If I were a skeptic, I may be somewhat furious at my most recent posts on science and truth because they seem to be missing the main objection to religious faith: There is no evidence for it.

Now a Christian believer would disagree. I am not talking about the Christian believer armed to the teeth with the latest resources on apologetics, who can argue the existence of God by logical deduction, or point to fine-tuning of the Universe as evidence for God’s existence. I am talking about the ordinary believer, the universal believer. For no one comes to Christ by being convinced of a rational argument.

At least, I hope not. Granted, a believer may have been assisted on their journey by rational arguments for God, or have come to realize their own worldview was full of holes, in this way. I am a big proponent of apologetics for this reason.

But given what we know about Christianity, I would hope those who believe do not do so by resting on the assurance of a well-reasoned intellectual argument. If that is what it means to have faith in Christ, we are all doomed.

But I find this fact is often missed in debates on religious faith. Christian apologists point to the existence of morality as evidence for God, the fact the Universe had a beginning without natural explanation as evidence for God, and the historical reliability of New Testament texts as evidence for God. Rarely, however, does anyone say we are evidence for God. This is understandable but in a way perplexing, since — of all the evidence we have for God — we are the strongest evidence there is.

By “we” of course I mean our faith. If the Christian believer examines themselves, they will find their confidence in both Creator and Savior of the world goes far deeper than any line of evidence.  The evidence the Christian apologist often bring forth only goes to support the real evidence that lies beneath the surface, which is a confidence placed there by God Himself.

The evidence the Christian apologist often bring forth only goes to support the real evidence that lies beneath the surface, which is a confidence placed there by God Himself.

Now I am sure this is not true for all Christians. It is possible a Christian’s belief extends no deeper than social reinforcement: They were raised Christian, and their faith is no stronger than the friends and family around them. It is also possible their beliefs go no further that their fears: They believe in God because a world without God is simply too terrifying for them.

All of this is possible. But I would also say such belief is not real Christian belief. We do not see men and women willingly going to their deaths to avoid the cold hard facts of reality.

The problem the committed Skeptic has to all of this is that they feel such anecdotal evidence is not reliable. If you say you know God exists based on “faith”, how reliable is that? How can such a claim be confirmed? Can it be proven?

But this, in my opinion, is a Flatland problem: The Skeptic is trying to understand a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional world — the two dimensional world being a scientific mindset. God is not an object in the natural world whose existence we are trying to prove. He is rather the Creator of all objects, both seen and unseen, whose means of confirming His existence is to reach down to humanity and reveal Himself to the human soul, which is what we call faith.

And that is evidence enough.

Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash