Why faith can't be used as evidence for belief
The faith as evidence "flawchart"
Hi Thinkers!
Welcome to the first Deconstruction.Zone newsletter! Thank you for reading.
Today we’ll discuss the problem with using “just have faith” as a reason to believe something is true — and what to do instead.
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Okay, let’s get into it…
I grew up within the Christian community — willing to accept as truth what was shared with me by preachers, professors, and my family and friends.
There were many times when I would ask a hard question about God’s existence, but it wasn’t until my late 20’s that I began noticing a clear trend...
Almost every conversation around evidence for God’s existence ended with the phrase: “Sometimes we just need to have faith”.
How do we know God was involved in the writing of the Bible?
How do we know the Bible wasn’t political propaganda to justify mass genocide?
How do we know Jesus really was the son of God and was raised from the dead?
How can we be sure that the right books were compiled into our modern Bible?
What is the value of prayer if studies show it doesn’t improve outcomes in any measurable way?
How can we confidently claim the Bible to be a source of truth and morality when there are good Christians who use this book to justify contradictory stances on everything from homosexuality, to abortion, to the death penalty, to what foods are appropriate to eat?
How can we be so sure that our denomination of Christianity really does have the truth when other Christians (along with Muslims, Jews, and many other religions) are as confident as we are in their own version of “truth”?
Turns out, when you ask these question and press for evidence, the conversation inevitably ends with a version of the same phrase: Sometimes we just need to have faith.
We don’t know the answers to these questions, but we have faith that God has placed us in the right place, with the right knowledge, to have the right worldview — regardless of what others may say or believe.
As I continued to read and research about religion, history, science, psychology, and philosophy, I came to discover that faith is the lynchpin for a belief in God. When the evidence ran out, we resorted to “faith” as the reason to believe.
I was using “faith” as the foundation for my beliefs.
But what does it mean to “have faith”?
When a word can mean anything, it ultimately means nothing.
When a word can mean anything, it ultimately means nothing.
Let’s use the word “soon” as an example.
When will you be home for dinner? Soon
When will you buy a new vehicle? Soon
When will humans return to the moon? Soon
When will Jesus return? Soon
In these examples the word “soon” can mean anything from a few minutes to years!
When you respond to my question with “soon”, you’ve provided a non-answer because I have no knew information I can use to take action or make decisions. I need a response like “in 5 minutes” or “next month” to be able to take action on your answer.
Faith is a similar word.
If I say “I have faith my wife will give us a ride home from the airport”, I could be making two very different statements:
I spoke with my wife, gave her a time and location to meet us, and she agreed to be there. Because I have an existing relationship with her and she has historically kept her word, I trust she will be there for us this time.
OR: I’m single and a romantic, and I think it would be an amazing meet-cute if I first encountered my future wife at the airport baggage claim. So, I hope I’ll see an attractive girl at baggage claim. I’ll ask her to give us a ride home. If she agrees, I’m going to ask her to marry me!
The same phrase: “I have faith my wife will give us a ride home from the airport” has a very different meaning depending on whether the word “faith” is defined as “trust” or “hope/unfounded-confidence”. And the definition I’m using will certainly play a role in your decision to either wait with me or call an Uber.
The fluid definition of “faith”
Good communicators know we must agree on the definition of a term before we can incorporate it into the discussion.
When we don’t agree on the definition, we can argue for hours while essentially saying the same thing. Alternatively, we can use fluid definitions to dishonestly manipulate the conversation — either deliberately or by accident.
This is what often happens in a conversation with “faith”.
When a believer says, “We don’t know for sure if God exists; we just need to have faith”, what is she actually saying? Is she saying we “hope” God exists, or we have “evidence” God exists?
Really, she’s using hope as evidence. She’s saying, “I’m going to believe this is true because I want it to be true”.
And while she’ll permit this for her beliefs, she won’t consider it a legitimate evidence for belief in another person’s beliefs. For those she will require evidence.
If you want to be a good communicator, it’s always better to replace “faith” with a word that has a more consistent definition - like trust or hope.
But this raises a problem for believers. Saying I hope my God exists doesn’t elicit the confidence needed to win converts. And saying I trust my God exists requires you to procure further evidence to warrant that trust.
Neither of these substitute words allows a preacher to shut down an inquiring mind and calm a curious congregation like he can with the word “faith”.
I have yet to find a definition of “faith” that works as evidence - please help me!
As I shared from the beginning, faith is often used when we run out of evidence.
The problem is, this requires faith itself to be a valid form of evidence.
If I catch you at the gas station and say: “Wait! You don’t need to waste your money on gas — just use water instead, it’s free!”
You respond: “Water won’t fuel my car".
And I say: “It will if you just choose to have faith”.
Would you put water in your fuel tank? No! Not unless I proffered further evidence to show how your engine has been upgraded to run on water.
Yet Christians do this all the time. When the evidence runs out, we are told to just have faith.
And maybe faith does work as a substitute for evidence — but I have yet to find an intellectually honest definition that works for Christianity without also legitimizing the existence of Zeus, Thor, and Santa Claus.
Can you help me? I built the flowchart below to assist with my own exploration — and I would love for someone to find a definition that breaks this chart!
If there is a definition of faith that works as evidence for the Christian God but not every other belief system, whoever identifies this will be responsible for converting and saving millions of non-believers (or at least me). So please try!
If we cannot find an intellectually honest definition of faith that can replace evidence as a reason to hold a belief, then we need to stop using “faith” as our reason to believe.
We must instead follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Thoughts? I would love to get other people’s opinions and definitions related to faith. Please use the comments below to interact and help expand the dialogue — I welcome both agreement and debate in a desire to pursue truth.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, stay inspired!
Hey, I just discovered this flow chart from a comment on a Youtube video lol. I'm a Christian, I just want to say a few things on this topic as I find this article quite interesting. I 100% agree that Christians always run to 'you just gotta have faith', I totally get that. A proper definition of faith is required. Now this is where I start to disagree. Hebrews 11:1 as you have noted on the chart gives a definition of faith. "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ". You have listed this as defining faith as hope but i disagree. The verse clearly states that faith is not hope, but [confidence] in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. I see this as saying that to have faith is effectively to trust. Not trust just for the sake of it, that would be a blind faith. We trust our family because we have good reason to do so. In the same way Christians trust God because we have good reason to do so. Now I completely understand that you would probably think the Christians don't have good reasons to trust God. What I'm getting at here is that the definition of faith, is trust. Faith (or trust) is taking a step into the unknown, supported by evidence. As the verse says, it is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we don't know. How can we have such confidence? Because of prior evidence. Say your really smart friend has in the past been able to help you ace your maths exams. One day you are studying for yet another math exam when you find a particularly challenging question. Based on the evidence of your friend being able to help you with maths in the past, you can have have confidence that he will be able to help you now. You can trust that your friend will be able to help. You can have faith (based on the Hebrews 11:1 definition) that your friend will be able to help. Many Christians evidently do not know evidence for their beliefs, but this does not mean that there isn't any. If you believe that the earth is round but don't have evidence for it yourself, it doesn't make the earth any less round. The fact is that there is evidence that the earth is flat. It is round regardless of whether someone believes it is or not. Again I'm not trying to argue that Christianity is true here. All I'm doing is saying that the bible tells us what faith is. It is trust. It is the ability to rely on prior evidence for future events where the outcome is unknown. Now for the flowchart I see that you have already tried trust with it. But upon reflection of what I mentioned here maybe you can see that Hebrews 11:1 provides a definition of faith that indeed does solve this flowchart. As I explained, faith = trust. So lets run the 'trust' through the flowchart based of what I have been saying so far. 1. Clearly define your definition of Faith : Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. We can have the confidence due to prior evidence. 2. Does this definition work as evidence for your beliefs: Considering that this definition relies upon evidence to work I would say yes. 3. Would you accept this definition as evidence for beliefs held by others: Absolutely. With this definition the evidence is now the focus. Therefore the evidence for all beliefs that people hold should be put to the test. If it holds up then that belief is true, if not then it is false. We can see that based on that it is not logically coherent to say as the final step does, 'You accept all beliefs claimed by faith as true - valid and justified like your own'. In fact the other part (when you answer no to a question) which says, 'It would be dishonest to accept this definition of faith as a defence for your position. Additional evidence is required.' is proving this point exactly. Faith is only faith when there is evidence. The reason we can have faith is because of prior evidence. For Christianity specifically I would give the example of the death and resurrection of Jesus. If the evidence suggests beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus really did rise back to life, then based on that evidence Christians can have faith, they put their trust in anything that Jesus said. Think about that. If there was evidence that someone had risen from the death. That would make them an extremely reliable source for other information. Again of course you might say that there is no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. I'm not trying to argue that right now. All I'm suggesting is that the definition of faith I have provided (the biblical definition as per Hebrews 11:1) is a sufficient definition for your challenge (the flowchart). Sorry for such a long message but this stuff is fascinating to me. Feel free to disagree with what I have said, but the problem shouldn't be that you disagree, but why you disagree. The same as what I have been talking about here. Faith is only relevant when supported by prior evidence. To find the truth in anything we should look at the evidence. And if the specific evidence appears to be lacking, is the prior evidence strong enough to cover? Again if someone really did rise from the dead, that gives you every logical reason to trust what they say at least beyond a reasonable doubt. None can ever be certain of anything. Thanks for reading this.
In Mormonism, the Book of Mormon is true, or you didn’t pray right. your flow chart reminded me of something similar I’ve seen online haha
Mormons teach kids from a very young age to say “I know the church is true”
Mormonism teaches you that positive feelings are an answer from god…