Why I BELIEVE, Even in a Culture of Uncertainty

Many Christians believe in Jesus and the Bible with a wear-it-on-your sleeve certainty and just a tiny bit of arrogance. It shows when they can’t talk gently or respectfully with those who disagree. Others are more tender to our postmodern culture’s rejection of certainty. They call for "cognitive humility" and a relational approach to knowledge. We’ve seen in this blog series on the emergent church how that can result in a diminished confidence in the Bible. How shall I believe with both a confidence and a humility that honors Christ?

Many Christians believe in Jesus and the Bible with a wear-it-on-your sleeve certainty and just a tiny bit of arrogance. It shows when they can’t talk gently or respectfully with those who disagree. Others are more tender to our postmodern culture’s rejection of certainty. They call for "cognitive humility" and a relational approach to knowledge. We’ve seen in this blog series on the emergent church how that can result in a diminished confidence in the Bible. How shall I believe with both a confidence and a humility that honors Christ?

I have confidence in Christ based on reason and logic.

Logic is a way of reasoning correctly from premises to conclusions: "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD…If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword;" (Isaiah 1:18). Rationality is a gift of God. We use and value reason and logic because we are created in the image of a God who created and values reason and logic.

Jesus constantly uses logic and reason to convince people of truth: "And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself…But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matthew 12:26-28).

On our radio show, The Things That Matter Most, we’ve examined many reasons and evidences for the reality of God, the historicity of the resurrection and the reliability of the Bible, including:

—Dr. Walter Kaiser, editor of the Archeolgy Study Bible told how although the Bible mentions that Hittite civilization 50+ times, archeologists never discovered evidence for it, leading many to doubt the reliability of the Bible. In the late 19th century German archeologists discovered the Hittite capital city, confirming the biblical claims.

—Dr. Stephen Meyer: the "principle of uniformity" tells us that if we often find a cause responsible for a certain effect, then when we find that particular effect, the most logical explanation is the same cause. So… if intelligence is consistently the best explanation for any kind of language we encounter, and our DNA is chock full of a code language, then the best explanation for DNA is an intelligent designer.

—Our cravings for love, purpose and meaning point to a Source of ultimate satisfaction for those longings. What other deep needs have no possible fulfillment? Hunger? Thirst? Weariness? Erwin McManus claims that our need for unfailing love is evidence for God.

— According to guest Gary Habermas, critical scholars seldom questioned Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Virtually no one doubts that, afterwards, Jesus’ followers at least thought they had seen the risen Jesus. Accordingly, they were willing to die, and many of them did. Further, skeptics like Jesus’ brother, James, and Saul of Tarsus were even converted by their own experiences with the risen Jesus. And almost all scholars acknowledge that the resurrection message was proclaimed very early—even immediately after the crucifixion. Moreover, Jesus’ tomb was found empty. The best explanation for these events is that Jesus had truly been raised from the dead and appeared to His followers. Critics seem strangely unable to offer a more convincing explanation.

Score big points for confidence in reason and logic.

I humbly confess that reason and logic have their limits.

Logic may be a way of reasoning correctly from premises to conclusions. But the first premise must come from elsewhere. As Phillip Johnson writes in A Faith and Culture Devotional, Those who believe that logic and reason are the only way to certainty and knowledge are assuming a hidden first premise: "the reliability of the autonomous mind and its powers of reasoning, powers that according to scientific materialism amount to nothing more than so many neurons firing in the physical brain." Why should we trust a brain shaped by nothing more than the evolutionary pressure to eat and reproduce to be reliable when in comes to mathematics, philosophy or aesthetics?

No one can prove an ultimate premise. It must be taken by faith. "In the beginning was the Word" and "In the beginning were the particles" are both ultimate premises. Neither can be proven.

If we believe our minds were created in the image of God’s mind then we are cautioned in Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." When we are tempted to believe that logic and certainty can prove our faith or prove God, think sovereignty and human choice. Existence outside of time and space. Establishment of quantum mechanics.

The ultimate insufficiency of reason and logic to lead us to certainty about the things that matter most is humbling for rationalists and empiricists as well as Christians. They cannot prove God does not exist nor that "the cosmos is all there is was and ever will be." We cannot construct an unassailable, bomb-proof case for certainty about God and the Bible.

For some reason God is pleased to order the Universe so that we come to him by faith. Not silver bullet evidence or locked down logical arguments. Those who come to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. I believe that faith is the final step in the direction that the evidence leads, but the final step is still a matter of faith. More than intellectual answers and certainty, God values relationship.

Score big points for cognitive humility.

(More reasons next time.)