Faith for Life’s Journey #3 – Deterrents to Faith: Part 1

Being personally excited about faith, I would prefer to launch into a description of the journey of faith in this post, but I realize many of you are not yet ready to hit the path with me. I have interacted with enough people through my years as a Christian and pastor, and read enough material, to know that many of you may have genuine hesitations about taking any step of faith. I think I know some of your reasons. I fear a few of those reasons stem from inaccurate or negative messaging about religion spread around by skeptics. Others are legitimate concerns anyone should have in making such a weighty decision. So let’s crack the book open, so to say, and try to survey these reasons one-by-one. I hope we can at least begin to show faith in a better light.

If just for the moment we accept the basic definition of faith as “belief in something which cannot be completely proven;” that is, faith is “a trust or confidence in someone or something beyond our full sight and knowledge,” then we can see in that brief definition how needed faith will be for life. The simple fact is that no one has all sight and knowledge. Apart from having exhaustive divine knowledge, there will always be room for faith in your life. So disparaging comments about faith needlessly throw roadblocks in the way of an honest inquiry which needs to be made.

The following are 10 common roadblocks to faith I wish to remove from your pathway (over the next few posts). They are 10 factors which hold people back from choosing faith. I’ll assign each a label so we can better reference them.

Roadblock #1 = The Misrepresentation Factor

TYPICAL WORDING “Oh, I see, so you are ‘a person of faith.’ Honestly my wife and I don’t find much time or use for religion.”

PROBLEM: Many don’t want to consider faith seriously because they don’t want to be categorized as “a person of faith” or looked down upon due to that kind of labeling. There remains strong social pressure, especially in certain educated and socially elite circles, to disparage faith and view it as a handicap worthy of social distancing or outcasting. Of course, no one wants to be a pariah. That’s why in many circles it is just more acceptable to say, “No, I’m not really religious” and leave it at that. This is a roadblock to a serious look at faith.

SOLUTION: This idea that some people have faith and others don’t is really a mirage. The truth is that all people are people of faith; they just don’t all admit it or know it yet. In fact it is quite easy to prove everyone has faith and lives a life of faith in something. Even people who vehemently deny faith in God, do so because of faith in something else. So being a person of faith is not out of the ordinary.

EXPLANATION: Society is not really made up of secular people without faith and religious people who practice their faith. That’s a false distinction. Many don’t realize that so called secular people, who never attend worship services of any kind, are also people of faith – in something.

Another way of explaining this is that everyone has a view of reality – what some call a worldview or a philosophy of life or or outlook on life or core beliefs about the world. Each person views the world in a certain way, though he cannot completely prove that his view of the world is correct or best.

Some would call their worldview a philosophy not a religion, but a philosophy which encompasses a total worldview is equivalent to a religion. It has all the essential elements of religion.

They believe in some ultimate truth which guides their life.

To believe in that truth they must exercise a certain amount of faith to fill in the gaps in their knowledge.

They believe strongly enough in their faith to promote it, and try to persuade others that their view of the world is wisest. (This is even true among those who claim all religions are legitimate and urge coexisting).

They also practice their faith by living in accordance with what they believe.

They make life-decisions based on what they believe.

They even distinguish themselves from others by their beliefs.

It is ultimately their highest commitment – i.e. worship.

Two examples will be helpful at this point. I chose these two because they describe people who would not usually be classified as a “person of faith.”

Humanism: 

Modern Humanists (not historical or classical humanists) generally believe in the goodness and progress of humanity. They don’t believe in God, but believe man is the highest being in the universe. Therefore, they put their trust in man.

Humanism is a faith because its adherents have to exercise faith in the greatness and goodness of mankind and come up with an explanation for life on earth without any god. They also have to put forward evidence for man’s basic goodness.

Yet everyone knows that humans often act selfishly and destructively. Everyone knows that people commonly lie, cheat, abuse others, hate, fight, slander, lust, intimidate, injure, and do a host of other evils. Yet humanists hold to their faith in the face of much evidence to the contrary. They are well aware of all the wars, prejudice, and horrors on the news, but they maintain faith that man is basically good.

They also act on their belief. They remain optimistic about man’s chances for the future. Belief in the goodness of man inspires them to dedicate themselves to things like education, philanthropy, peacemaking, politics, or the pursuit of technology. They will try to maintain an optimistic view of man’s ability to come together and solve humanity’s problems.

Of course, their belief has never be proven. There is a gap in their knowledge – a leap of faith they must take, for there is much evidence to the contrary. So humanists are people of faith too.

Atheism: 

Even Atheists (who are truly atheists and not agnostics or pantheists in disguise) who seem to be the least likely to be labeled as a person of faith, have to exercise a mountain of faith. Some would argue they may have the most faith of all people!

For the atheist has no choice but to believe everything came into existence without a Creator or Designer. An atheist by definition is one who rejects the existence of any kind of deity. That requires them to believe that all the brilliant, intricate design, is merely an accident, without plan or purpose. They believe without proof, that all the order in the universe, all the beauty, morality, personality, consciousness, logic, etc… and even the universe itself had no cause and no purpose. That’s truly amazing faith, because it is so counterintuitive and lacking logical consistency!

Think how deep this faith must be for the atheist. An atheist ultimately has only three logical options to explain the existence of the universe. One is that everything that exists came into being from nothing. However nothing is not much of a cause. In fact, nothing is nothing. That means it has nothing, contains nothing, does nothing. With nothing there is no space, no time, no matter, no energy, no activity, no movement. Actually if nothing every existed at any time in the past, then nothing would exist right now too. (Think about that for a moment.) Because nothing produces nothing. Nothing always produces nothing. Because it is nothing. But since in their view there is no god, no creative power, no plan, no intelligence, no energy, no matter, no particles, what is left to cause the universe? Not the universe itself. Nothing!

Another other option is for the atheist to believe the universe is its own cause. But that takes a ton of faith too. For something to be its own cause, by definition, it has to exist before the effect it causes. How can the universe exist before the universe existed? That’s a faith which contradicts logic. Or some posit another twist to this cause: they believe another universe caused this universe. However this belief is nothing more than pure speculation. Not a sliver of data exists for another physical universe. And it would not solve the problem of origins anyway, for then a cause for that alternate universe would have to be posited.

A third option is the universe had no cause and always existed. This too is fraught with logical and scientific problems. Science today points to the origin of the universe. Science demonstrates that time/matter/space require a cause.

So it takes a mountain of faith to believe that nothing could produce anything much less everything. And it takes a boat load of faith to believe something caused its own existence or that other universes exists or that the universe is an effect without a cause. So even the atheist walks their journey of life based upon a belief they cannot prove – faith.

We could go on speaking of pantheism, deism, dualism, polytheism, or many other philosophies of life. With each one we would find their areas of faith. And that is my point for now = There is no escaping faith. All people are people of faith in someone or something or some set of laws, rules, or metaphysical realities or ideas. Faith is really unavoidable.

Right now, whether you realize it or not, you have faith. It may be faith in humanity, faith in yourself, faith in society, faith in some mystical enlightenment, faith in Mother Nature, faith in a spiritual leader, faith in an ancient prophet, faith in Satan, faith in holy writings, faith in aliens, faith in the lucky stars, or just faith in your family heritage. But you are a person of faith.

So let’s remove that roadblock, so we can have a discussion about which faith is reasonable, wise, and good.

Roadblock #2 = The Intellectual Factor

TYPICAL WORDING “I’m scientifically minded; I only believe in science so I avoid taking the leap of faith which religion requires.”

PROBLEM: Many have pitted faith against science in a way that makes science seem more enlightened, modern, and accurate, while religion is relegated to dealing with myths, wild hopes, unproven assumptions, and unreliable beliefs. This creates a tendency for some educated in the sciences to look down upon faith and back away from pursuing faith. It also makes faith a pleasantry or a side issue, not anything to take seriously.

SOLUTION: Science, no doubt, is a helpful tool but hardly infallible nor encompassing of all knowledge. Despite what many claim, no one is purely scientific in their approach to life, nor can they be. Some faith cannot be avoided, and insightful people learn that even to practice science certain assumptions (faith) is needed. Furthermore a quality faith will be in accordance with facts which educated people can embrace.

EXPLANATION: Many educators assert that only science should be trusted, for only science has the ability to prove something to be true. Science is testable, repeatable, and verifiable. It is confirmed by the senses. Therefore, they conclude, it can be trusted when it makes a truth claim. Gravity, they say, is known to be real by experience; Heaven and angels we can’t be too sure about – can’t touch it, smell it, see it. Spiritual things cannot be subjected to the scientific method. Therefore spiritual claims are regarded by them as suspect. Since no one wise believes in things he cannot verify, reliance on science is wiser than reliance on faith. So the thinking goes.

The rap on religion is that it comes from the heart and generates feeling and wishful thinking. Science, though comes from the mind, deals with logic, and grapples with facts. This leads many educated people to ask skeptically: “How can I be educated in the modern world, with all the knowledge we have today, and still maintain faith in an old book with its ancient superstitions?” Miracles too seem to have been disproven, evolution seems to have made the idea of supernatural creation a myth, and the events surrounding Jesus’ life just seem too fantastical for science. So faith is sidelined as irrelevant at best.

At first blush this intellectual roadblock and objection seems to make sense to many of us, especially since most of us have been educated in schools which instilled this way of thinking. We were instructed to believe what you can see, not, believe what you can’t see.

Upon further analysis, though, this view of “science only” falls apart entirely. It may seem foolproof, but it is not defensible. The use of science is beneficial, but the view of “science only” is a fallacy.

It is not defensible because it is a self-defeating statement. A self-defeating statement is something that contradicts itself. As soon as someone says it, it defeats itself. An example would be the statement: “I can’t write one complete sentence in English.” Of course, that is a complete sentence in English, so it falsifies its own claim. Another self-defeating statement is one that is commonly made, “There is no such thing as absolute truth.” Except that belief is stated as an absolute truth. So it contradicts itself.

The same is true with the “science only” claim. Just consider the contradictory way the position is stated. The statement (or its equivalent) is this: “Only what can be proven by the scientific method should be accepted as true.” But that statement cannot itself be proven by the scientific method. Did you catch that? There is no scientifically testable way to prove that science is the only believable source of knowledge. How can the scientific method prove the scientific method is the only method of truth gathering? It can’t. So the statement fails to meet its own standard. It is in fact a self-contradictory and self-defeating statement. By its own standard their claim is false and should be rejected.

This is a conundrum those who claim to believe exclusively in science must face. Amazingly many who hold this view have never realized that their view falsifies itself. And whatever falsifies itself cannot be true, because if their view is false, then it is false. If their view is true, it is still false because it falsifies itself. Either way the assertion “only what can be proven by science should be believed” is false. That means logically science cannot be the only method for determining truth. The door is wide open for faith. Indeed faith is demanded.

Furthermore, religion, including Christianity, has always had men and women who have answered the intellectual arguments foisted against it. There have always existed apologists to refute false charges and resoundingly showed the inconsistencies of those charges. Many great minds have wisely rested their ultimate beliefs on reasonable faith. Some of the greatest scientists and intellectual giants in history and presently have had faith in God, Christ, and Scripture. There is a reason for that. As we will explore in a future post, the scientific method itself cannot stand on its own. It needs a worldview to justify it as a method for truth gathering. Unfortunately it seems not enough scientists ask why science is able to work in this universe so effectively. They use science, but they don’t understand the basis for science. That basis has to go back to something other than itself.

I hope this at least begins to crack the door open to faith. In our next post we will continue removing other roadblocks to faith.