Friday, July 22, 2011

on Kierkegaardian Faith

I hear this all the time from atheists who are debating the Christian faith, saying that faith is defined as "believing something regardless of the facts."

Here's the thing that bothers me: A lot of Christians seem to live as if faith is just that; a leap in the dark, a Kierkegaardian/PeterPan disconnect between faith and reason.

It sickens me to see well-meaning Christians live this way, because in fact they simply don't have to.

The Christian faith is based on evidence. Jesus is the revelation of God to man. His life, ministry, death, and resurrection are a matter of public record. It's called the Bible. The Bible tells us that God showed us mercy in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

We are putting our trust in a God who has actually done something within history to reconcile us to Him.

This trust IS the biblical view of faith.

It has nothing to do with believing something so hard that it becomes real to us. It has everything to do with trusting the promises of a God who has already shown Himself trustworthy.

When Christians give in to the elusive game of make-believe, then they have already lost the battle. Because at that point it really doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe it hard enough. And this position relativizes ALL beliefs. Then we can no longer weigh any system of belief according to how realistic or all-encompassing it is. We must simply play the game of Tolerance and say "That's nice for you."

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