Evidence of Christ, Rational and Empirical
You have often heard the claim that Christians rest on faith rather than evidence to support our belief in Christ. This is false.
Anyone unfamiliar with the basic points raised in this presentation would be wise to lay a hand across his mouth and hold his peace when such matters are being discussed.
Faith is a word for a complex and subtle notion, but the core of the notion is as plain and obvious as the noonday sun.
The core notion is this: It means that you place your trust steadfastly rather than tentatively in what is confirmed by right reason or long experience or both to be trustworthy. It is a judgement that certain matters are no longer open to reasonable doubt.
The word is also used to refer to the moral obligations on a man to behave in a trustworthy fashion, that is, to live up to the duty a man shoulders when he gives his word to live up to his word, and thus to give those relying on him evidence of his trustworthy character.
Hence, Christians not only have faith in Christ, we must keep faith with Christ.
Odd that so normal and natural a thing should be matter for controversy: it is as if skeptics were to criticize patriots for their faith in their beloved homeland, or criticize a married couple for their faith in their beloved marriage.
On second thought, many of the same voices urging infidelity to God also urge open borders, nuclear disarmament, gun control, open marriages, no fault divorce and abortion on demand.
For the existence of God, that is a matter any pagan philosopher with sufficient honesty and leisure can deduce. A man must have faith in his powers of pure reasoning to trust this conclusion.
But this is no more extraordinary than having faith in deductions about cause and effect, or free will, or the persistence of objects when no observed, or any other metaphysical or philosophical deduction.
That this God has acted in history, most particularly in the history of the Jewish people, is the sole reasonable interpretation of the historical data. A man must have faith in the historic record and the ordinary conclusions to be drawn from historical reasoning to trust this conclusion.
But this is no more extraordinary than believing in the historical record of any other peoples of east or west.
That this God promised a messiah, who then fulfilled the various promises and prophecies is a matter of comparing the written record of the prophesies with the historical record of their fulfillment, including the eyewitness testimony included in the documents. A man must have faith in the testimony, and in the accuracy of the chain of custody of the record.
Again, this is no more extraordinary than believing other testimonies and accounts of other historical events, such as the death of Socrates by hemlock, or the birth of Caesar by caesarean section.
There is also the thing itself, that is, the teaching’s of Christ’s words, and of his disciples, apostles, saints and martyrs, of whom we have an unbroken chain to this day. The words speak for themselves: that they contain wisdom anyone not wise enough to see must rely on the wisdom of those he trusts. But anyone who takes advise from elders or teachers does something no more nor less extraordinary.
And then there is personal experience and evidence: if you have prayed, and had prayers answered, and felt the spirit move inside you, and knew aid from heaven sustaining you in your hour of need, strengthening you in your moment of weakness, reforming your life, unchaining you from the chains of sin, to believe in the obvious idea that all things are exactly what they seem to be is hardly a sign of gullibility rather than pragmatic, hard headed, common sense.
To assume, without evidence, that everything in your internal experience is uncertain, open to doubt, and built on sand is not the mind set of a disciplined and skeptical thinker, but of a madman.
And then there is evidence from history after the Resurrection: compare East and West, and modern, medieval and ancient. The benevolent effect on the moral and manners, laws and institutions, not the least of which is the rise of the scientific institutions, of Christ on Christendom is too obvious to need mention, or it would be before an audience not ignorant of basic facts of history.
Even secular atheists, if they are honest, admit that republican democracy cannot persist without Christian moral teaching supporting it. Even monarchists will point out the difference between English kings with their Magna Carta and oriental sultans and potentates with their harems, their absolute power, their lawless tyrannies.
And then there is the physical evidence, such as the Shroud of Turin.
If Saint Peter and Saint Paul were such clever forgers, with the knowledge of photography, three-dimensional computer analysis, radioactive dating, pollen taxonomy, microscopic fiber analysis, and ultraviolet-light blood chemistry spectrography to create the forgery of the Shroud of Turin, as well as being theologically and morally adroit enough to put the invented words of all the prayers, parables, lessons, and benedictions as needed into the mouth of their fictional invention, Christ, and also to make those words sufficiently wise enough to give peace and inspiration to millions over generations and yet deep enough to baffle philosophers, one wonders why the two forgers were not clever enough to escape death by torture.
In any case, if the Shroud of Turin is a fake, the existence of such technologically sophisticated and thorough counterfeiters in the First Century is surely a greater miracle than any mere resurrection from the dead.
Faith is not placing blind trust without warrant in reason, in witnesses, in personal experience, in historical records, in expert testimony, or in the plain evidence of your own life and the lives of all your ancestors.
Faith is the act of mental integrity that rejects specious doubts. It is an act of the will to cling to reason rather than listening to sentiments or emotions that erode one’s mental fortitude.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
