one hand there is the belief that mind and rationality emerged from non-rational material processes in which case our beliefs are not the results of processes of reasoning but are thrust upon us by our biology. On the other hand is the theistic presupposition that rationality has always existed and is ultimately behind life. The atheist rejects belief in the existence of God in the name of rationality and science. However, he or she holds to a worldview in terms of which rationality, logic, and knowledge are unintelligible. In his review of atheist Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion, noted Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga offers a condensed version of the argument:

From a theistic point of view, we'd expect that our cognitive faculties would be (for the most part, and given certain qualifications and caveats) reliable. God has created us in his image, and an important part of our image bearing is our resembling him in being able to form true beliefs and achieve knowledge. But from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a naïve hope. The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology. In fact he'd have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.

If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable—a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs—including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; naturalism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.

The argument from reason is what is formally known as a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) argument that seeks to demonstrate the absurdity of a position when taken to its logical ends. It's somewhat of an involved argument but I think it's actually quite sound regardless of whether or not a particular person is persuaded by it.

Why Should Christians Study Logic?

Jeff Fuller at the Reformed Evangelist recently posted a helpful article from ChristianLogic.com giving these reasons:

1. To Logically Defend Your Faith - Apologetics
2. To Defeat the World's Philosophies by Advancing Biblical Reasoning
3. To Prove Your Doctrines from the Bible
4. To Apply the Logical Implications of God's Commands in Your Life
5. To Be a Good Steward of Your Mind
6. To Seek Wisdom in Living Your Life
7. Jesus Was a Logical Man
   

Faith and Reason at Harvard

Educators at Harvard have proposed a new requirement for its undergrads - "a course focusing on the interplay between reason and faith—whether in wars of religion or debates over stem cell research."

I Don't Have Enough Faith...Part III

When I wrote the first post in this thread, I had no intent of making the book by Geisler and Turek my focus. Rather, I wanted to concentrate on what I consider to be problematic with the saying whose popularity among Christians precedes its being used as the title of their book - "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" (or its variant "It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian"). In hindsight, perhaps I shouldn't have made any reference to the book. Nevertheless, comments from Michael and Tony piqued my curiosity about the book, leading me to do some research.

As I didn't have it in my possession, I checked online in hope of finding an excerpt that might address the distinction between biblical and unbiblical understandings of the nature of faith. Amazon's excerpt didn't contain anything relevant to my question but I did note the following sentence in the book description: "All worldviews, including atheism, require faith. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist argues that Christianity requires the least faith of all because it is the most reasonable." Faith, as presented here, is obviously unreasonable belief. Unsure of whether this was a description provided by the publisher, I then checked Crossway's site which confirmed this as their chosen promotion of the book. The following is the full text of the description:

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist argues that Christianity requires the least faith of all worldviews because it is the most reasonable. The authors lay out the evidence for truth, God, and the Bible in logical order and in a readable, non-technical, engaging style. A valuable aid to those interested in examining the reasonableness of the Christian faith, Geisler and Turek provide a firm challenge to the prior beliefs of doubters and skeptics.

As Tony noted in his comment, in the interest of reducing an opponent's position to absurdity, one may, for the sake of argument, adopt his or her assumptions and show their logical consequences. While I don't share the atheist's definition of faith as irrational or unwarranted belief, for example, I may nevertheless say to my atheistic friend, "Even if I did define faith the way you do, it would take more faith to be an atheist and here's why." Wanting to see if this was the stance Geisler and Turek take, I headed off to the bookstore today and at last procured my own copy (thereby disproving any suspicions that I was subtly calling for a boycott). From my reading so far, it seems that the authors are not merely adopting a concept of faith foreign to that of the Bible for the sake of argument, but are stating their own position.


In the book's introduction, after making the claim that "the atheist has to muster a lot more faith than the Christian" (p. 26), the authors explain what they mean:

We mean that the less evidence you have for your position, the more faith you need to believe it (and vice versa). Faith covers a gap in knowledge. And it turns out that atheists have bigger gaps in knowledge because they have far less evidence for their beliefs than Christians have for theirs. In other words, the empirical, forensic, and philosophical evidence strongly supports conclusions consistent with Christianity and inconsistent with atheism (p. 26).

Earlier in the introduction, the authors describe the late Carl Sagan's well-known assertion that "the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be" as "the ultimate statement of faith in atheistic materialism" (emphasis in the original). They then write: "How did he know that for sure? He didn't. How could he? He was a limited human being with limited knowledge. Sagan was operating in the realm of probability just like Christians are when they say God exists."

My original question remains. Is the concept of faith presented above compatible with faith as described in Scripture? Does one get the impression from the Bible that the amount of faith required is inversely proportionate to the scarcity of evidence? If the answer to this question is "no," which I think it is, is it really helpful to speak in such terms in our apologetic and evangelistic conversations with non-Christians? Wouldn't it be better to explain to them what it is that the Bible is speaking of when it uses the term and how that differs from blind faith? While looking for the quotation from Schaeffer's The God Who is There that I included in a previous post, I came across the following passage in which Schaeffer was determined to make that distinction:

Of course, faith is needed to become a Christian, but there are two concepts concerning faith. The two ideas of faith run like this: One idea of faith would be a blind leap in the dark. A blind leap in which you believe something with no reason (or, no adequate reason), you just believe it. This is what I mean by a blind leap of faith. The other idea of faith, which has no relationship with this, none whatsoever, is that you are asked to believe something and bow before that something on the basis of good and adequate reasons. There is no relationship between those two concepts of faith.

The biblical concept of faith is very much the second and not the first. You are not asked to believe in a blind leap of faith. The Bible teaches that there are good and sufficient reasons to know that these things are true. - Volume I, The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, pp. 181-182

None of this is designed to discredit either of the authors or the totality of the volume they authored. I only wish to think with other believers about how we may most faithfully and accurately present a biblical perspective to those to whom we commend and defend the gospel of Christ.

I Don't Have Enough Faith....

It's not my intent to dissuade anyone from reading the book by the title but I think "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" is a very unhelpful utterance for Christians to make. While it might make us feel like we've made an effective point in our defense of Christianity, it actually presents the nature of faith in an unbiblical manner. Think about it. "Faith" as used in that catch phrase is synonymous with either wishful thinking or gullibility. It's equivalent to saying, "Yeah, I admit you have to be naive to be a Christian but you have to be even more naive to be an atheist." This substantiates the mistaken notion of faith unbelievers already entertain and portrays faith and knowledge as being unrelated if not in opposition to each other. In a related post on STR's blog, Greg Koukl noted: "In today’s culture, people take 'faith' and 'belief' as religious wishful thinking, not the kind of intelligent step of trust the Bible has in mind when it uses those words."

I just finished reading Geerhardus Vos's Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments in which he offers the following description of biblical faith and its relation to knowledge. He also demonstrates the impossibility of another misleading slogan - "No creed but Christ": 

Faith presupposes knowledge, because it needs a mental complex, person or thing, to be occupied about. Therefore, the whole modern idea of preaching Jesus, but preaching Him without a creed, is not only theologically, not merely Scripturally, but psychologically impossible in itself. In fact knowledge is so interwoven with faith that the question arises, whether it be sufficient to call it a prerequisite, and not rather an ingredient of faith.

The very names by means of which Jesus would have to be presented to people are nuclei of creed and doctrine. If it were possible to eliminate this, the message would turn to pure magic, but even the magic requires some name-sound and cannot be wholly described as preaching without a creed. The vogue which this programme has acquired is to some extent due to the unfortunate, and altogether undeserved, flavour clinging to the term 'creed', as though this necessarily meant a minutely worked out theological structure of belief. That is not meant, but belief there must be before faith can begin to function, and belief includes knowledge. This knowledge may have been gathered gradually, almost imperceptibly, from countless impressions received during a briefer or longer period of time, but epistemologically it does not differ from any other kind of mental act however acquired. To be sure, mere knowledge is not equivalent to full-orbed faith, it must develop into trust, before it is entitled to that name (p. 389).