Is Reasonable Faith an Oxymoron?

There have been a series of posts by John Loftus on his Debunking Christianity blog where he argues that reasonable faith is an oxymoron. John defines faith as, “An attitude or feeling whereby someone attributes a higher probability to the evidence than what the evidence calls for.” Is this a good definition? On one hand, yes, John is right to talk about probabilities because the only thing that we can know with absolute certainty is that we exist, everything else must be believed or rejected with varying degrees of certainty. On the other hand, I think that John’s definition is not very precise because how can we know how high a probability has to be?

What are some other definitions of faith? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines faith as, “Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” I’m taking the Merriam-Webster definition as referring to absolute proof. The philosopher, Immanuel Kant defines faith as, “A rational attitude towards a potential object of knowledge which arises when we are subjectively certain it is true even though we are unable to gain theoretical or objective certainty.” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I think these definitions work better. From these definitions I think there is a faith element to all beliefs outside of the belief in our own existence. This is something that John disagrees with, but I think this is largely because of the religious connotations of the word faith, and his aversion to anything religious.

Now let’s get back to John’s discussion of faith. He writes:

I do not deny that at any given time we must assume some things since we cannot place on the table everything we think is true and examine them all at the same time. This is especially true about our notions that we exist, are communicating with other minds, that our memories represent the past, that there was a past, that there is a material world, that our senses give us accurate input that we are not dreaming right now, etc. What I deny is that we accept any of these things by faith. We might be wrong, but faith isn’t what allows us to accept such things. Scientific reasoning does. I can defend each one of my conclusions about such things though, and I do. These prior conclusions provide the background knowledge I have when involved in any discussion, and I’m allowed to have them.

John is right that we must make assumptions such as a universe exists outside of my mind but this assumption cannot be proven scientifically. John goes on to talk about our fairly reliable memories, archaeological evidence and scientific evidence for the Big Bang. It appears like we have these things, but what if all this stuff are just elaborate fictions fed to our minds by an evil genius who is trying to deceive us? What if Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin and their work are just literal as Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and Bilbo Baggins? There is no way to be certain, but the fact that I can’t be absolutely certain that the world, which appears to surround me, literally exists doesn't dissuade me from being confident that the world exists because I can rationally make the assumption that there is no good reason to doubt the universe’s existence.

Could Christians Be Wasting Their Lives?

Hahah keep wasting your lives you crazy christians... you only get one, no afterlife, just this one pass. This one life you guys are wasting away praying to magical invisible sky daddy. HAhahahaa

--Anonymous commenter on Intellectual Feast

From time to time I run into comments from atheists, like the one quoted from the anonymous commenter, which deal with their belief that Christians are wasting their lives following a supposedly nonexistent God. I have even heard intelligent atheists like Daniel Dennett say that there is no easy way to tell believers that they have been wasting their lives on their faith. These comments show that the atheist commenter obviously hasn’t seriously thought about the implications of life without God in a materialist universe. If God doesn’t exist then our lives are brief, absurd and futile.


For centuries theists and atheists have been locked in a stalemate where neither side can conclusively prove or disprove God’s existence. Since this is the case, the atheist’s assertion that God or the afterlife doesn’t exist is an unfounded belief. However, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the big bang was spontaneously uncaused and that matter popped into existence out of non-matter, and that we are here by chance as there is no God. What implications would this have on our lives? As the atheist says there is only one pass through life. In fact, when compared to the 13.7 billion years the universe has existed, our life span of zero to 120 years is incredibly ephemeral. Not only will each one of us die, but the entire human race is doomed to extinction as entropy causes the universe to die a slow heat death. If this is the case then how can one properly put their life to good use? Is it propagating my genes? No, as I said the human race will eventually be wiped out of existence so that is futile. How about accruing happy memories? Even if you don’t lose your memories as you grow senile with age, you will eventually lose all your memories when you die—it will be like they never existed. What about achieving fame through great works? Even if you are fortunate enough to be one of the few people in history to achieve greatness, your work will eventually be lost like the work of Shakespeare, Picasso, Plato and Mozart will be lost as the human race perishes. So, we see that in an entropic, materialist universe life is ultimately meaningless and futile.

Quote of the Day, by John Polkinghorne

Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can't construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history—John Polinghorne, British physicist and Anglican theologian.

Bridging the Divide Between Faith and Science

Last week on the 13.7 blog there was an emphasis on the conflict between faith and science. In one entry Adam Frank posted a video from Bill O'Reilly where O'Reilly is claiming that God created the moon. In Frank’s post and a follow up post he questions which explanation, the scientific or religious, for the origin of the moon requires more faith. I’m no fan of O’Reilly but I think he is partly right and Frank is partly right. Couldn’t God have orchestrated the formation of the moon via the natural processes that science has discovered?


The leading scientific theory for the formation of the moon is that when the earth was still very hot a large object about the size of mars collided with the earth causing a rocky debris to blow out from the earth. Gravity caused this debris to orbit around the earth and coalesce into a ball that became the moon. One of the main reasons why scientists support this hypothesis is because the oxygen isotope composition of the earth is identical with moon whereas the composition is different than rocks from mars and meteorites. I think this is a very plausible explanation for how the moon was formed.