[11:1] Faith, Epistemology, Atheism, and the Heart

This was a facebook note an Atheist acquaintance of mine at my old college wrote, followed by a couple of comments.  Then after that is the response I gave him.  I’ve yet to receive a response from him.

His Note:

Hebrews 11:1

States the following: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Imagine if we did science this way. Imagine a doctor with no skill or training telling you this quote as you’re going under for brain surgery. Or imagine a lawyer telling you this as you are being tried for a murder you did not commit but that all evidence points towards you.

Comments:

– Sean Tyranny at 9:50am January 25
Actually, when referring to the fact that my gallbladder isn’t necessary to my survival, the doc who’s performing my surgery next week did happen to say to me, “That’s just how God made us.” I’m hoping he was speaking figuratively.
– Larry M at 11:52am January 25
Cause god’s “intelligent” design, obviously falls short on the “intelligent” part.

My Response:

Paul Burkhart at 5:50pm January 25

larry, hebrews was written to first-century jewish Christians who were walking away from their new faith because of bad teaching. the letter was written to give them a proper understanding of the nature of the Christian religion. the context of that particular verse isn’t trying to, in one verse, describe the whole nature of reality and the functioning of the idea of faith within it. i know fundamentalists have so removed Scripture from its context that they’ll build entire systems under a single verse, but that doesn’t make it right.

but this verse’s context notwithstanding, let me try and give as brief a response as i can to your note. i think the first misunderstanding is the difference between a faculty and principle. reason is a natural faculty that can be trusted to accurately describe the natural world by natural creatures. but still, it’s a faculty that we trust in (i.e. “have faith in”).

reason is still subject to a greater principle of faith that guides all the things we believe. the scientist doing a controlled experiment has faith in the correctness of his observations because he has faith in the idea that his observational faculties have been trustworthy his entire life. you are an atheist because you have faith in yourself that you are an authoritative arbiter in the nature of reality.

though i say this, don’t think i’m just trying to say that reason is guided by faith and that’s it. though it is, faith is also undergirded and supported by reason. read the hebrews verse again. neither you nor i saw the beginning of this universe but we have a certain level of certainty and faith in the evidence that has been provided and left. we trust that it paints an accurate picture of past reality, because we are sure of the hope that our own reasons and observations can be trusted.

but, in the end, your disbelief did not rest on this verse or on any particular set of verses alone that i could explain away to you, but on a predisposition and presupposition that you are hostile to the things of God. this is because He clearly says that though you can trust your faculties for most natural things, this does not at all make you an authority on the whole of reality. but in spite of this, you misdirect the innate principle of faith within you toward only the things that further support your commitment to being the one sole authority in your life that will submit to nothing but what most “resonates” with you as “truth”. any worldview or system of belief that demands you give up one bit of your autonomy suddenly becomes the enemy of all you’ve staked your perception of reality on, thus becoming your greatest enemy and the only topic you will ever write facebook notes on or communicate about or devote thought for passionately.

lastly, i find it very interesting that the substance of almost every discourse i’ve ever seen from you has been defined, dictated, and shaped by your response and reaction to the One you say does not exist. though you may say it’s not a reaction to Him, but to His people, i don’t get that from your writing. i am probably just as well-read, thought-through and passionate as you in my belief as you are in your disbelief, but i don’t spend all (some, but not all) my energies writing or thinking about how to disprove every other thing i don’t agree with. i’m able to experience a freedom, joy, and peace within my worldview that i’m sure you experience at times, but when you communicate most passionately, it doesn’t come out. God certainly seems to exist in your rhetoric, even if it is as an antagonist. in the end, it seems we’re both guided by the same principle: putting all things through the filter of how God says reality is structured and then responding to the implications.

i just like what i see.

i’m so sorry for leaving multiple comments like that. it annoys me when others do it, so i’m sorry for cluttering up this space. nevertheless, i figured you enjoyed food for thought and rigorous discourse.

i hope this finds you well.

A Response from a couple of friends of his:

– Graham Kelly at 6:37pm January 25
I have faith in certain things, yes, but only insofar as logic gives me any reason to do so. I have “faith” that the Sun will rise in the morning, or that the scientific method can accurately depict causal relationships in the Universe, because past experience has shown this to be true. I generally consider myself open-minded, but that doesn’t mean that I take things at face value. When that very rare thing comes along that appears to confirm, at some level, the existence of God or the truth of any religious teachings, I don’t dismiss it out of hand, but I don’t instinctually believe it either. I’m willing to accept that there are some things which science can’t accurately explain at this time, but I don’t see why that should lead to an immediate logical leap toward belief in one religion or another.

When I was a kid, I believed in a God, because my family had a Christian background and it was what I’d grown up hearing about. But after 8 or so years of faith yielded me no evidence for God’s existence – no answered prayers, no otherwise-inexplicable interventions in my life, nothing – I started to realize that what I was doing had no effect, and I stopped. And nothing is different now from what it was 10 years ago. I suppose you could go and say that I never REALLY believed in the first place, but that just takes us into No True Scotsman territory. I’ve used reason to solve problems all my life, and it has worked, so I continue to use it. If that’s faith, then the religious interpretation of the term is a drastic misnomer.

– Sean Tyranny at 7:18pm January 25
I disagree with Mr. Burkhart